by Kerry Taylor
Wow! Another year has gone by, that was pretty damn quick! With the ending of one comes the beginning of another. This time of year brings with it a lot of excitement of what potentially could be on the horizon in the upcoming year. But before we move forward a great exercise to do, and should be mandatory for all of us, is to do some sort of reflection. A lot of times we go, go, go and look for what's next and never take the time to realize where we've been and how far we've come in life, work, professional career, relationship, health, spiritually, the list can go on. Unfortunately, I do not do this enough for myself because the competitor in me just wants to keep pushing forward, but I try to make it a point more so than I have in the past to do it more often. What I would like to do in this series is give you some tools and ideas on how you can reflect and then also plan ahead to move the needle in your life forward!
I know some may be saying, "Reflection, I looked back at this year and it sucked the...," or "This year was amazing." Are you being truly honest with yourself or are you letting a recent event cloud your view of your year? Here are a few questions to ask yourself to get those juices flowing. Grab a quiet area or somewhere you can think and relax a bit.
1. Where did you succeed? What wins did you have, big or small? The small ones sometimes can create the biggest impact.
2. Where did you come up short? Being honest about this one is a tough thing to do but it is the reality of what we need to do to grow. Anything can fall in this category. Maybe you didn't get to something, maybe something is still in the process and not completed.
3. What will you try to do differently? The key word in that sentence is "YOU." As I always try to express to everyone, you can control a lot more than we think. It's easy for us to blame others, but no one has the power of you. You have the power to do what you want. You may need someone's help, but it's up to you.
4. What type of book, movie or word would you use to describe your last year of life to be? Choosing something like this is a more exciting way to look back at your year and will give you something to attach it to.
5. What made you happy? What made you sad? What did you enjoy the most? What do you need to do more of? Less of? What impacted you the most last year? How did you handle it? Are there people you need to be around more?
Now was that really that bad? Probably not as bad as you first thought. Things are never as bad as we think but we tend to dwell on the negative and let it overcome our successes. This is also something that I'm guilty of sometimes and as always, working on being better at it. So now that you have reflected, what do you do? Tune in next time for your next set of exercises to plan out a year that truly moves your needle in life. Until then, continue to live a life one degree above the rest!