I was texting back and forth with Ethan last night. We were chatting about ideas for the podcast and eventually we took a moment to reflect on the year.

There was a part of the conversation that gave me pause. See below.

How does this make you feel?

Do you give yourself credit for a job well done? or are you constantly judging yourself for the areas you perceive that you fell short?

When I got sober, I started doing an exercise called a “nightly inventory.” The idea is that you take a few moments when you retire each night, to reflect on your day and find places where you may have been selfish, self seeking, or self serving.

I was instructed to add an additional step to my nightly inventory, which was to write a list of things I did that day that I was proud of.

I can still hear the words that were said to me …

I stopped doing this exercise years ago.

I look back at this year and all I see is the parts I wish I did differently, or maybe where I wish I had done better.

But if I look a little harder, I can clearly see that this year was full of success, joy, happiness, new challenges, new adventures and new family.

I want to do a better job of identifying the positives.

They are there if you look for them.