Over the next few weeks, I’ll be going through my process of reflection to close out the year.
The way I like to reflect is through journaling. By writing out my thoughts on what has transpired over the previous 12 months, I feel more connected with my results, and the areas that I’d like to uplevel become very clear.
The process that I like to use is to look at each area of my life, and give myself a score. I also like to identify whether I feel like I’m improving in that area or declining in terms of quality.
Then I just write. I write down whatever I’m thinking. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense. I ask myself questions like- how do I feel about this area of my life? what have I tried in terms of making improvements? how did that go? why do you think you were successful/unsuccessful? what would success look like in this area?
The areas that I’ll be evaluating this year are:
– Health and Fitness
– Lifelong Learning
– Emotional Intelligence
– Character
– Relationships and Parenting
– Finances
– Career and Business
– What Do I Really Want?
Each one of these areas will result in 5-10 pages of journaling. It’s amazing what comes out if you just allow yourself to write whatever is coming into your brain. No editing. Just get it down on the paper.
By doing this, I’m usually able to identify one or two goals that if I upleveled in that area, the rest of the areas of my life would also be significantly improved.
In our day to day we don’t often allow ourselves the time to do this type of reflection. But do you see how helpful this could be to do more often? And not just on evaluating areas of your life, but really reflecting on how things are going at work? What lessons have you learned? How do they apply to the next project?
I’d love to hear your process for reflection, if you have one! If not, give this process a shot!