I’m not much of a winner. At least when it comes to things like card games, contests, or croquet.

My competitive spirit doesn’t get riled up by something that comes in a box, is meant to be entertaining, and has no significant impact on my life.

But there is one exception.

Have you ever played Sorry? I’m obsessed. The version that lives at my mom’s house looks like it was printed in the late 1970s and the box is about two insincere sorrys away from disintegrating into a cloud of dust. It started coming out at family holidays a few years ago, and it’s become one of my favorite things about Christmas.

Sorry is fun because there are strategies to employ, but it’s mostly luck. You can be three moves away from winning and get sent right back to the beginning. You can be top dog and land abruptly back to the bottom. It’s exhilarating.

This Christmas, we played three games of Sorry. I lost the first game and got mad. Since games don’t tend to register very high on my “This Matters”-o-meter, this was a weird moment for me.

As we set up for the second game, I decided to win.

Suddenly, winning was my destiny. I was calm, focused, and ready to dominate.

When my brother sent me back to the beginning, even though it would have been better for him to kick off someone else’s piece, I didn’t get mad again. I just calmly thought, “That’s okay, I’m going to win.”

When I went from almost winning to behind every other player, I thought, “That’s okay, I’m going to win.”

“That’s okay, I’m going to win” was my only strategy.

Guess what? I won. And then I won again.

It was deeply life affirming.

Here’s what I didn’t do:

I didn’t give up or change my end goal, even when it looked like I had no chance of triumph.

My mom decide she couldn’t win when the board got stacked against her. So she changed her aim from winning to getting two pieces to the end. She got those two pieces home, but didn’t win. By adjusting her end game, she got what she said she wanted but didn’t win.

My brother got annoyed when his strategies didn’t work, and gave up. I get it, I tend to do that a lot in life, but it’s definitely not going to get you very far.

I also didn’t try to micromanage the game. I didn’t think things like, “I’m going to roll a ten to get ahead.” Or “I’m going to take my brother down, because his strategy bit me in the butt.” I just repeated my internal mantra of - you guessed it - “That’s okay, I’m going to win.”

By remaining calm and focused, I had fun and I won. Twice.

Afterward, when I shared my strategy, Brandon said, “Now you just need to do that in life.”

Haha sigh.

It’s definitely easier to stay focused during a 45-minute board game than it is for the seasons, years, decades it takes to bring big dreams to fruition.

It’s easier to float in zen-like detachment when it comes to a board game with nothing at stake than it is when it come to money or relationships or other things it feels like your happiness and security rely on.

But ultimately, our emotions aren’t the determining factor of what we receive or accomplish. It’s our focus.

So how do I take my Christmas board game wins and apply this lesson to the other things in my life?

How do we stay focused yet unattached to the outcome when it comes to things we really want?

My suspicion is that the secret is to have fun in the process. If I had won the game but had a lousy time it wouldn’t have been worth it. The only way to accomplish big things is to sustain focus - and, for me, the best way to do that is make sure I’m having plenty of fun while doing what it takes to get where I want to go.

One of my big goals in 2026 is making sure I’m having fun doing the things that are important to me. Creating ways to have fun while writing my books and running my intuitive business. Carving out time during the week to do things like roller-skate and go to the movie theater and see friends.

Because struggling through and giving up when it gets hard is no fun at all.

With love,

Amber

Or, perhaps more accurately, the most important thing I’ve learned about gratitude after years of being annoyed by those Instagram posts urging me to “Be grateful!” when everything felt like it was collapsing, and then I had to feel terrible about not being able to feel grateful for my objectively lovely life.

Here’s the Secret:

You can’t spackle gratitude over pain that needs to be acknowledged. You can’t paste appreciation over feelings that need to be felt.

I mean, you CAN. You can do anything. I believe in you.

But here’s a piece that’s often missing when people talk about gratitude and appreciation practices. Which are wonderful and life-changing - appreciation is an energy that can shift your perspective and experience in a hot second - but you can’t skip over the feelings to get there.

If the very thought of a gratitude practice annoys the ever-loving snit out of you? (Been there. Fist bump, friend.) It’s time to dredge up the feelings. Check in with yourself to see what needs to be felt, acknowledged, loved, listened to, met as a friend. When we do that, when we let ourselves rant, yell, vent, complain, or otherwise yank up whatever goop we’ve been trying to stuff into our spleen, that’s when gratitude and appreciation begins to rise up naturally.

We won’t have to grasp for it or force it. It will just float to the top. Because all the heavier feelings sitting on top of the true appreciation have lifted.

My experience with gratitude - even for my objectively very lovely life - has shown me over and over that if I try to jump to gratitude without honoring my upset or frustration just doesn’t work.

As a champion feelings suppresser born of world-class repressers, I had to learn how to do this. (My whole family has done a lot of work here, except for my Dad who died first. One could argue he died to get out of it. Feel your feels! It will keep you alive!) I had to learn how to feel first. Say my piece. Vent a bit. Get out whatever’s festering.

If I could say one thing to the world, it would be this:

If you’re feeling blocked - creatively, financially, or anywhere else - there may be some feelings to acknowledge. Listen to them. Feel them as sensation in your body without writing a whole Broadway musical about them. (I mean, DO write a whole Broadway musical about them. But if you’re trying to write that musical and can’t, it’s probably because your feelings will be divas until you say “hi” and “how can I help” and “you’re pretty.”)

Once you feel the things, you won’t have to force the appreciation, creativity, or love. It will be a part of you. You won’t have to feel bad about not being able to muster up gratitude for your objectively lovely life. You can just bask. Until the feelings return.