When your reflection becomes a routine, it’s time to recalibrate
I am grateful for the influence of my peers and colleagues on the topic of weekly and monthly reflections. It has truly helped me fully understand the little wins and setbacks that I may forget about at the end of a busy week or month.
Over the past few Monday morning weekly reflection periods, I noticed the action felt more like a routine activity or task to check off my Monday to-do list than a true reflection. Starting in March of 2017, I developed a pattern of writing weekly reviews every Monday morning which was a positive step, just like my daily morning routine of waking up at 5 am to exercise. In thinking about my exercise routine, I realized that I always make sure to change up the cardio aspect as well as the physical aspect (weights) so I do not plateau. This is a lesson from both high school and collegiate athletics but for some reason, it has not always carried over to other aspects of my life.
If I want my reflections to truly allow me to grow and benefit than I cannot plateau and this has me shifting my approach. I needed to go back to one of the first articles I read on the topic: The benefits of writing your own weekly, monthly, and annual reviews, by Belle Cooper to gain some new inspiration. Ironically, I keep this article pinned at the top of my google doc; however, when you are 130+ pages into the doc, you rarely see the first page. I needed to go back and see why I started along with how I started.
“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.” John Dewey
The best part of this shift is that it feels fresh and it feels like I am just starting the reflection process all over again. By detaching and looking at what I was doing on Monday morning, it became clear that I had shifted from a reflection to generating an action plan for the week. While I did summarize the previous week, much of the writing included reviewing the calendar for the week ahead, identifying tasks for the week, reviewing delegated tasks and setting goals for the week ahead. I still believe it is important for me to take those steps; however, I needed to upgrade the reflection portion of that Monday morning writing session. I did this by adding a few new questions to answer after I summarize the previous week.
Proud Accomplishments from last week?
What went well last week?
What could improve overall?
What is the biggest lesson from last week?
I am still keeping the other aspects of the weekly review that do have me planning ahead, reviewing the calendar, etc but my reflection is stronger and more powerful because of these additional questions.
Similar to updating my weekly reviews with new questions, I also added updates to monthly reviews:
Choose a theme or emotion to sum up the month
Drill down after the summary of all that happened and answer these 3 questions:
What was my biggest personal milestone?
What was my biggest professional accomplishment?
What was the most valuable lesson learned?
These additions have a more focused approach to my reflections and that will allow for greater growth. The weekly questions force me to truly reflect as you can not just dot down answers to those questions. I need to push myself as I consider where I need to improve and what lesson I am taking with me moving forward. The same can be said for the monthly reviews as the most valuable lessons may show a theme from across the month or they may vary depending on what was happening in my life both personally and professionally. This has me excited as I know it will result in me being a better leader, teammate, husband and father. It has me feeling true ownership over my life.
Each of us needs to find our path to successful reflection and ownership of our life. We are responsible for our actions and decisions every day. If we simply float from day to day and do not stop to consider what is happening, we are doomed to the path someone else paved for us. If you have your own approach and want to share it, I would love to hear about; if you want to try my new approach and have feedback, I would love to hear about that too!
