REFLECTION FOR 2021
Jayce Tham
Connecting Businesses with freelance creative resources ? Chief Businesswoman at CreativesAtWork Pte Ltd
As the year is coming to a close, it’s time for a little self reflection to recap everything that’s happened during the year. And as I reflect back on the years, I realise that I usually fail to stick to my plan made at the beginning of the year. I’m not quite sure if this happened to you too, but I’ve been thinking if there’s a better approach to start off a new year instead of the usual resolutions made to welcome the new year.
It’s been almost 3 years since the Covid-19 pandemic shook the world, and though we thought that it would have been over by now, reality is that there’s still no end in sight, especially with the emergence of new variants like the delta variant or the infamous omicron variant now coming out of the woodworks. Covid is simply very resilient as it adapts to all the measures we come up with just to survive.?
If I learnt anything throughout this whole time, it’s that you need to stay kind to yourself and to those around you because for one thing, we simply cannot control what will happen to us or those around us, but there’s one thing we can control, and that’s our reactions in response to those incidents.?
I’ve also realized that we don’t usually follow our plans, think about it, how many of us had made a new year’s resolution last year and how many of us had followed it? Although we usually don’t end up following our plans, we should still try to make plans for the future that lets us grow into a better version of ourselves. So for this year, instead of the usual resolution, I have decided to do the following:
1. Re-frame myself and reimagine what I want to be
For me, covid taught me that I should never take status quo for granted. In fact, the status quo is not an option, because if we don’t continue to improve ourselves, what we end up doing is effectively putting ourselves out of business. With that in mind, I’ll reframe myself, reflect, and ask myself, what are the accomplishments that would make me feel empowered and proud? And if I can live my life on my own terms, what would that be like? And what would I be doing? Being Happy is one main considerations that I would use to measure my success.
2. Take action
Reflecting is one thing, but if there’s no action placed behind it then it won’t mean anything. That’s why once I’m done reflecting and reframing myself, I’ll will break down what I want to do into steps and start working on the small steps that will eventually and hopefully, lead me to what I want to do, the person I want to be for 2022 and beyond.?
I will then identify which of these points are the low hanging fruit for action. Which are the ones that I can work on first? Is it to take the SEO Optimisation course that I’ve always wanted to do but have put off for so long? Is it to start blogging for my website? Deciding on which action to take is important to do because not only does it set the course for your actions in the near future, but it also serves as a crucial starting point that you would never get to unless you make a decision.?
3. Find my community
Look for my tribe. Who would you like to talk to? Who would you like to work with? These are the things that you need to keep in mind if you’re serious about executing your plans to the best of your ability because remember, anything that you told others about, you’ll need to actually do, not only because it reflects on who you are, but also because those people who you told your plans to will constantly remind you to put action into words, they keep you accountable.?Finding the right support community will be important to help me put my action in motion.
Once you find your tribe, you can gain yet another advantage that you would never have had if you just worked on it alone; you can brainstorm on projects together. Why is this important? Well, sometimes when we work on our own, we tend to stop doing something once we hit a roadblock. Whether it be a problem that we can’t find a solution to, or it may be something else entirely. But if there’s another person who we can throw our ideas to and someone who could help us view our problems from another perspective, then we will most likely find a solution, and even if we don’t, at the very least we can see that there’s always another route to get somewhere.?
2021 is coming to a close in just a few days, and with Covid seemingly here to stay, it’s best for us to do what the virus has been doing all this time, adapt and survive. Reframe our lives, reflect on our achievements, decide on an action, find a tribe, because if we don’t do that, then there’s no way that our plans will bear any fruit in the future.?
I wish you all the best for 2022! Do stay in touch!