This is the time of the year I review my progress.  I made it through Christmas time.  I love the season but tend to plan more than I could ever accomplish.  I lost presents that I bought this summer and had to buy things for my granddaughters. They’ll get the other presents when I find what I did with them.  I didn’t melt down about the memory glitch.  I just accepted that this is how my brain functions I love me anyway.

There are two important points I take into consideration when I self-evaluate.  First, keep in mind my truth campaign rule #1-

Stop lying especially to your self!

I also do not allow myself to compare myself self to my ideal of what I want to be as a person.  My ideal self is someone in the future.  It is OK to have my ideals up in the stars as long as I keep my feet firmly grounded in reality of what limitations I do have.  Expecting myself to say all the right things all of the time will not work.  My limitations is I think of the right thing to say about 2 days after a conversation.  No matter what I wish, the world has limitations too.  I cannot jump buildings in a single bound, gravity is totally against that idea.  I mostly compare myself to where I have been.

My evaluation will cover several areas and I ask myself questions.

How are my relationships with my family and friends?

How do I treat strangers on the street?

What is my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ?

What qualities of being do I want to work on this year?

Are the things I am doing, reinforcing the goals I have in the above areas?

I used to go through this information with my counselor.  I liked this because he would call me on the lies I created for myself to feel comfortable.  Now I can almost hear him in my head when I start to lie to myself…no I take that back he wouldn’t say much of anything but his raised eyebrows would speak volumes.  If he actually rolled his eyes, look hard at what I am saying because the lie is a whopper.  The self evaluation will take me days.  I need time alone to ponder, often while cleaning or some other activity that keeps my hand busy but not my mind.

I also remind myself to congratulate myself on the things I am doing well.  When I first did my self-evaluations they became beat myself up sessions that left me battered and hopeless.  Not ok.  I may not emotionally beat up on myself. I remind myself that is following old patterns put in place by my abusers.  I don’t need to take their place.  I acknowledge that I do good things.  I think about the people in my life.  I learned along the way that who I do things for and with are more important than what I do.

I remind myself I am a work in progress. I love myself enough to believe I am capable of improving but doing fairly well right now.  I can re-evaluate and make adjustments later, this is a snapshot in time.

Goals will be created after this evaluation time.  Some goals I’ll keep others I’ll change.