“A good beginning makes a good ending.” These are the words encased in glass on the hallway wall of the university building I enter every day.

Each year we welcome a new class of enthusiastic, wide-eyed pharmacy students eager to get to work and fulfill the requirements for their doctoral degree.  They come from various states and countries with this one thing in common. And it doesn’t take long before the novelty gives way to the reality of a rigorous and often grueling journey ahead.

I always love the excitement that goes with meeting and greeting these new students.  I’ve also always loved the process of preparing my own kids for a new school year.  There’s so many hopes of good things to come and expectations of great accomplishments. I think it’s a prime moment in time when their identity is piqued by all the possibilities of what they can accomplish and who they can become in 9 short months.

But as a parent, we also know these same 9 short months have the potential to wreak havoc on our kid’s identity, and we want to do all we can to help them stand strong in the truths of who they are.  We want to help them protect their identity in the midst of the adventure so their ending will be as good as their beginning.

The same holds true for us.  When our kids go off to school, it represents a new beginning for us. There is a freshness, a lightness and kick to our steps even if it’s only in realizing we have some much-needed, newfound freedom.  Possibilities open up and we have a fresh chance to once again, create a strong beginning.

Good beginnings are important. But they can quickly become casualties. We can quickly become casualties and our identity suffers without having a plan for how to move forward and stay grounded.

LETTING GO OF COMPARISONS is a great first step in securing our identity. It doesn’t matter how far along someone else is in our goal. We’ll get there when we get there and our identity will be intact when we do.

Letting go of comparisons is a great first step in securing our identity. Share on X

THINKING PRODUCTIVELY gives us an edge of protection as we exercise an awareness of the things we choose to dwell on. It’s too easy to become disenchanted or discouraged when things get rough, so keeping track of thoughts helps us regulate our emotions and ultimately keep our identity protected from self-sabotage.

CHOOSING TO MOVE ON keeps us from getting stuck in our mistakes or in those things we don’t like, don’t deserve and can’t control. Good beginnings don’t have room for self-pity. Things aren’t always going to go our way, and we have to know when to step away and just move on so our identity isn’t crippled or bruised by a pity party.

ACKNOWLEDGING OUR PROGRESS by remembering our good beginning no matter how small gives honor to our journey. There’s so much talk about keeping our eye on the goal, but it’s also important to root our identity in the good beginning where the soil is rich and full of identity-rich nutrients.

STAYING IN THE PRESENT helps us focus on what’s important now so we don’t get bogged down by what we should have done or what we could have changed. The past is the past. We learn from it but we don’t live in it.

ACCEPTING GRACE FOR OUR FAILURES helps us not lose sight of what’s important so we can pick ego up from the ground and start again.  Our identity will be much more resilient in the light of grace.

REMAINING CONFIDENT IN THE GOAL will keep us moving in the right direction with a spirit of anticipation toward the good end.  We may not make the desired progress or meet all of our deadlines, but that doesn’t take away from our good beginning or our good end. Confidence will keep us putting one step in front of the other while our identity remains safely covered by hope.

As I’ve chatted with students and with my own children about all of these principles at one time or another, but I’ve often failed to internalize them myself.  It’s so much easier to pass wisdom on to others without letting it penetrate our own heart.  Perhaps you’ve done the same.

It’s never too late for a new beginning.

Let’s take some time to be intentional in both by taking some proactive steps toward securing our identity through the journey so we come out on the other end more sure of who we are, more committed to whose we are and more certain of where we are going…

for the sake of the good ending.

 

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From the ‘It’s So Good’ Collection…

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