Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success. Picasso
End-of-year Reflections
In order to make the most of the year ahead, you need a map to guide you. I’ll tell you what I use to make a plan and see what you think.
You need 20/20 Vision for 2021
There is too much distraction with the news, personal issues, and resolutions. There is chaos in the world. If you trudge too far down the path into late January or February . . . you’ll never know where you want to go. Your aspirations will not materialise or come true.
Taking responsibility for ourselves and committing make a difference is the only way.
You think about what you love to do, writing, speaking, leading, starting a new business, whatever, and make sure it serves the customers. The same step to stopping chaos in the world. Create 10 big goals for all the roles you play. You make a one-page plan for 2021, write it up, and follow the priorities to make it come true.
You may be thinking, is it worth planning when so much is out of my and our control.
Do you feel like your goals for 2020 had to be suspended?
I know most of my goals were. Having said that, my highest guide in 2020 emerged through my paying attention to what was happening to me and around me. I observed, I had to let go of what I could not control, I let living in the moment guide me of how I stepped into each day of 2020 since March to date.
I have also accepted, and there has been a lot of accepting this year, to focus on the life as a teacher that have emerged in my life, asking myself, what am I supposed to learn?
My vision and goals for the year certainly did not include doing a course on death and dying, living with dignity. I am part of a trio that launched a chapter of the ‘Death Café’ offering people a space to engage with the curiosities about life and death. I lectured online to Masters Students studying coaching, I was a speaker at a virtual annual business school breakfast. Opening myself up to presented, taking me out of my comfort zone, has unfolded amazing gifts about myself which I would not have explored had it not been for 2020.
I have engaged in a reflective process annually for the past 15 years, the last 14 have pretty much followed the path I laid out ending a year and inviting the next.
This year is quite different in that my goals are materially different and I am thrilled with what had emerged.
Making My 2021 plan
My husband and I have been discussing what we think we might want to plan for the upcoming year, recognising that our conversations have shifted and taken on a different essence. Below are some of my goals.
Continuing my journey that started in 2020, living with COVID-19 and all that it has brought into my life and the world, these are some of my outcomes:
- A spiritual path that’s vibrant and alive, giving my life meaning and motivation
- A life in balance in the way I always hoped, taking green walks, stopping at looking at the birds, admiring a sunset, watching people with curiosity and kindness
- A husband who is fun, kind, bright, my biggest fan, and loves me just as I am
- Financial sufficiency that allows us to contribute to our family and to the causes we believe in
- Creative juices that are there when I need them
- A business that has reached people and organisations in many parts of the world. Helping them to transform their lives and achieve their most important goals, year after year, and It offers me the opportunity to live my passion and purpose, and
- To learn, grow and transform through every interaction.
Let me describe how it went up until January 2020.
By the end of the two-and-a-half hours, we were transformed, we were enthusiastic and ready to tackle our plans. We each had 10 goals, which we were ready to “vigorously act” on. We were motivated! Sometimes this process offered a way to leave the problems behind. We would review these quarterly, since life is not lived only through a plan and a straight line to achieving its objectives.
The goals were explicitly about doing, and on hindsight less balanced.
My intention for 2021 and beyond is devoted to discovering more of who I truly am, so I can tap into more of my wisdom to help make our world a happier place for everyone. A world where I can contribute to what is right and fair for all living and non-living that make up our world.
I have shared this process with my coaching clients, here is some feedback I am sharing on how it impacted some of their lives.
- What happened when I decided to stop being broke
- Ready to get the upper hand with your excuses
- The greatest challenge for most of us is that excuses rule the day, so we don’t get around to what matters most, the aspirations that are truly life-changing:
- Repurpose or cancel the meetings clogging my day
- Book a meeting with the boss to discuss a promotion
- Take control of my financial situation
- Make the connections that make the…a difference, which relationships I build, which I need to improve on and, which I need to let go of
- How to get past the mind in a muddle, lost in procrastination, The simple way to live with a clear mind
If you want your life to matter the way you think, you have to have a plan. If I don’t have a plan for the day, week, month, I wander around wherever my attention leads me. Sound familiar?
So how do I do it, want to make a plan?
First I suggest get yourself a journal
A regular exercise book, or Many moleskin varieties available. You could get yourself a guided journal, Michelle Obama as recently developed one called ‘Becoming.’ Inquire at your local bookstore. Find a quest place and work out what time of day is best to reflect, for you.
NB: you may be tempted to do this on your laptop, can I invite you to consider writing instead, the reason being, when we write, our thoughts are brought into the physical world directly by writing and we thereby embody what we are thinking. Brain scans while people were writing display a number of parts of the brain being lit up. This tells us the brain, whilst writing, is integrating different things. Our writing offers us the ability to observe and reflect what we though, consciously or unconsciously. Some say it is our highest form of self-guidance.
Secondly, you can start answering the following questions in your journal.
Here are six questions I came across many years ago that I use to reflect. The questions are structured to guide you to review the year gone by and then to look forward
- What did I accomplish in the last twelve months?
- What did I learn about myself from my accomplishments?
- What were my biggest disappointments?
- What is it that I contributed to my disappointments?
- What did I learn about myself from my disappointments?
- What is a guideline I can write for myself when I reflect on what I have learnt from the last 12 months?
These questions leads you to a reflective practice which is a way of studying your experiences to improve the way you work. The purpose of reflection is to improve yourself, as well as understanding your leadership and management practice and behaviours better, this then improves the context that your leadership takes place in.
Being able to reflect is a valuable skill to have both during your
learning journey and for the workplace. It helps you to think
about your experiences, why things happened the way they
did and how you can improve on these experiences in future.
This article offers a high level process to guide you through the
basics of what reflective practice is, its benefits, how to integrate
it into your everyday life and the basics of reflective writing.
If you are not used to being reflective it can be hard to know where to start the process.
So, how do you start writing in a reflective way?
Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.
The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than describing what happened during an experience.
How is it different from writing an essay, for example
- Reflect on your experience. Think about what you did,
thought, and felt at the time.• …
- Reflect on your learning. Analyze your experience and
compare to the models or principles that you want to follow.• …
- Apply to your practice. Apply your learning to your practice.
As a leader, it is important to make sure you are maximizing the effect you can have in your organisation. The people you lead depend on you to help create data-driven changes so you want to make sure you are doing everything you can in that venture. One of the best ways to reflect back on your year is to get feedback from the people you work with the most, your stakeholders. A great way to get feedback is through conducting your own informal survey with them.
This process allows you to gain deeper understanding of yourself as a leader, as an individual team member because it allows you to clearly identify next steps in the work you need to do on self for better impact.
Self-reflection is what coaches do every day. It is not only important for coaches to self-reflect, but it would be meaningful too to have your clients do the same.
One important aspect of personalized learning is the reflection piece
Conclusion
This article guides you on just one of the reflective processes that are available. You may find one that works for you. My aim is to provide a useful guide or place to start but reflection is a very personal process and everyone will work towards it in a different way. Take some time to try different approaches until you find the one that works for you. You may find that as time goes on and you develop as a reflective practitioner that you try different methods which suit your current circumstances. The important part is that it works, if it doesn’t then you may need to move on and try something else.
Experimenting with this practice, at the very least will give you three insights:
- Your greatest accomplishment (the area in which you grew the most)
- Something that you are better at now than at the beginning of the year.
- Something that is still challenging for you.
Khatija Saley
Khatija@Generativeconversations.co.za