The Lowlight Reel

In my first newsletter of 2023, I shared the concept of highlighting the lowlights.?

Many of us feel encouraged to share a highlight reel, but this can sometimes bring discouragement as we think back over all the valleys or not-so-bright moments we experienced these last twelve months.

Yes, the highlights are nice, but how many of us live a mountaintop experience 365 days?

Our lives are filled with brightness, darkness, and dimness.

These dim moments are not to be ignored. They are for our learning. They help us see the full and realistic picture that social media likes to filter.

I’m not sure if this will become a tradition, but similar to how I started 2023, this is how I’d like to begin 2024.

I'd like to share some of my personal and professional lowlights with you:

• Didn’t get a chance to record my audiobook.
• Didn’t hit 100 reviews as I had hoped.
• I had to let go of a team member.
• Did not reach my revenue goals, and worse yet, 2023 was my least profitable year since starting my business.
• Was let down by contractors who couldn’t deliver.
• I had to cut my weekly LinkedIn Live Book Club short along with posting my newsletter due to personal reasons.

But to each lowlight, there was a highlight:

• I did publish my book and became an Amazon Internation Bestseller.
• Although I didn’t get the amount of reviews I wanted to hit by the end of the year, the testimonials and reviews that I have gotten have deeply touched me. I’m so thankful!
• I am learning that even if you enjoy working with someone if there’s limited or no return on investment, set boundaries and/or terminate.
• I resumed in-person speaking engagements, and I watched how I have grown as a speaker.
• I learned that it’s important to find contractors who are aligned with who you are and how you work.
• Taking time away from social media to focus on my family and faith has been uncomfortable but has grown me spiritually in ways that I could never have imagined.?

Do I have a vision for what this year will look like?

No.

Do I have a strategy?

Besides prayer, not really.

Don’t get me wrong, although there is some indifference, I haven’t given up on my business.

I’m figuring out what working well daily looks like as I strive to live a life that is pleasing to God and blesses my family.

Although I pray for more highlights this coming year, I know that lowlights train our eyes to adjust better and focus on what’s in front of us.

I don’t know how your 2023 went.

Maybe your year was really bright. Or, perhaps it was dim.

I encourage you to view it with an objective perspective.

And if you are privileged to be a leader, I will restate the questions that I posed at the top of last year: As you look back over your 2023 performance and that of your team, are you looking at it from an objective view or only seeing what they did wrong and where they fell short?

Are you able to give yourself and others grace?

Can you acknowledge each employee's personal trials that may have impacted how they performed??

Because Life be life-ing!

Grief, loss, illness, disabilities, and everything in between.

Add wars and rumors of wars, it can be quite overwhelming.

How did you handle them as a leader? How did you handle them as a team?

As we continue to make steps into this year, I hope that we don’t chase the highs and run away from the lows.?

But that we bloom wherever our feet are planted.

To help normalize the discussion of lowlights, feel free to share a 2023 lowlight with me.

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Farah Harris is a psychotherapist and the founder of WorkingWell Daily ?, a company that approaches workplace belonging and well-being from a psycho-social and emotional intelligence lens. Farah has helped individuals and Fortune 500 companies develop healthier workplaces where employees want to stay and thrive because their leaders and teams have grown in empathy, self-awareness, social awareness, and cultural awareness.

Purchase a copy of my bestselling book The Color of Emotional Intelligence