BL&T No. 090: Acknowledging the Results of Our Efforts

This post originally appeared in my weekly newsletter, BL&T (Borrowed, Learned, & Thought). Subscribe

Borrowed

"Only you have the authority to recognize and confirm that a creation of yours is complete."

From "The Path of Least Resistance" by Robert Fritz [Book]

Learned

Dana and I were happy to host friends last week, Wednesday through Sunday. Our friends got married just 10 minutes away, so our home was a place to gather by day and rest by night - a reality we couldn't fathom just two years ago, living in our cozy Brooklyn apartment. It was fun to catch up with friends, discover new places, and share my hometown.

When I look back on the last several days, I keep returning to a book I finished reading just over a year ago when we purchased our (first) home, The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz. In the book, Fritz outlines how altering the structures in our lives can help us reach our vision, using the creative process as a guide.

While there were several takeaways for me, many of which I wrote about in this essay, there's one that I'm often reminding myself to uphold: receive, acknowledge, and live with your creation.

A critical part of the creative process is at the start: getting realistic about what we want and articulating that vision. However, we cannot complete the process until we acknowledge our success. According to Fritz, "if you are unable to receive what you are creating, you are stopping short of completion. Until you fully accept the results into your life, the results are not fully created."

Here are some of the reasons I find that I avoid this step unconsciously:

I was unclear about what I wanted in the first place
I'm moving too fast to pause
I'm distracted by other priorities
I'm afraid to let go, close the chapter, and move on

After a year of looking for houses, I remember feeling the stress of packing (and purging) pile on when Dana and I found out our offer got accepted (on our current home). My coach at the time reminded me of what we had accomplished and urged me to pause and celebrate the reality we had created.

My experience changed when I acknowledged the milestone and the journey that came before. Packing was no longer something we had to do. It was something we got to do. I felt grateful and inspired. It propelled me forward to tackle all that came next with a renewed sense of energy.

Since then, I've been better at remembering to acknowledge success as Dana and me move through our list of priorities - whether it's a celebratory dinner or looking at each other as our dog Gizmo sleeps and saying, "He's finally here!"

When I was journaling this morning, rewinding the tape on the week, I realized that the week and weekend were full of moments worth acknowledging, like watching our friends sit in a circle on our living room floor, playing with Gizmo, or enjoying drinks together on the deck. Moments like these were ones that Dana and I would envision as we evaluated house after house.

We lived in these moments over the last several days, but with preparing the house and hosting, we hadn't paused to recognize what they represent. Capturing these moments in my journal today hit different, reminding me how far we've come and energizing me to go after what's next.

Progress from last week:‍