Daniel brought his leadership team together for an end-of-year acknowledgment session, only to find they were despondent about what they had NOT completed. We asked each member of the leadership team, “What are you most proud of having accomplished this year?” They all came up with at least one thing that stood out that they were proud of having accomplished. 

Each team member put forward their accomplishment and one of their colleagues acknowledged them for their achievement. The colleague acknowledged the leader’s courage or their tenacity to keep going despite the obstacles they faced. Their acknowledgment also highlighted the difference this leader made for the business and how much the team appreciated what they had contributed. 

When they added up their individual achievements, it turned out the team had an outstanding year. Instead of falling across the finish line exhausted and frustrated, the leadership team ended the year fulfilled by what they had accomplished. 

It is all too easy to get caught up in end-of-year madness. Maybe you have not advanced your new-year resolutions, and you have realised you have run out of time to achieve all your business or professional projects for this year. As the calendar ticks over to another year, it is all too easy to focus on what we have not done rather than what we have accomplished over the year. The sense of time flying by is exacerbated this year as we adjusted to being disrupted by lockdowns and hybrid working. 

In the book The Gap and The Gain, Dan Sullivan and Dr Benjamin Hardy describe the tendency, particularly with high achievers, to focus on the ‘gap’ between what they have accomplished and the ideal they hoped they would achieve. When we focus on the gap, we are never happy with our accomplishments, no matter how successful we have been. We are always focusing on the next unreached achievement. Nothing is ever enough. But if we acknowledge the ‘gain’ we have made from our starting point, everything changes, and we can appreciate all we have accomplished. 

Shifting the focus of Daniel’s team from the gap to the gains they had made ensured they closed out the year, happy with their accomplishments and ready for a bolder new year.

🙋 What are you most proud of having accomplished this year? 🙋‍♀️