This is the time we all try to think of ways to better ourselves. It's New Year's Resolutions time.
Boo.
I used to make lists and promise myself to do better in every single aspect of my life. All with the same result - doing the best I could but not necessarily doing any better.
Boo.
This year though, I'm taking a different approach. I'm not making any promises about my physical appearance or how gracious I will be every single minute of the day.
I am simply promising to allow myself to be vulnerable.
What?
That doesn't sound very strong or determined or successful, does it?
Well, maybe not at first glance. But Dr. Brene Brown would argue that it is when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable that we find our greatest success. She dispels vulnerability as a weakness and actually uses it to define our strength.
The quote from Theodore Roosevelt on the inside flap of her book jacket reads...
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly... who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."
If you are interested in learning "how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we love, live, parent, and lead" then pick up her book Daring Greatly and resolve to be vulnerable in 2013.
Not quite convinced? You can check out Brene's talk on vulnerability on Ted.com.
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