Don't Overlook Beauty While Looking For Repairs

​I was in a large work meeting yesterday with partners from all over the state. We were going over the results of a recent 'needs assessment' that had been conducted in partnership with an outside organization.

These needs assessment discussions can get long and hard to hear. Especially right after lunch.

Because at the heart of the results of a needs assessment, often, is a discussion about all that we lack. All that we could and should and need to do different. Or better. Until an hour and a half into the discussion it can feel forgotten that we've ever done anything well.

Which of course we have.

After the discussion, a couple of my work colleagues stood up and pointed out some of those forgotten things. They pointed out what our community leaders in the room have meant to change in their communities. They pointed out how they have inspired all new ways of thinking about mental health and wellness in their local schools and agencies and neighborhoods.

And then, as if a momentum shift in a football game, many others joined in the conversation and started identifying strengths more than needs.

You could literally feel the shift of heart and mind.

I sat their and wondered, how often do we do that to ourselves? How often do we talk ourselves down a road of identifying all the ways we are coming up short? All the reasons we are not doing as well as we can do. All the difficult things we NEED and not all the beautiful things that we ARE.

How many times do we look in the mirror and wish for different instead of loving what we see?

Our voices, especially the ones in our mind, they do have momentum. They will gladly follow your lead, ESPECIALLY if you want to start talking about the ways you are coming up short.

Sometimes we, like my colleagues, need to stand up and put the brakes on those conversations. We need to put up detour signs and redirect conversations while we repair some of the hazards up ahead. Because little is more hazardous up ahead than some of the ways we are about to see ourselves.

Take your detour signs with you today. When you hear yourself start to talk about all that needs to change, put up your sign, take a new route, and recognize all that you've already changed.

Recognize all that you already are.

Because in the end, there is no better road than that to make better all the needs to be made better.