As I sit here, early in the year, I think about how valuable it is to look back a bit – ponder what happened last year, note the successes, the challenges – and what I can learn from it all.
It’s soooo easy to just leap into the new year without that moment of reflection, but it’s also a bit of waste then, everything that’s happened.
I choose to look at my life like a project, as a project (correctly done that is!) is reviewed evaluated, so that the next project can benefit from the learnings, and the one after that and the one after that…..
And surely our lives are more important that an old project – it’s our life project after all!
Let me share one of my biggest learnings from last year – which I’m sure will help me have a better 2010.
During Q1 last year we, the company (I run my own business), had less to do than normal. We could feel the financial crisis, everything sort of stopped for a bit, there was a sense of cautiousness. It felt strange and a bit scary, but has in fact ended up being a fantastic experience – it made us think long and hard at what we do, what we offer our clients, what people really need. And we have as a result of this created a number of new exciting products and services! Watch this space….
And that probably never would have happened if we had been as busy as normal, because then we would have just continued running (in the same tracks)! As we then did for most of the rest of the year:-).
So my big learning for 2010 is to make time for reflection now and then – to really ask the question “are we doing the right things”?, “are we investing our time wisely”? (which is equally relevant for my life as a whole as my business). This now gets blocked-out time in my diary.
So place yourself on the windowsill, sit down at your desk, pull up a chair at your favourite café – wherever you feel comfortable, calm and creative – and take a look at the year that’s just passed.
What worked well? How can you use that for 2010? What successes can you repeat?
What didn’t work so well? And what was good with that – ie what you can you learn from that? And how can you use that for 2010?