Reflection Questions: Looking back and looking forward

If you are like me and need time to process where you’ve been before you can plan where you are going to next, taking some time to reflect, harvest learnings, and think deeply about where you are headed is an important part of ending a year well.

 I started my reflection this year at a surface level thinking about what did I DO?

• I coached 12 people over the course of the year, each of them over many months
• I successfully delivered a train the trainer program for 8 people
• I taught 20 courses to approximately 500 people in 6 countries
• I facilitated 18 high emotion, intense conversations with hundreds of people
• I provided strategic advice to 9 clients
• I delivered 11 speeches to organizations in 4 countries
• I travelled extensively for work and life, exploring new places and celebrating familiar locations
• I tried really hard for life and work balance, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. I didn’t work part time, but instead I worked full time with joy and commitment during some time periods and took long stretches where I celebrated life and didn’t work at all. This dance is a work in progress for me.

Since we know human development is about more than tasks or to do lists, I wanted to expand my thinking and reflect on what did I LEARN and UNDERSTAND in new ways?

• I began to expand my thinking that all conflict is personal and increased complexity requires us to think about how everything is connected, and how the parts of a system interact to make up the whole. A siloed approach where we try to solve one issue, without understanding the whole and the relationships between parts is like playing wackamole.
• Worldview and cultural context changes everything. Not just how we see the world and each other, but also how we see and solve conflict, how we interact effectively and meaningfully and how we make change together. It also means there are things we don’t know that we don’t know, and assumptions and biases we need to do the hard work to uncover.
• Sometimes people create stories about you or others that are grounded in their own fears, biases and perceptions, rather than reality, and these stories can impact you personally and the space you work in, even when they aren’t true.
• This work is hard. We need to care for our tender aching hearts, we need time out to grieve, recover, and refill our wells. If we don’t do that we become a little less than our best, a little smaller, with less capacity to meet the world where it needs us to be.
• There is just as much opportunity in these wild, chaotic, complex messy times we are in as there is challenge. This gives me hope and optimism.
• People can be nasty, unpleasant, mean and a pain in the ass. And they are also amazing, wonderful, kind, loving, and beautiful. Both things can be true.
• Organizations can say they have a set of values they operate by, but what really matters is how they act and interact with their stakeholders and community. That says way more about what they stand for than anything else.
• Each of these reflections connects to a situation, moment or learning where I really stretched, didn’t have the answers, made mistakes and learned so much.

Another element of growing and changing is to stand firmly in what was hard, challenging, painful or difficult in order to harvest the learnings and meaning in these moments. At the same time, celebrating the moments of joy, gratitude and possibility are just as important. With brains that are hardwired to pay attention to the negative to keep us safe, it really matters that we consciously choose to pay attention to the positive when it happens. What did I feel this year and what meaning did those feelings reveal for me?

• I had a major health scare, and I had to name and lean in to the fear and anxiety in order to find a way through. That sucked. It also allowed me to feel deeply grateful, a reminder that life is sweet and precious and to put energy into what matters most.
• I played, danced, laughed, celebrated, explored and travelled more this year than I have since before the pandemic. It was beautiful, joyful and amazing. I want more of that in my life.
• At the same time, I experienced some significant mental health challenges, life transitions, and just challenging days and weeks. I stretched my own resilience too thin and I want to learn from these moments and carry them forward, remembering what NOT to do.
• I experienced rejection a couple times, when my gifts and talents were not chosen, or where I really deeply wanted something and it didn’t happen. And that’s OK. I can feel the pain and tenderness of those moments and still trust life.
• I asked for help more this year than I have in the past and it was scary and vulnerable, and I’m grateful for those friends and family who saw me and were there for me. It’s a good reminder that our relationships are not only about giving to others, but about being able to receive as well.

If you want to move consciously and thoughtfully into 2024, here are some questions to help you end this year and plan the next one. Your answers might be like mine, or wildly different. What matters is taking the time to harvest all the goodness life has to offer you. I hope this helps you process and make sense of where you have been and what is emerging in your future.

• What did you DO in 2023?
• What did you LEARN or UNDERSTAND in new ways?
• What emotions did you experience and what meaning and insight did they point you to?
• What stretched or grew you (even if it might have been uncomfortable)?
• What are you still struggling with, challenged by or not sure you can leave behind?
• What are you grateful for?
• What set your soul and heart on fire?
• What was hard, challenging and/or just plain hurt?
• What was the most memorable moment of the year?
• What was the best decision you made this year?
• What are you more mindful of or aware of now?
• What do you need to let go of before you can start 2024?
• What do you want more of or less of in your life in 2024?
• Who are the people and what are the places that will serve your wellbeing in 2024?
• How do you want to feel in 2024?

Where do you want to grow and stretch in 2024? What is calling to you? What are you yearning for?