Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta
The end of every quarter is a super time to look back and reflect on how things went and plan for the quarter ahead.
Personal strategy is all about creating an amazing, fulfilled, purposeful and meaningful life yet it is only as good as the reflection you do and the action you take as a result.
Your quarterly review is a deep dive into the progress of your goals which is way more than we see daily, weekly and monthly. As humans we are wired to perform better when we are making progress which is why reflection is so important. You may not think you are making progress yet you are probably making way more progress than you think.
On reflection, this will become very clear!
First let’s start with why your quarterly review is important.
Simon Sinek is famous for his brilliant TED Talk ‘How great leaders inspire action’ with over 13 million views on YouTube. In this video, Simon talks about the importance of knowing your ‘why’ in terms of everything you do.
When it comes to everything in your life, your why is the first step to success.
Here are 3 reasons why your quarterly review deserves to be your priority,
- It slows you down and gives you time to think
We live in an extremely fast paced world where we seem to be so busy all the time.
Reflection of any kind allows us to be still in the present moment and to give the necessary time and space required to learn from the past.
Not to dwell on or judge the past, but to take the learnings from it and move forward with more knowledge, focus, intention, purpose, motivation & understanding of what our priorities are.
Do you give yourself the gift of sufficient time & space to reflect regularly and learn from reflection?
- It allows you to celebrate your success and take action to create more
We make progress in our lives every day yet we are sometimes so busy getting things done that we don’t see all of our wins and successes.
Reflecting on the past 3 months highlights all the amazing wins and successes you have every single day of which we all have so many.
When we understand what contributes to our success, we can replicate and build on this to bring more success.
Do you celebrate your wins or do you move through life at the speed of light, not looking back to acknowledge and celebrate your success?
- It allows you to acknowledge challenges and transform them into success
Challenges are a normal part of life.
Sometimes we don’t want to face our challenges yet it is from these challenges that we can grow the most as human beings.
When we reflect on our challenges we can learn from them and take action to avoid them in the future. Avoiding our challenges in the future also gives us space to turn our challenges into opportunities for success.
Do you acknowledge your challenges, learn from them and take action to turn them into opportunities for success?
- We spend much time learning from the outside world yet our greatest learnings happen when we take notice of and reflect on our own lives.
- Nothing will teach you more than your own life, isn’t that worth giving some precious time to?
Here are the four steps to carry our your quarterly review,
Step 1: Grab a notebook and pen
Henriette Anne Klauser’s book Write it down, Make it Happen outlines the science behind physically writing down your goals, giving them a higher chance of success.
One of the most powerful ways to track your goals and reflect on them is daily journalling. If you have been journaling over the past three months, your journal will be an invaluable source of learning.
I use Moleskine journals for writing and reflecting on goals. Moleskine journals are beautiful, hard wearing and in my humble opinion the best journals in the world!
If someone were to ask me where to start with any change in their life I would say buy a nice notebook and write down your goals, it’s so simple yet so effective.
I also use the following online tools yet pen and paper will always be my favourite.
✅ The Asana App is super easy to use, is highly organised and is an excellent project management tool.
✅ All of the Google Suite tools (Docs, Sheets & Slides) are easy to use and all connect seamlessly.
Step 2: Categorise the areas of your life
Life can be very busy and so it’s important that your goals have clear and defined categories in which to sit, this also makes reflection so much easier.
I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Fun/Experiences, Environment & Contribution, you can use these or create categories of your own.
Step 3: Reflect and learn
Reflection and learning can go as deep as you want to go, below are a list of simple questions if you are just starting out with reflection.
Reflection question 1: What went well over the past 3 months?
There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day, sometimes it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find them, you may see that life goes your way more than you may realise.
Below are examples of questions that will reflect on what went well for you over the past 3 months. Take time to think deeply about the answers, document what comes to mind and enjoy the process.
Over the past 3 months,
- What did you do that you enjoyed?
- What worked out how you wanted?
- What brought you joy and happiness?
- How did you bring success into your life?
- Where did you spend your time that brought you joy?
- When were you at your happiest over the past 3 months?
Reflection question 2: What didn’t go well over the past 3 months?
Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand, no human life is devoid of either.
There is no such thing as the perfect life that is happy all the time, however there is a level of contentment and inner peace that can be reached by understanding what takes our joy away and working to understand, avoid and eliminate this.
Our challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.
Below are examples of questions that reflect on what didn’t go well for you over the past 3 months. Take time to think deeply about the answers, document what comes to mind and enjoy the process.
Over the past 3 months,
- What didn’t work how you wanted?
- What happened that you didn’t enjoy?
- What challenges did you experience?
- How did you deal with these challenges?
- Where did you spend your time that didn’t bring you joy?
- When were you at your unhappiest over the past 3 months?
Reflection question 3: What did you learn in each area of your life?
The only way we evolve as humans is by learning and by using these learnings to take action that propels us forward.
The below questions on each category in the wheel of life will support you to turn your learnings into action.
Sense of Self: What did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Have you dedicated time to personal development? What did you learn about your relationship with yourself, has your relationship with yourself improved or disimproved?
Relationships: What did you learn about your relationship with others, has your relationship with others improved or disimproved? Are there relationships you want but don’t have? Are there relationships you have but don’t want?
Health: What did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health? Did you give sufficient time to your health? Did your health improve? Did your health disimprove?
Work: What did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Has your work moved forward and improved? Has your work moved backward and disimproved? Is your work bringing you joy and peace or misery and stress?
Finance: What did you learn about personal finance? Did your personal finances improve? Did your personal finances disimprove? Did your mindset around finance and abundance improve?
Experiences/Fun: Did you have fun and enjoyable experiences over the past 3 months? What experiences did you enjoy? What experiences did you not enjoy? How can you bring more fun island enjoyable experiences into your life?
Environment: What did you learn about your environment? Did your environment improve? For me environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.
Contribution: What did you learn about contribution? Did you make the world a better place by contributing your time, money or skills? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.
⭐️ No matter how the past 3 months went for you, know that you are worth celebrating.
⭐️ Even just being here is reason enough to celebrate, everything on top of that is a bonus.
Wishing you health and happiness as you look back at the past 3 months and look forward to the next 3 months.
I write a weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and I’ll see you there 😊
Thanks for reading 🙏
Siobhain
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