The joy we experience is directly proportional to our ability to habitually pay attention to the wonderful things in our day-to-day experiences that go unnoticed when they’re working.
Habitually learning to appreciate a functioning body alone gets us a quarter of the way there.
The 10 question annual reflection is a longstanding ALearningaDay tradition. I recommend doing it in 3 steps:
i) Carve out an hour in the coming days to “look back and look forward.” It helps to do this in a quiet place with no distractions or interruptions.
ii) Work with a list of 10 questions that make you think. For a starter list, I’ve shared the 10 questions I asked myself below (also available to print as a doc or PDF by downloading from this folder).
iii) Archive your questions and notes for next year. Check in with them over the course of the year and read them before you start next year’s reflection. Looking at what was top-of-mind a few years later is also guaranteed to make you grin. :-)
10 Questions – Annual Reflection 2022
1. What are the top 2 themes/memories/moments I will remember 2022 for?
2. What were the 2 biggest lessons I learnt in 2022?
3. We learn from a mix of 3 sources – i) taking action and reflecting on our experiences, ii) people, and iii) books/courses or synthesized information. What did my mix look like in 2022? What would I do differently in 2023?
i) Action + reflection:
ii) People:
iii) Books/synthesized info:
4. Looking back at how I spent my time in 2022, what were the top 2-3 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I prioritized (Examples: Career – prioritized ABC project or getting a raise, Health – prioritized more outdoor exercise or losing 10 pounds)? Did what I prioritize align with what I intended to prioritize/were there any surprises?
5. What are the top 2 themes/buckets x processes/outcomes I intend to prioritize in 2023?
6. What do I most need to learn in 2023 and how do I plan to do this?
7. What are habits/checkpoints I have in place to recommit to my priorities? (E.g. weekly/monthly check in)
8. What have I got planned in 2023 to prioritize renewal and memorable experiences (e.g. holiday plans, weekend activities, hobbies)?
9. Health, money, and relationships are foundational to the quality of our lives on this planet. What are my guiding principles or habits as I think of these dimensions in 2023?
Health:
Money:
Relationships:
10. Do I have a personal philosophy, a set of principles or virtues that I want to live my life by? If not, would I consider putting together a first version?
And, if I do have them, what have I learnt about them in my attempts to live them? Do I plan to evolve them in 2023?
[Notes:
The first step to getting some things done is to accept we won’t be able to get everything done.
We were recipients of a large stroke of good luck recently.
We did nothing to deserve it. We made a potentially damaging mistake and were lucky to not face bad consequences.
I thought I’d write about it because we remember strokes of bad luck a lot more than we remember strokes of good luck.
Bad news sticks and sells easily.
Good news and experiences, on the other hand, don’t.
Unless we make the effort.
Fire alarm batteries make a loud beeping sound when they’re low.
I don’t know what it is about the batteries of my fire alarm – but these beeps exclusively happen in the middle of the night.
These beeps are impossible to ignore. So, the only way out is to wake up, figure out the source of the sound (this can be surprisingly challenging in the middle of the night), drag a chair for elevation, and take the battery out.
I can choose to be upset or annoyed. It won’t change the facts. The battery still needs to be replaced.
I can also choose to just chuckle at my luck. And just try to get back to sleep.
Either way, the nature of the job doesn’t change. It isn’t good or bad – the only difference is my attitude toward it.
Like most things in this life.
My wife shared a thread on Nextdoor from someone who’d driven past a dead boar on the side of the highway. In her post, she wondered why the boar hadn’t been moved.
That post got a lot of engagement. A couple of others confirmed the dead boar sighting. Many lamented the state of local government – this wouldn’t have happened in their day. And so on.
Until one woman who went close to the alleged boar, took a few pictures, and shared that everyone was commenting about a few sacks of leaves shaped like a boar.
Much ado about nothing.
A good reminder to understand the full picture before weighing in with our opinions. And to not make mountains out of molehills.
Pew Research shared a fascinating study across 17 nations on the topic – what makes life meaningful?
Family, careers/occupation, and material well-being rounded up the top 3 with friends and health following close behind.
The differences between countries were very interesting as well. Family, however, continued to be nearly always on top.
Interestingly, Americans were, by a distance, more likely to mention religion/faith as a top source of meaning.
There were many other fascinating insights. For example, younger people were more likely to rank friends as the highest source of meaning. Women were slightly more likely than men to mention families. Those who are well off are more likely to mention material well-being. And those who identified on the left of the political spectrum were more likely to mention nature vs. religion for those on the right.
If there’s one takeaway from all of this, it is that there is no single source of meaning for everyone. We derive meaning from different sources in different amounts.
And as with everything else in this life, it helps to take the time to figure out what works for us.
A simple indicator of wisdom – the ability to consistently separate the signal from the noise to focus on what matters.
Every day, life asks us 2 questions –
(1) What do you want?
(2) What are you willing to give up to get it?
The quality of our life is directly proportional to our ability to consistently have good answers to these questions.
I was standing on a beach the other day staring into the ocean.
Every time I find myself experiencing the waves crashing into my feet, I find myself wondering what lessons I’m meant to learn from these waves. And I typically walk away without any real flash of insight and a lingering sense of disappointment at my inability to understand the lesson.
This time however, I changed the question. Instead of searching for the lesson, I asked myself – what do you see?
I saw relentlessness, consistency, and a clarity in purpose – an awe-inspiring combination. And, by virtue of repetition, the ocean made the combination mundane.
An inspiring thought that finally gave me the answer I was seeking.
Sometimes, all we have to do is change the question.
A Learning a Day 