The end of the year brings about many rituals for us all. Beyond the traditional rituals that the holiday season brings, the ritual of “mindful reflection” is a critical one to observe. No matter who you are, the exercise of reflecting allows you to celebrate successes, learn from disappointments, and help determine your direction for the new year.
The term reflection comes from the Latin word, ‘reflectere’ — meaning “to bend back.” This idea of ‘bending back’ to see what we have done this year will help bridge the gap between our experiences and the lessons we need to learn from them. These lessons from the past can only make us better if we choose to apply them in the future.
The steps below will guide you through a year-end reflective process.
Step 1: List all of the roles you play in your life. Examples could be student, friend, son/daughter, employee, volunteer, citizen, parent, co-worker, parishioner, etc.
Step 2: After identifying each role, rate how effectively you fulfilled them. Score yourself between 1(low) to 10 (high).
Step 3: After you rate each of the identified roles, begin to identify what made you score them the way you did. What accomplishments did you have in that role over the last year? What disappointments did you encounter? This step is critical, because it forces you to think about the way you think about your life.
Step 4: When you have interpreted your reason(s), begin to identify the lessons you learned this year within each role. These lessons can become your guidelines for the new year. Write down at least three lessons that you’d like to take into the next year.
Now that you have written lessons for the next year, begin to identify how these lessons will influence your life in a positive way. This exercise helps to illustrate how our past can influence our future through mindful reflection. Good luck!
Most of the magazines that end up on my desk live a day-or-two stacked out-of-the-way before being placed in the “round-file.” However, The George Lucas Foundation’s Edutopia is one of the lucky few that I read from cover-to-cover. This month there were two incredibly appropriate articles for the readers of this blog, and I thought I would share them with you.
How many times have you shared a great idea with someone, only to be told it would never work? Well, I stumbled on some interesting quotes that I hope will inspire you to continue your quest to do new things that will make a positive difference in our world.
Poor communication is bad for your health. Not only does poor communication affect the health of many teams, it also contributes to the stress of millions of Americans. Whether you are a child learning to find the right words to express emotion, a student giving a class speech, or a teacher giving a co-worker feedback, the inability to communicate effectively can generate unhealthy levels of stress. To combat the stress related to poor communication we recommend the following tips for you and your teams.
By: Mike Martin
