Things You Know...

During a normal day, do you appreciate the things you know, or do you live your life focusing on the things you DON'T know?

From the time you were born, you've been growing. When your eyes first opened, your natural curiosity activated, and your brain led the way towards elementary growth. You visually explored. You learned to eat. Yes....eating is a skill that you had to learn. And, you learned it well. Then, after a few months, you started crawling. After crawling, your curiosity mixed with muscular coordination led you to walk. And, before you knew it, you were running! Growth was happening before you even realized what was going on. You were simply learning to BE.

We take our elementary growth spurts for granted. Most of us don't remember the stumbles and falls we had to take before mastering THE WALK. We don't remember the unidentifiable sounds we made before constructing our FIRST WORDS. And, we don't remember the first time we attempted to hold a pen or pencil to draw our FIRST CIRCLE. We only remember that we DID. And, we did it with SUCCESS!!

Moving through life is similar to those first milestones of success. The only difference is that somewhere along the way we've developed expectations of ourselves and started judging our pace, comparing it to the pace of others. We've rarely given ourselves credit for what we've learned. Instead, we tend to spend too much time making mental notes about the ways we judge ourselves to be inadequate. And, we minimize our accomplishments.

As we move through 2017, let's try to remember all of the things we know. Let's remember all of the skill sets we've already accumulated. Let's unapologetically embrace all of the ways we're already prepared to take the next step. Let us remember the curiosity that we had as children, and not worry about the things we don't know...yet. Just keep on growing...keep on learning. Stay open to the journey. And, let's stop underestimating our own value!