I'm sure I'm not the only one who uses Christmas time as the evaluation point in the year to reflect on what has gone well and what changes I need to make in the coming year. It isn't a conscious evaluation process. I certainly don't sit down with a form and rank my experiences one to five, but instead, it seems to be something that just happens on its own. This year, I had 16 hours of driving for this evaluation process. 16 hours of driving and some really great music. It was like Pandora had a window to my soul and played all of the songs I didn't even know I wanted to hear.
The conclusion of my evaluation: It never ceases to amaze me the difference a year makes.
I think this can be best illustrated by comparing last year's Christmas party to this year's. First, read about last year. How do you know you've hit rock bottom in law? When your ranting offends the bartender at the firm Christmas party. Bartenders have decencies of steel, and offending those decencies is quite the feat.
While I definitely "over-stepped" and succeeded in speaking my mind at both events, the messages were completely different. Last year, the crux of my rant was that I was wasting my life, my hard work and energy, and I was miserable. This year, my boss and I got into a heart-to-heart at the bar over tidal wave shots. I went on and on... and on about how much I love what I'm doing and what an incredible opportunity I have with this company. I told him point blank that I want to make a million dollars. My inner Veruca Salt came out a bit, and I may have been embarrassingly adamant. But the next day in the office, my boss gave me a high five and laughed. I sheepishly apologized for talking his ear off. He said, Nic, I want to make a million dollars too. More than that. So let's do it.
It's been a good year. A really, really good year.
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