Newsletter issue
Tool To Turn Reflections into Action: Your Blueprint for 2024 Success
Sent on 13th January 2024
Do you prefer to listen? here's the audio version:
Hey there!
It's Bruna here 👋 happy New Year!
In our latest 2023 newsletter (click here), I encouraged you to create the right atmosphere for reflecting on your year and learning. Now, I want to share one of my client's favourite tools to leverage their most significant 2023 moments and prepare practically for the new year.
Whether you've reflected on your pivotal 2023 moments or not, today's issue is highly practical. It guides you in transforming every failure and significant experience, positive or negative, into new actions and beliefs. The whole point is not just reflecting, it’s using those reflections to do better next year, otherwise what’s the point of learning?!
It will take you about 4 minutes and 10 seconds to read, and you'll walk away with:
- A great tool to reflect month by month on your growth
- Questions that help you turn significant experiences into learning
- A key advice for this year to track your insights
I am ecstatic to see that in the past few years failure has been re-evaluated and seen for what it is, a wonderful opportunity to learn. But…. there’s a but. This is only true if we actively make the effort to turn that learning into new actions and beliefs, otherwise, they’ll remain nice reflections, but useless.
So here’s how you can turn your learning into different, better, more conscious actions.
Doing this exercise will be extremely interesting and inspiring, it will be even better if you do it with a friend or a like-minded person - that’s because TALKING OUT LOUD is much more impactful than thinking or writing.
So if you can find a good partner, that’s great, otherwise feel free to do it alone.
Find a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line representing your 2023, divide it into 12 spaces and reflect on what significant event (good or bad) happened that month.
Then draw a point, high or low, to indicate how it was:
Here’s an example of what it could look like. Add colours, drawings, icons and anything else that makes it look great to you!
For each point, write a couple of words that indicate what happened.
Then for each point, reflect on what you have learned/how it helped you grow.
(In tough times it’s difficult to find a learning, still there’s at least one in everything that happens to us, if you can’t find it, then ask yourself: in what way this is going to reinforce me?).
If you do this for each fact (one or multiple facts per month) speaking out loud and writing it down you are not only more likely to go deeper and remember what happened, but it will also work as a wonderful reminder for next time you might find yourself in a similar situation.
It’s a fact, indeed, that we tend to forget our insights unless we thoroughly reflect on them or write them down.
(Since they’re key to our growth, it would help if you write them down as they arise this year, so when you're going to do this exercise again in January 2025 you won't risk forgetting them!)
Why don’t you create your 2024 timeline now and add the significant events as they happen? So you can write down your insights and learnings as they happen and while they’re fresh in your mind.
Once you have clarified the learning for each month, ask yourself:
- What am I going to do differently next year because of that?
- What longstanding belief (about myself and others) do I need to upgrade, thanks to what I learned here?
Once you have all the answers, for each event, make a list and put it somewhere visible so you don’t risk forgetting such important lessons.
So here’s how you’re going to turn such precious lessons and insights into concrete fuel for your 2024.
There’s no point of turning failure into learning if we then don’t use that learning and change the way we think and act!
Are you with me on this?
LET'S BREAK IT DOWN INTO ACTIONABLE STEPS:
Step 0: (ideal but not vital) Find a partner to work with you on this exercise, split the time evenly.
Step 1: Set up a quiet time and space to maximise your time. For tips click here.
Step 2: Get a piece of paper and draw a line that represents your 2023, divide it into months.
Step 3: For each month ask yourself what significant event/s happened, and draw a point to indicate if it was a high or a low moment.
Step 4: For each event ask yourself what you learned through that experience, or in what way it’s going to make you stronger.
Step 5: Once you finished, make a list of all that you’ve learned and for each item ask yourself:
- What am I going to do differently next year because of that?
- What longstanding belief (about myself and others) do I need to upgrade, thanks to what I learned here?
Step 6: Keep the list visible somewhere and regularly check how you’re doing in relation to each point.
Step 7: (ideal but not necessary) Set up your 2024 timeline now and regularly update it with your learnings and insights from significant experiences.
That’s all, my clients are doing the same this month and they’re loving it. Let me know if that’s the same for you too?
Also, feel free to ask any questions, I strive to reply within hours to everyone.
Have a wonderful start to this new year. I look forward to growing with you!
See you next month, same place, same time.
