Earlier this week I was angry.
Genuinely, disproportionately angry, over something that wasn’t getting done, something too small to fully justify the reaction I had to it.
I was snapping.
And then, almost annoyingly on cue, I stumbled on this read: that every morning we decide what we want to achieve, but we rarely stop to think what kind of a person we want to be that day.
I’d genuinely never thought about it this way before — a how having equal importance alongside a what.
Because my mornings do have a list. Gym, yoga, eat something that isn’t out of a packet, finish the tasks, check the boxes.
I am good at deciding what I want to get done.
I don’t think I’ve ever once, in the middle of making that list, stopped and asked — okay, but do I want to be calm today? Kind? Patient with people who come from a different perspective or have different context?
It made that afternoon’s anger look a little different in hindsight.
Not wrong, exactly. Just, undirected.
I had a list of outcomes I wanted and zero intention for how I wanted to move through the day to get them.
So when something didn’t go to plan, I had nothing to fall back on except reacting.
I haven’t tried this for more than a couple of days, so I won’t pretend I have it figured out.
But I keep coming back to that question over coffee now — not just what’s on the list today, but who I’m hoping to be while I get through it.
What would you write on your list, if it wasn’t a to-do?
