The financial year end and beginning is a big event and a total non-event at the same time. Really it means nothing – the work rolls on, the role stays the same, the team dynamics and culture persist, yet in many ways it’s a great opportunity to reset and restart.
Not necessarily from a task perspective, but we can totally chose what we carryover personally – in terms of our outlook, behaviours, approach to our colleagues and seniors. It’s a great opportunity to really consider what we want to take forward and what we should and can leave behind.
A time to reflect on what the past year has taught us – about ourselves, about our personal and collective ability to deliver on our goals for the greater and mutual benefit of the organisation and it's customers. It is all too easy when we are busy and under pressure to just knuckle down and get tunnel visioned to the current outcome/task/to do list item. We can lose track of the why – and therefore undermine the very benefits we were aiming to realise.
At this time of year we have to state/ restate our collective why’s… It may be your company's annual cycle to ask for funding, explain your resource model, communicate your plans and define your outcomes and objectives; it’s the perfect opportunity (despite how busy we are) to step back and remind ourselves why we’re doing this at all (professionally and personally).
At the same time, whilst we are restating our why, we can reflect on how we’ve done in the past year, what can we learn from how we went about moving closer to those why’s – were we consistent in our approaches – did we adapt to changes, did we stand our ground on the aspects that we felt were fundamental, did we bring others with us on the journey, did we educate them to stand in the new ground alone? How did we deal with frustrations and setbacks? Did we show it, did we take it out on others? Did we treat others as we’d like to be treated?
All in all, did we do ourselves proud??
All of us should (if we’re being really honest) be able to identify areas we did and areas we didn’t…
“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful” – Margaret J Wheatley
Being open and honest with ourselves is hard, often because we try to answer with our conscious mind, whilst we act based on our subconscious patterns, so we have to connect the two when we want to be honest with ourselves.
So for the interactive part of this blog, we are going to head into the subconscious mind by asking some self-reflective questions
A reminder, your subconscious mind is where your self-image is stored. All of your attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and values are stored deep in your subconscious as habit loops of neurons, driving your behaviour and forming the core of who you are. (I repeat this in every blog as we know one of the very few ways to get knowledge and habits in is repetition!)
It’s really hard to take a look into our subconscious as we think with our conscious mind. We talk with our conscious but act from our sub-conscious. So when looking at the questions below it’s important to focus on previous examples of what you did, not what you think you would do. Only our actions reflect our true attitudes, beliefs etc.
So when reading through these questions, take your time..
You may need to do go through quite a few questions to feel comfortable to be really honest with yourself, but it’s worth the effort it takes to learn about yourself. Reflecting like this can really help with you gain greater self-awareness, which may just help you find valuable information on how to make FY21/22 different in many small ways to FY20/21.
“We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” – John Dewey
Self-reflection Exercise
Listed below are 28 questions (yes I know that sounds a lot) to help you self-reflect honestly and safely:
1. Am I using my time wisely?
2. Am I taking anything for granted?
3. Am I employing a healthy perspective?
4. Am I acting and operating true to myself?
5. Am I waking up in the morning ready to take on the day?
6. Am I thinking negative thoughts before I fall asleep?
7. Am I putting enough effort into my professional relationships?
8. Am I treating my colleagues with respect?
9. Am I sharing consistently with transparency, integrity and clarity?
10. Am I letting matters that are out of my control stress me out?
11. Am I achieving the goals that I’ve set for myself?
12. What worries me most about the future?
13. What am I really scared of?
14. Am I holding on to something I need to let go of?
15. Have I done anything lately that’s worth remembering?
16. Have I made someone smile today?
17. What have I given up on?
18. When did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?
19. Who has had the greatest impact on my working life in the past year?
20. Which is worse: failing or never trying?
21. What’s the one thing I’d like others to say about me at the end of this year?
22. Does it really matter what others think about me?
23. When all is said and done, what will I have said more than I’ve done?
24. Name a compassionate way you’ve supported a work colleague recently. Then, write down how you can do the same for yourself?
25. Name about a time in the last year when your work felt real, necessary and satisfying to you?
26. What can you learn from your biggest mistakes of the past 12 months?
27. I feel most energized when . . .
28. How is the professional you, different from the personal you? And is that a line you want to keep?
As a response to ruminating on these questions answer one final one:
What do I want to change about myself?
This, if you do it properly, is an intense process – so we’ll take a pause here.
And next time we’ll pick up on what to do with the what insight about yourself this process gives you.
I really hope that you find some golden nuggets of introspective insight – that we can then incorporate into how you take on work in the next financial year
“Reflection. Looking back so that the view looking forward is even clearer” - unknown
Until next week…
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