Reflection and Planning for 2023
Aoife O'Brien
Career & Culture Strategist for Commercial Leaders & Teams in FMCG, Tech & Telecoms | Keynote Speaker | Retain Top Talent | Happier at Work Framework | Imposter Syndrome Specialist | Happier at Work? Podcast (Top 2.5%)
It’s that time of year when people tend to look back on the past year and decide that the following year is going to be even better. Sometimes we fall into the trap of setting too ambitious goals and revert to our old ways by the end of January.
The reality is that January is an arbitrary date to be doing this. You can also do it in September (“back to school” vibes) or any other time throughout the year. The below will serve as a thought-provoking guide to help you make positive changes, no matter the time of year.
I plan to build a more consistent reflective practice into my work this coming year. This means reflecting at the end of the day, the week, the month and the quarter to ensure what I have set out to do is still relevant and to track my progress?
Mindset shifts that will help you to make positive changes
Focus on habits rather than goals - once we have achieved a goal, we tend to move on to the next thing. An example of this is what you do once you’ve run a marathon (goal achievement), versus running every day (habit formation)
Focus on identity - “I am the kind of person who…” (sticks to their habits, makes healthy food choices, goes running every day)
Allow yourself a “streak freeze” - I am borrowing this from DuoLingo which I use to practise Spanish every day. Just because you miss one day, doesn’t mean you should give up completely. Get back on the horse and continue your journey.
Check the direction, not the destination - just because you aren’t there “yet” doesn’t mean you’re failing. Check that you are moving in the right direction (a towards move) rather than away (and away move).
Detach from the outcome - just because you set out to achieve something doesn’t mean it’s necessarily going to happen. This relates to both focusing on the habits/ process, and also ensuring you are moving in the right direction. (“shoot for the moon, you may end up among the stars”)
Enjoy the process - it’s easier to do something we find fun. Are you enjoying what you’re doing, regardless of the outcome?
Commitment beats motivation - sometimes we won’t do something because we don’t feel motivated. Commit to something and do it because you’re committed, don’t quit because you don’t feel like doing? it.
Your downtime fuels your work time - focus on what you do outside of work as much as you focus on what you do at work. Does it make you happy, relaxed? Does it allow you to connect with others? Do you feel refreshed and invigorated?
Reflection questions to ask yourself
Below is a list of some useful questions to ask yourself when you want to reflect. Feel free to insert some specific time to the questions, eg today/ this week/ last year.
At the start of the day/ month/ year:
At the end of the day/ month/ year:
Useful Tools
A great tool I have started using to reflect on my year is The Year Compass. They have a print-at-home version, a digital version and I even managed to find a Notion version (more on Notion below). And it’s all FREE!
I have been aware of Notion for quite some time now, but wasn’t clear on the benefits of using Notion rather than Excel/Sheets for to-dos and tracking, Notes/ word for taking notes. I tried several productivity and task tracking apps previously (like ClickUp, AirTable, Trello, Asana). Notion seems to offer the best of everything. You can write notes, link things together to create databases, embed videos and other media. I am slowly moving all of my business across to Notion.
Remarkable is a tablet for note taking. While it doesn’t come cheap, I think it will be a game-changer for me. If you’re anything like me, you have a lot of floating papers around the place when you just couldn’t find your notebook or wanted to write something down quickly. So far, I have used the Remarkable for writing notes directly into goal-planning worksheets (rather than having to print them out and then filing them away somewhere). I plan to create reflection templates so I can reflect at the end of the day and week. I will also use it to write notes when recording the podcast and then convert them to text, making them easier to share with my team.
My 2022 reflection
Reflecting on 2022, I know I’m not the only one who found the year a challenge. I’ve spoken to several people about this and also seen some very honest posts on social media. I started the year recovering from Covid, and a planned trip to work remotely in Tenerife for a month.?
Despite a major (positive) change in my personal life, there were a lot of other things that didn’t quite go as I would have liked in 2022.
There were of course some really positive milestones this year. Here are just some of them:
?? Discovering the joy and challenge of working remotely in a hot and sunny climate (where I will be returning to imminently
?? Podcast reached over 60K downloads
?? I formed some amazing new business relationships
?? I was featured in several national media outlets like Newstalk, The Irish Times and the Sunday Times
?? I launched my Imposter to Empowered? ebook
? I lost sight of what was important, and found myself prioritising my work instead of my health. This really became apparent when I caught Covid for the second time. The mind monkeys were really screaming at me then and my inner critic was in her element.
? This year I am starting the year well with the #100daysofwalking challenge, the 30 Day Yoga challenge with Adriene, and I even ventured for a dip in the Irish Sea at the weekend. Yes it was as cold as it sounds.
? I got distracted by “shiny objects”, busywork and not giving my time to the right things that would move the dial for me.
? I have a solid plan in place and a clear idea of how the year will look already, with some room for flexibility. This has been helped by attending no fewer than 3 goal-setting sessions!
? Both prioritising work, and being distracted by busywork meant that I found it really hard to switch off at the end of the day. I felt guilty for working and guilty for not working.
? Equipped with my plan for what the year will look like, I have already booked my time off. I will continually be aware of my boundaries and where I need to say “no”.
What tips do you have when it comes to reflection and planning? I’d love to know in the comments, join the conversation.
What to look forward to
In the next edition of this newsletter, I will talk about toxic workplaces. Available in 2 weeks.
On the Happier at Work programme, we focus on 3 pillars: values alignment; needs satisfaction; strengths focus. We also address the importance of psychological safety at work, and combatting issues that make people unhappy at work. Another important aspect of the programme is looking at the future of work, improving productivity, the role of personality, the role of leadership, and everyday happiness hacks to implement straight away.
You can take this quiz to find out how happy your workplace is currently, and learn more about creating and maintaining happier working environments.
Happier at Work partners with business leaders to support them to create and maintain happier working environments by focusing on the pillars of: engagement and belonging; the future of work; performance and productivity; and leadership equity. We offer speaking, training and workshops; happiness audits; research; and corporate programmes.
Aoife O’Brien is the founder of Happier at Work, a business with the mission to support organisations in retaining top talent. She is passionate about ‘fit’ and specifically how creating the right environment can help individuals to reach their full potential and support organisations to thrive. She is a self-professed data nerd, with a 20+ year career in market research in the fast-moving consumer goods industry working with clients like Coca Cola, Unilever and Heinz to solve marketing problems using data analytics. Aoife has been featured by several media platforms and public speaking events talking about imposter syndrome, fit, employee engagement, and productivity. She has lived and worked in Dublin, London, Perth, and Sydney and has a MSc in Work and Organisational Behaviour, a Diploma in Executive and Life Coaching and a Certificate in Career Coaching.?
The Happier at Work podcast, features a combination of interview-based episodes as well as solo podcasting, and has more than 60k listens in more than 50 countries. It was recently runner up for 2 awards. You can sign up to the Happier at Work LinkedIn Newsletter to receive the podcast straight in your LinkedIn notifications when it goes live every Friday!
Career & Culture Strategist for Commercial Leaders & Teams in FMCG, Tech & Telecoms | Keynote Speaker | Retain Top Talent | Happier at Work Framework | Imposter Syndrome Specialist | Happier at Work? Podcast (Top 2.5%)
2 年Thank you for sharing Thomas O’Brien
Researcher | Facilitator | Speaker | ?? Learning to Live on Earth
2 年Love it, Aoife O'Brien... Even more so with the realistic focus of habits over lofty goals. What I enjoyed most about your article was the Streak Freeze idea borrowed from Duolingo. My perfectionism quickly has me falling off the wagon for good when I falter. A Streak Freeze sounds like a healthy addition to my toolkit. Thanks! (Also love #yearcompass!)
Conscious Leadership Authority | International Keynote Speaker | Author of Lead Like Morpheus ???? | Founder of Totally Morpheus Leadership Transformation | SA Educator Hall of Fame | M.A. in Organisational Leadership
2 年Thank you for sharing your reflections and visions here, Aoife O'Brien. Daily reflection and journaling has become an anchor to beginning every day for me, and I am sure that your commitment to making more of reflection will bring revelations.
Organisational Psychologist /Psychotherapist
2 年Some great observations Aoife - thanks for sharing. The idea that we don't have to be goal-focussed all the time resonates particularly for me because it reminds me to be present in the here and now rather than future-facing all the time. Given the experiences we have had over the past few years, this is more important than ever!
Empowering Self-Advocacy in Life & Career | M.A. Leadership in Workplace Health | Neuroaffirmative Facilitator | Beyond Vanity Metrics & Corporate Theatre | Neurodivergent Lived Experience
2 年Aoife, stoic advice, and writing. 2022 was a good year for me but 2021 was my meh one. I'm dragging myself a bit into 2023 currently with bated breath, though, regarding my work and the ongoing plans to move it forward. I sit on ideas forever as I do prioritise my health now over work as I have a rear-view window perspective of losing it, but still, the illness will find me outside of my control someday. It's not always a good thing, as I can spend so much time on self-care and managing my mental and physical health. As arrogant as some may find me saying this, the truth is some days, I get very little done on my business goals as I struggle with where to next despite being known in my industry. It's the absolute crutch of balance. Only mine has tipped both ways excessively, not enough self-care and burnout to too much self-care, and the business is over and out. I must prioritise meeting myself in the middle of my work in '23. I will look at the remarkable as I write in my head, phone, and journals. I have too many of them and can't decide what to throw out, and it's so distracting because I'd lose hours to that with my executive functioning challenges. Best wishes with your plans and congratulations on all your success.