2020 Hindsight: The Seduction of a Clean Slate

I have this thing with email. I do my damnedest as often as possible to get my inbox to net zero. Nothing to respond to, nothing left unsent. On the rare days that I achieve email net zero, I experience a mix of elation and profound contentedness. It’s like the feeling of a totally clean house, down to all the laundry folded and put away and all the plants watered. 
I. Love. This. Feeling. 

Not unlike how a clean house and clean laundry only lasts until the next meal or the next change of clothes, another email eventually (and all too soon) dares to show up in my inbox requiring attention. Do you know the experience I’m talking about? Do you also get that sense of it being a personal affront? I just answered all my emails! Don’t send me another! 

I mention this because at this time of year this is sort of the all-pervasive tone for me. I’m in my last few days of work for the year, and planning on taking a pause until the new year. I’m aware of desperately wanting to pack up 2020 in a box and be done with it. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it. I’m ready for it to go away so I can have a clean slate.

I know from experience that in the couple weeks of down time around the holidays, this clean slate feels tantalizingly possible. But I also know from experience it never works that way. There are always loose ends to tie up and the same old to-do’s to do, along with the added onus of big new projects for the new year.

I’m aware that I could have waited until the first week of January to write you because by then I’m recharged, ready, and even a bit excited for the rev up, loose ends and big projects and all. But I chose to write you today in the midst of my extreme case of short-timers because I can tell from conversations from my clients this week that I’m not alone.

It’s the if/then phenomenon. If I ______, then I ______. I’m sure you’re well aware of this way of thinking. It can be as small as if I get my emails done, then I can have a relaxing evening. And can go all the way to if I have this much money/reach this weight/land this project/get married/get my kids out of the house then I will be worthy/lovable/successful/complete/able to carve out me time.

Like the desire to pack up the old year and have a totally clean slate in the new year, this kind of if/then thinking is SO very compelling. And so life-robbing. It’s not real. It’s the hurry up and wait approach to life. It puts you in a holding pattern of perpetual un-fulfillment.

What’s the antidote?

Give yourself the relaxing evening off even though you have 37 emails in your inbox. Buy yourself the fantastically fun sweater even though you can’t fit into the smaller size of it that you’d like to fit into. Hold yourself as valuable despite the fact that your assets don’t outweigh your debt. Celebrate all the ways you have love and support in your life even if it doesn’t look like partnership. Ask your kids to make dinner while you take you time to sit on the couch and read a damn book.

In short, be who you are, where you are. Fully.

Another year’s-end specific way to inoculate against if/then thinking and the whole waiting-to-exhale feeling tone that goes along with that way of thinking is this:

Rather than take time to set goals and intentions and attack plans for 2021, take time to make a list of your wins, big and small, from 2020. For example, here’s a snippet of my list:

Wins

Started swimming
Redesigned the front yard with my sweetie
Populated house with an embarrassing number of houseplants (+ only killed a few)
Published my first Linkedin course
Hired someone to do the stuff in my biz outside my wheelhouse

Notice that I didn’t just list work-oriented wins. And even though you could see many of those wins as productivity-oriented, I listed them because I feel them as things that brought me joy. Win.

And here’s the thing: don’t just make your list. Once you’ve made your list, take the time to celebrate/congratulate yourself for your wins in a felt way. Better yet, also share them with someone else and have them celebrate you!

Because I know I’m not the only one who can accomplish something big and just keep moving forward with the “what’s next/bring it on” attitude. And that is exhausting and deflating. So exhausting and deflating that it makes you wish for completely unreal things, like clean slates.

So that’s what I’ll be doing in just a couple of days. Celebrating my wins. Saying inbox be damned, I’m taking a break. And doing my best to attend to what’s present vs. what’s pressing.

Wishing you your own way of contented elation and restoration in the last weeks of 2020.

Take some time for you: grab a cup of tea and peruse the archive of free articles I have on developing embodied resilience and social and emotional intelligence.

owen keturah