29. Reflecting Back on 2021

Hi everyone, I’m Saralyn Hodgkin. And this is the podcast to practice your leadership.

Hi, all. So here we are in a moment of reflecting, reflecting back to 2021, and reflecting forward to 2022. What I want to take you through is this two parter of how can we approach a reflective process that allows us to reflect back on 2021 in a way that doesn’t have a bunch of judgment or shame or, no, it has a place of curiosity to see what the highlights and the significant happenings have been for you, and how the implications from that can help you land like, now, what am I taking away from 2021. And then moving into a reflect forward stance of okay, now that I’ve looked at 2021, and I’ve gleaned some of those learnings, what do I see as I move into 2022? What’s the structured conversation or reflective prompts I can have to be able to land, dream up, reflect into 2022.

And we’ll get into that here in this two part series. I’ve had conversations with many who ask Saralyn, what’s your process for reflecting either for a significant project, or for a significant time? Or just some kind of inflection point? And so I find myself here in December getting a lot of those kinds of questions right now, so I thought I’d offer this out. So reflecting back on 2021 is the theme here all. And here’s what I do, hopefully, it’s helpful for you.

If you get out your tools of your trade, is it a online journaling app, is it a Google Docs, is it a gorgeous sketchbook and markers, whatever it might be for you. Or, when you go on to holonleadership.org/podcast, you can find this podcast, and there should be a button there, where you can sign up to the newsletter, and you get this worksheet that goes along with this podcast directly. So it might be just a bit easier to have have a visual of what I’m talking through, as you start to take on these prompts for your own reflective work.

So the first markings here is well, what happened? What happened over 2021 for you? And some prompts here, you know, maybe you go and you look at your journals, or you look at your calendar, or even writing diaries, or you’re chatting with your friends or your colleagues. I mean, whatever your process is to, to have a remembering of 2021. What is it that happened? What is your highlight reel? What are significant highlights from 2021? This isn’t a process here in this first part to get everything right, or correct, or completely accurate. This is a creative moment to say yeah, what stuck. When I look back at 2021, what happened?

And it might even come out in themes. It might be what happened for me, what happened for me personally, it might be what happened for this piece of work that is significant to me. It might even come out as what happened in my family. What happened in my community, there are different themes that you may pull out, and you don’t have to do just one, it might be what happened over 2021 for my family, for me, for this significant piece of work, you might take all those threads and just do one after the other. One of the threads that I pull is what happened in my inner self. What happened for me mentally, physically, spiritually, those elements that are important to me. What, what happened in those threads for me, and in my inner self development?

For me, one of the questions I add to this is what happened for me, and why? What was the context that brought that there? This might take a level deeper, right? Oh, this significant thing happened in July. What was the context that brought that here? Because we’re not trying to judge or play the most truthful story. We’re trying to have a moment of honouring what happened and what was the context of which that happened? What are the highlights that have stuck for me to try and craft? Just a remembering and an honouring of 2021 and all of its glory, in all of its challenges, in all of its faces and lenses. So there’s your first part right? What are some significant happenings? What are some significant happenings? For this year in these different threads? What are some highlight reels that I want to capture here? So there’s your first part, what happened?

Second part, starts to dive into that curl I just mentioned, which is so what? What are the implications of that? So why does this matter to me? If these are the things that I’ve tracked, these are the significant happenings, these are my highlight reels. Why do I care? What are the implications that that’s had on my leadership? What are the implications that that’s had on my goals? What are the implications that that has had on my family? What are the implications that that has had on the various threads of my community? What are the ripples that have happened out of those things? Maybe there, you’re looking at your highlight reel, and these have been significant sort of breakthrough, you know, big rocks dropped in the water, big splashes, and what are the ripples? What are the implications out of that, that I’ve noticed?

This is a moment for you to be creative, this is a moment for you to maybe write in prose, maybe use imagery and draw things out, maybe just use different key words. That the point of this here is the so whatness of it, is what the process of using this had value in my life, it is not a moment of judgment, it is not, this was really good, and this was really bad. That is not the purpose here. You can just take that shitting all over yourself out of the equation, you can take that judgment, it can just stay at the side for now. Thank you very much. This is a moment of you being curious. This is a moment of saying yeah, so why do I care about that? What were the implications of that happening? What was the context set up for that? The big question is, so what? So what that that happened in playing off of that in a non judgmental way? So we’ve got what’s happened for you over 2021? So what are the implications of that? Fantastic.

And then as you’re playing with all of that, and all of its different threads, here comes the last part in reflecting and it’s the big now what? Now, what does that mean for me? Now, what does that mean for my leadership? Now, what does that mean, for the commitments I want to start to hone in? What does that mean? Now what does that mean for the actions that I want to take? Now what does that mean for how I am gentle with myself? Now what does that mean for what I want to start dreaming up for 2022? What I want to start dreaming up into the next, whatever the next is, as you cross the threshold.

Here, you might play with writing down three commitments when you look back at what has happened and what the implications are, the so what’s of that are? What are you learning from that? Now, what does this mean for my learning, maybe you write an account of that learning, maybe it means writing down one significant action that you want to commit to. Maybe what it means, here are some threads, everybody, maybe what it means are the now whats of what I want to do differently, how I want to be differently. What I want to let go of now, what I want to unlearn.

Now, those may be four threads that work for you, not just what I want to do more of right, always chasing the more the productive output, reimagining that productivity right? Now, what does this mean for how I be? For what I let go? For what I learned? Here it is all, when we reflect back for 2021. What significantly happened for you using what kind of threads? Looking at that highlight reel? What are the implications? The so whats around what happened for you? And now what does that mean for you?

Thanks all, I’m Saralyn. You can find me at holonleadership.org. I walk alongside you as you practice your leadership.