Box of Awesomeness

My wife puts mementos of our accomplishments in a photo box, which she calls our ‘Box of Awesomeness.’ She has filled it with reminders of all of the fun, daring and cool things we have accomplished. (Though it is called the Box of Awesomeness, it is actually labeled "How Cool We Can Be" and works as a sort of ego boost when we start to feel down about spinning our wheels for a bit.)

Our awesome pumpkin starts.

Ours is filled with items from my wife's business life as a photographer, my run for Pierce County Council, our certificate for winning a kayaking championship, our certificates declaring us beekeeping apprentices, a receipt from our efforts to grow wheat, oats, and barley on our front yard, some of the beautiful party invitations my wife has created over the years, number bibs from races, and permits from mountain climbing.

It all fits — with room for many future displays of awesomeness — in a $3 photo box from the craft store.

You can put anything into your Box of Awesomeness that you are proud of. Maybe you went to a foreign country and kept a postcard to remember your trip. Maybe you wrote a letter to the editor and tore out the page from the newspaper. Or maybe you baked the best pie ever and took a photo of it to remember it.

This is about reminding yourself that you reached goals; that you tried new things and that some of them worked and that the ones that didn't, didn't kill you.

Whatever it is that you have done, or will do, anything that you are proud of should go into your Box of Awesomeness. We all deserve to really celebrate our achievements, big or small, and not pass them by in a fit of well-mannered self-deprecation.

I recommend you make yourself a Box of Awesomeness (or a bag, or a drawer, or a hollowed-out book) and take a moment now and then to remind yourself of how cool you can be.