Look up at what you have achieved 2

Always remember to smile and look up at what you got in life

Marilyn Monroe

July marks the middle of the year, and it is a good time to reflect. Often we get bogged down in all the other things we want to do for the remaining months. We see the last 6 months of the year stretching before us and we feel like we don’t have enough time to get it all done. We wonder where the year has gone, in the working, and the school lunches, and the study, and the housework. We wonder if there is enough time left in the year to achieve our dreams.

But in fact, July is a good time to look up from the everyday work of doing. Whatever that looks like for you, look around and actually notice how far you have come.

Over the past few years I have written a book on grief, Beauty in the Ashes: Learning to Lament, which has just been released on the 4^th July. Needless to say I am very excited, but the biggest surprise to me has been the reaction of my friends from the girls’ school. So many of them are saying to me, “Wow, that’s amazing, now I know a published author.”

I have been in the midst of the writing, and the editing, and the publishing, for over three years, so I know the work that is involved in being a writer. I am also part of a community of writers. Many of my community have published numerous books, so when I compare myself to them I feel like I am just starting on this journey of writing. I feel like this one book is not so much of an achievement.

The fact is that I have been head down, hands on keyboard, so occupied in my work in my little space and my little community for a good few years.

But now I have finished my work, and raised my head to look around, and find that actually this thing I have been working on is quite an achievement. Actually, it is something worth celebrating, and actually, it is amazing to call myself an author.

If you are looking for a great tool to help you reflect on what you have achieved this year check out Amanda Viviers reflective daybook Reset.