On The Importance of Taking Stock.

At the start of the month, I was so focused on the fact that it was a new month that I had completely forgotten that it was the beginning of a new quarter too. ¼ done and dusted, amazing! It honestly didn’t feel like a lot had happened for me so, I wasn’t exactly excited about anything but I saw a post on Instagram of someone taking stock of the old and speaking ahead of the new quarter and that’s when I realized that I had set goals at the start of the year and since I have not exactly been playing, I took a little trip down memory lane. I picked up my journal and started documenting how far I had gone in the past three months and let me tell you, it was worth it.

When I was taking stock for the month of January, I got stuck. It didn’t feel like anything ‘great’ had happened. I had a slow start to the year which was okay because the point is, I’m moving on now, regardless. I went through every journal entry for the month and I found that they were about me fighting through one thing or the other, mentally. And then I thought to myself, I’m here now, in a better space and feeling at peace and if that is not a win for the month, then I don’t know what is. So, right in front of January, I wrote “I SURVIVED” because it matters that I did. If I didn’t, and I was still in a funk, I wouldn’t have gone and done all the things I did for myself in February and March and neither would I be writing to you, friend, about taking stock. So, again, I congratulate myself on surviving.

To take stock is a common term in the world of finance which simply describes the process of getting an estimate or assessment of goods or an inventory that covers a particular period of time. It’s something that can come to be of great importance as we journey through life.

I had been struggling with time management and procrastination for a really long time. I took a test once and I scored a bold 86% with the words, “You are a chronic procrastinator”“ written right below it. That’s how bad it was and one of my goals for this year is to reduce that by 50%. I started tracking my time and that was the eye opener. It had to get better and so I started working on it. I prayed, I spent time on YouTube finding hacks and I started reading on various techniques. Safe to say I’ve gotten better by a mile. You want receipts? Okay. I have shown up here, thrice, and counting, without fail and my old self would not have ever. So, there you go, cheers to that!

Often, we underestimate how far we have come and do not even learn from our mistakes. Going big is good but you don’t have to go home if it isn’t big. Small wins are worth celebrating too. Positive reinforcement usually gets the best out of anybody, but you can’t even do that for yourself if you can’t see your own efforts. At the end of most of my journal entries, I would write “I see you” because if I don’t see myself, I would end up taking my identity from various other people and that gets messy. You cannot acknowledge growth if you do not take the time to reflect on where it all began. And if you cannot acknowledge it, how can you be grateful for it?

To be thankful is to recognize and consider yourself blessed to have a thing or an experience or a person. It elevates you half the time from having a “I don’t have” perspective to a point where you can see what you’re surrounded by, clearly. People usually say, “be grateful because your counterparts have it worse.” I don’t really like that. How about being grateful because it is a necessary and powerful thing? Sounds more like it to me. I think that gratitude is almost a mundane thing now because people are learning to be grateful for career accomplishments and academic success and all that good stuff. But we must not forget that those things are only a part of us and can only be what they are if our cores keep growing.

Taking stock, being present, being grateful etc. heightens your sense of self-awareness and renews your sense of direction. Whenever you’re faced with a challenge, because you already sat with a victory at an earlier time, it sometimes makes the thing that you’re faced with a little less daunting. If you did it before, bet that you are one step ahead in the process of getting this one done. Have that on repeat and your self-confidence would grow by at least an inch. Now, isn’t that wonderful?

I celebrated my birthday the other day and the love I received was overwhelming. I am grateful for my family and for friends that give me room to be. What are you grateful for today from the last quarter? You don’t need a grand event to happen before you take time to reflect. In fact, I have found that the reflections done as I go on with my daily life tend to stick in my memory better. I also go back to old journals from time to time to see the things I wanted to change and compare them to where I am at the moment and all I can say is, the growth is always immense.

If you don’t already journal, give it a try and like a friend said, there’s no right way to do it. You’ll find your style with time. If you want clarity, I strongly recommend it. Gratitude apps also help you to reflect per time.

Here is an excerpt from something I wrote while I was reflecting sometime in the month of November, 2020.

This is a gentle reminder that it is important to follow through with your growth process. When we grow as individuals, we make everything in our lives better.

Sandor Marai once said, “I have started to think that the great, decisive moments that broadly govern our lives are far less conscious at the time than they seem later when we are reminiscing and taking stock.”

Those words are very true. A lifetime is a longtime and everything good will fall in place. Take stock.