Taking a moment to reflect on the art of Reflecting – it’s harder than you think. Why is celebrating our own success so uncomfortable?
So, this isn’t a blog about 2024 coming to a close and how we set ourselves up to bring in the new year with gusto and positivity – it’s far too early for that!
It is more around recognising that celebrating success can often feel very uncomfortable for many reasons, but we have to get better at doing it, and doing it more often and for no other reason than it makes us feel good.
Why Is Reflection So Uncomfortable?
At a recent strategy session with the Co-Creation team one of the first exercises we threw ourselves into was to contribute one thing we were proud of achieving in 2024.
A room full of experienced coaches and successful business leaders who are trained to do this professionally and who build this into programmes we design and deliver every day – this should be easy – right??
Oh, how wrong were we!
We sat around a table, and all looked extremely uncomfortable even though we had been asked to reflect ahead of the session, come prepared to share and amongst a group of like-minded individuals where familiarity, friendship bonds and psychological safety are in abundance.
It led me to think (Yes – reflect – really hard for quite a while) about why this was, but also how perhaps we all need to talk the talk and walk the walk more in our own practice.
What We Learned From Our Session
This goes way beyond being grateful and showing gratitude – something I do a lot to help with my mental wellbeing and resilience.
We all sat – for quite a while – with our thinking faces on. Who was going to share first, and what would they talk about? There was tension in the air as we all looked around the room.
Once we verbalised that we were struggling and got comfortable with the uncomfortable, took the pressure off us all having to share a long list of achievements – reminding ourselves that it’s quality over quantity – allowed ourselves the time to think without any pressure, to start writing and see where our thoughts took us, without judgement, fear, opinions, self-doubt getting in the way – we came to an important realisation – that for most of us it has been a year of challenges, but out of that always comes growth – personally and professionally.
Why Is It So Hard to Share Our Achievements?
So why was reflecting and sharing our achievements, what we are proud of designing/delivering for our clients, the impact we make, and the difference to people’s lives we contribute so hard?
We inherently don’t like talking about our achievements – is it blowing our own trumpet, shouting a bit too loud, “hey, look at me and what I have done”, shining the light on ourselves when we prefer to let others take the limelight? Or is it that we don’t do it enough and therefore need more practice, creating safer places in teams and moments of recognition, celebration, and reflection?
So what’s next…?
As a result of our session, our action was to set up a Gratitude channel on our WhatsApp group – a small step and one that we all committed to. Building in a healthy habit of sharing on a regular basis all that’s great about ourselves and the work we do, individual and team achievements and encouraging each other to do so too.
We also need to recognise that when we ask our clients to do this – they will be going through the same emotions. How do you set up a reflection session for success?
Top Tips for Effective Reflection
- Allow space to prepare or at least gather your thoughts ahead of time – quiet time away from distractions helps deepen our thought processes.
- Give yourself permission to accept this may be harder than you think – if things haven’t gone well or it’s been an especially difficult time for whatever reason – that’s Ok.
- Start writing things down – it might be a slower process than you had anticipated – but put pen to paper.
- Encourage yourself to consider all the steps along the way as achievements in their own right.
- Celebrate the success of others, but also consider the part you had to play in their accomplishments.
- Say what you have written out loud and tell others about it – sharing our achievements makes us feel good.
Over to You:
When was the last time you paused to reflect on your achievements? What small or big moments are you proud of this year? Take a few minutes today to write them down—no judgement, just appreciation for your growth.