30. Reflecting Forward to 2022

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

Okay all, maybe you’ve done part one in reflecting back in 2021 through this podcast series, or maybe you’ve done it on your own. But in some way, shape, or form, you’ve reflected back into 2021 and gleaned sort of what’s happened for you, and what the learnings and implications have been, and what the context has been in what has happened, right? And what you’re holding and now what that means for you. And here in the second part, we’ll move into reflecting forward into 2022. When you look back and reflect on what has been, in what you want to carry forward and not, right? How do we move all that, all that juicy intelligence and creativity into 2022, as you dream up what 2022 looks like for you? As we dream up reflecting forward? Let’s do that.

Now in this, in the second part of the series you’ve done some work to reflect back into 2021, you’ve learned so much, you’ve had highlights over 2021, you’ve had things that have just kind of stuck, and they’ve been significant, and you’re learning from them, you’re you’re finding ways that that learning is coming into yourself, in ways where you’re trying to unlearn, let go, find ways and how you want to be, of course. What it means for you practicing your leadership, how you’re showing up in your communities. And, of course, where my head goes is what does this mean as I dream up 2022? As I reflect forward into 2022, what’s a structured conversation? What are reflective prompts that I can use as I start dreaming up what 2022 might be for me, that’s where my head goes.

And so here’s an offering using something called the adaptive cycle. Others call it panarchy cycle, eco cycle, sideways infinity loop. I’m sure there’s 20 other words, all means the same thing of what I’m using here. And I invite you to use your tools of choice. For me, it’s usually Paper Mate fine tip colourful markers and a sketchbook. And you sit down and you draw a sideways infinity loop or figure eight. Not too hard, right? And up in the upper right corner, you’ll write the word conservation. And then below that, you’ll write creative destruction. And in the upper left as you’re looking at the page, you’ll write the word germination. And below that you write the word growth. And I’ll refer to those sort of quadrants, if you will. And here, as for me, when I’m reflecting forward, I use this adaptive cycle to say, how am I adapting myself? My leadership, my norms, my family? There’s lots of different lenses you can use here, how am I adapting myself to take what I’ve learned from 2021, and call forth a 2022, with intention, with intention?

And all, if you sign up to the newsletter, you can get a worksheet where you can visually see what I’m, what I’m walking through here. And so the first question I asked myself, especially if I’m looking at my leadership practices is, what do I want to conserve? In how I lead? In the practices I use in my leadership? What do I want to conserve? What do I want to maintain in how I am? What do I want to maintain from 2021 that’s worked for me? What do I want to nourish further so that I can conserve and grow that even deeper and have deeper roots? In those practices what patterns are really serving me, right, that are really working for me? And that I want to keep? What are those patterns? Write those down, right?

Some of those prompts really help you to start writing those down. Yeah, what I want to maintain in my leadership practice is this, but what I really want to nourish is that. These are some patterns that I’ve been developing, and that really are, they hold some really deep roots. I want to keep those patterns. That’s what you’re writing down up in that quadrant. And then you’re coming around that side of the figure eight, you’re starting to wonder what I wrote down. Am I avoiding some things here that might be uncomfortable? Am I being rigid about stuff that I don’t want to let go? That I think I want to conserve or that I’m not even seeing? Maybe there’s some blind spots.

Because as you come down and around, you come into that creative destruction section. And here are the questions, are in my leadership, what do I want to start saying no to? No, that’s not who I want to be. No, that’s not how I want to lead. Nope, that’s not how I want to practice or show up. In my leadership practice here are things that I need to unlearn. I want to unlearn some of these ways that I have templated in me, no judgement, right? Curiosity is the stance here, everybody.

Here’s what I want to release, I want to let this stuff go. What is it that I want to let go? What is it that I want to release? What do I want to throw in the compost pile here? What do I want to actively, consciously, creatively destroy, and it’s not throw it away, we’ve got a throw it away culture here that I live in. It’s not just toss it in the garbage. This part is work. Let’s just be clear, this part is work. When you compost things, you gotta give it attention, you gotta feed it so that it will break down. So you are actively, creatively destroying this, letting go and unlearning. What are the things that I want to focus on to unlearn? Let go, say no to?

Because when you come up and in that germination stage, when you start to let go of things and creatively destroy those things, what does it do? It creates space for what is possible. What seeds do you now want to start sprinkling? What do you want to sow? What do you want to embrace? What do you want to see germinating? Where? And how do you cultivate the resilience for those seeds to start to take their place in the soil, of your leadership practices, you start to play with that. This place is definitely of curiosity as a stance here, but here it is, where it’s like, well, maybe this, maybe a little bit of that – you get to choose. And it’s not that you’re going to be double down in here, in spending all this energy on all of them. Just what, what are little flirts that you want to play with? Seeds you want to throw on the ground, just to see where they go?

Doesn’t mean you’re going to keep them forever. Some of these seeds are going to take root and some of them aren’t. Oh, I just want to play with this a little bit. I want to, I want to just throw this down, see where it goes. And then as you come around the other side of that infinity loop, that figure eight, you might start playing with yourself. Hold on, where am I a bit fearful? Did I throw seeds down? Or was I too fearful in throwing some of those seeds down? Where might I get stuck in some of these seeds holding me back, pushing me forward, just getting stuck, right? Where am I, might I get a bit stuck on some of the possibility here? What will hold me back from possibility, from transformation here? Just places of curiosity, as you move further into this growth stage, right?

The seeds that I’ve planted before, maybe I planted them in 2021. Maybe I planted them 10 years ago, I don’t know. What out of those seeds are roots that I want to grow deeper, what seeds have little greenery popping through the soil and are starting to grow? And I didn’t expect that one to be doing that, I’m going to pay more attention to that one, I’m going to give some fruit, fertilizer to that one, some food and nurture and cultivate that one. I’m going to tend to some of these elements a little bit more in 2022, I am going to make space for some of these seeds that are popping up through the soil, where the roots are growing deeper, and I see the potential here for growth.

I’m going to be quite conscious about some of these ones, because I’m going to see, here we go, we’re moving up towards conservation again. I want to see some of them that are starting to come into those elements that I want to maintain, that I want to nourish, that I want to conserve, right? So you can see where the pattern comes in here. And you do that once, I’m suggesting you do it for your leadership practices, but you do it twice. Okay, now that I’ve gone through this, this adaptive cycle, this figure eight once, what I wrote down and conservation, do I really mean that? Do I really mean that? Or do I want to throw some of it in creative destruction? Or is some of it still in the growth stage? Or I’m gonna rejig that a little bit. Did I miss something?

Hold on, you know what, I realized there is some stuff that I’m avoiding that I want to bring into creative destruction. Okay, I’m going to, I’m going to plot a little bit more in there, maybe a little bit more detail, a little bit more activation there. What is that telling me now about germination and the seeds I’m sowing? And what is that telling me about growth? So you want to go through this loop not once, maybe twice, maybe three times to be able to really give attention and allow the flow to surface some AHAs for you.

Now, in the centre might be your leadership practices. That’s what I’m suggesting here. But you might also do this for your family. What is our family? What does our family want to maintain and conserve as we move into 2022? What do we want to let go of? What new seeds do we want to sow and embrace? And how are we going to cultivate resilience for those seeds to find a little bit of germination? And what do we want to grow deeper as a family? Maybe you apply this to a significant piece of work or business you’re building, you can really put just about anything with intention in the centre of this.

I personally, when I move into 2022, I do this for my inner work, is what I put in the centre first, then the second thing I put in is my family, and, and what I want to see, and I will do it with my family. And then I will do it for my business, because it is part of my identity and who I am and how I want to lead. So I will do it in three different layers. And once I do it on my three different layers, I’ll stand back and say, Well, what’s overlapping and what’s not? What’s contradicting and what’s not? Not to necessarily change it, but to just be aware. So interesting to stand back.

So coming back into centre here, if you do this for your leadership practices, let’s just keep, keep going with that. Once you have this adaptive cycle in your flow, right, you’ve, you’ve played with it, one of the things that you want to step into is there might be a lot of words on the page, what you want to step back and into is say okay, can I write down an intention, one intention for 2022? What is that intention? And does it come as a statement? Or does it come as one word? But to simplify and just come back and say, okay, what does this say about my intention for 2022? And, number two, what is my stance? How do I hold myself with that intention? Is it a stance of power? Is it a stance of humbleness? What is your stance? These can act as touchstones. As you play with this moving into January, February, March, right?

You’re not going to be able to hold this whole thing in your head, oh, my goodness, this is a place of reflection, not let’s memorize this thesis. This is a place of reflection. And sometimes what’s really helpful is to take away an intention, maybe it comes to you as a mantra, right? Or a statement that you can use as a touchstone, and possibly a word. Some people also create an image that allows them to come in right to what the intention is that you’re taking away from what you’ve reflected on here.

So reflecting forward into 2022, what are you learning from 2021? That allows you to get quite intentional using this adaptive cycle around how you want to adapt and transform yourself intentionally to reflect forward until 2022? And what is the intention and the touchstones that will allow you to keep the sentiment and reflect back on it every month, every quarter, every season? To say, How am I dealing with that? And staying conscious with it? Okay, also, what have we done here? In this two part series, what we’ve done is we’ve reflected back into 2021, what’s happened for you, what have been the highlight reels, the significant happenings, writing down some of the implications of that for yourself and landing now what that means for you.

And part of that is you might decide how to land that, right? Maybe you, you do a piece of writing or you do some imagery or visuals or create a vision board or share it with, with someone so that you know you can have witness to it, right, of what your 2021 has been landing now, what that means for you, which has helped inform you coming into this piece around reflecting forward. What is 2022? As you dream up 2022, what does that look like for you? And how are you learning from and coming into the next cycle of your leadership? And using the adaptive cycle to be able to land some of that, prompt you with some of that, and a structured conversation and a flow of a conversation for you to start to create your intentions and your stance of what this means for what you want to maintain and release and germinate and grow for 2022.

Maybe a way that you land your 2022 intentions is with some kind of mantra, intention, statements, and touchstones. Maybe it is starting to craft goals for yourself out of what you plot here. There’s a lot of different ways you can take this and make artifacts that work for you. Can be as as creative as vision boards or, you know, as clear and rational as you know, a, a one page goal and key performance indicators for yourself. It could be anything. Work with artifacts that work for you, that allow you to simply be. And here’s the key, be intentional and conscious of what you’re trying to set up for 2022.

And being able to come back to those artifacts as you play with them, the goals and, and your intentions as you play and just experiment with those over the course of the year, and even touch into those goals at a rhythm that works for you. Every quarter ever season, whatever that looks like. Reflecting back, reflecting forward, consciously, lovingly, and with curiosity. Well done.

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