As HETMA embarks on the #Roadto10K, this journey is about more than just growing our numbers—it’s about supporting the personal and professional growth of each member. Every month, we’ll explore a new theme centered on reflection, growth, mental health, and confidence. If the themes ever feel overwhelming, this column will offer them in small, approachable steps to help you engage at your own pace.
May’s theme is:
Fuel the Fire: The Path Forward
As the year ends, reflect on the journey you’ve taken to let it fuel your path forward. Create an empowered mindset, connect with others, and give an account
The end of a year has a way of making us pause. In the brief lull between Commencement and Summer Installs, we find ourselves looking back down the road we’ve traveled. How can we turn the experiences from the year into fuel for what’s next, so we keep driving forward?
Create an Empowered Mindset
We each have our own gauge for what makes us feel empowered. For me, empowerment is when I am grounded in what I believe to be unshakeable truth. Two truths I have written in my journal, to visit whenever I need a reflection point, are “hope is not a strategy” and “we never drift toward excellence.” I feel empowered knowing I can achieve a goal with the right intentions and strategies. I know what I can control, and I focus my energy there. I also accept what I cannot control, and refuse to let it consume me. (Recognizing the Serenity Prayer, there)? I shift into an empowered mindset if I have a plan I trust, and I know my role in the plan.
So, if you’re anything like me and you want to cultivate an empowered mindset, think about your systems. No, not your AV systems (but you should also think about those.) Think about your routines, rhythms, and rituals. You will always rise and fall to the level of your systems. Set yourself up to feel empowered.
Connect with Others
It takes courage to say what you want out loud, and it’s more powerful than people realize.
As author Will Guidara writes in Unreasonable Hospitality, “You’ll never achieve a goal if you don’t have the courage to say it out loud.” There’s something that shifts when a dream leaves the private space of your mind and enters the world through your voice. It becomes real and something others can help you with.
This is why community matters so much. Not just any community, but people who genuinely share your vision. People who will encourage you when the road gets hard and call you back when you’ve drifted off course. Accountability is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other.
If you want to really connect with others, then be honest with them and let them help you.
Give an Account
Glennon Doyle offers a beautiful reframe in Untamed, “Instead of asking what is right and wrong, we must ask ourselves what is true and beautiful.”
What is true about what was achieved this year? Not what you hoped for, not what you thought should have happened, but what actually, genuinely happened? Where did you show up? Where did you grow?
And then: what can you point to as a source of joy? Even in a hard year, joy leaves fingerprints. Find them, name them, and let them remind you that your engine is still running.
The path forward isn’t built in a single grand moment. It’s built in reflection, careful planning, honest conversation, and the courage to keep going. You’ve made it through another year of becoming. Now fuel back up, and drive straight toward the year ahead.
