3 Simple End-of-Year Questions

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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3 Simple End-of-Year Questions

Marie Forleo’s Three Powerful Year-In-Review Questions

What did I do, create, or experience this year that I am really proud of?

This year I am really proud of being able to start and maintain relationships in a meaningful way. I have supported friends and family in celebration and struggle. I sought out new professional relationships through development opportunities like B-School and Write Into Light. I have worked through difficult professional situations. I have started new work. I have returned to yoga. I have continued distance running. (Both yoga and running are about my relationship with my body and self care.)

What mistakes did I make that taught me something? What lessons did I learn that I can leverage?

I have not kept my word to myself this year. I started the year strong with goal setting and weakened when results did not happen quickly enough. If I was was going to conduct an autopsy of my 2018 failures, and look at their causes and symptoms, the lessons that I learned include: 1. Don’t give up, especially not after failure. 2. Let goals dance between challenge, joy, accountability, release, creativity, and results. Drudgery is not motivational. 3. Priorities matter. Set them. Stick to them. Change them if you need to. Celebrate their successful achievement. How can I leverage that learning? 1. To publish all the gratitude work I have been working on. 2. To practice yoga 4 times a week. 3. To reach out even more regularly to people.

What is one limiting story you’re ready to let go of?

As I round the bend to my 50th birthday in a few years, I am ready to let go of the notion that my age is a limiting story – a physical, professional, psychological, social, or spiritual limitation. This is especially hard in the area of physical limitations, where my challenges have been significant my entire life, and my resolve has had to be rock solid over the years. Lately my resolve has softened. That is not good in any way. I am ready to let go of the story of my age. I am ready to see beyond past, present, and future obstacles that serve no purpose other than to divert attention, slow my momentum, influence my choices, create fear, and silence my voice. Age can not be an excuse for cynicism, negativism, sleep walking, doing-whatever-I-want-because-I-am-old-anyway, and sadness. I definitely have not taken the “getting old is a bad thing” bait. I truly don’t think I would want to be 15-35 ever again. I can tell as the aches and pains of all sorts creep in, the story starts to change from one of hope to fatigue, of doing something to make a situation better to shrugging my shoulders. I can choose to live my years, months, days, and minutes fully. I can have a just getting started mentality that says watch me soar.