This week we talk about why reflection and review help us stay on our happiness journey. Too often we avoid this process and wonder what happened. I did a reflection and review on the podcast and then realized, I needed to do one on all aspects of my life! Its a great tool. Not always something we want to do because we might have to change things, but totally worth the time, effort and honesty it takes.
Resources I referenced this week:
James Clear –jamesclear.com (I really enjoyed his book Atomic Habits, but I also recommend going to his “articles” tab on his website. Lots of great reading there.)
I hope you enjoy this week’s podcast. Don’t forget we’d love to see you over on the Facebook Group, The Happier You Podcast!
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Transcript of this week’s episode:
Hi Happy People. Welcome back. This week we are talking about using reflection and review to increase our happiness. I think sometimes we’re scared to check in because we know we haven’t met our goal or we have to admit that something that we’re doing isn’t working. Or that we were wrong. The problem with that is as we pretend to not notice what’s going on, we start to let things slide.
Reflection and review is something that is great to schedule in in your life just to make sure that previous decisions that you have made or goals or habits that you set for yourself are serving you.
This week we’re talking about reflection review because the podcast hit it’s 6 month anniversary! Birthday! Whatever you want to call it. My first success goal was actually to launch the podcast. So obviously we did that back in March. Then my second success goal was to still be having fun in six months. I was really excited when we blew through the six month mark and I was still having fun.
Experience doesn’t make you wiser, evaluated experience makes you wiser.
When I look back at the podcast and I evaluate it, I realize I want to try different projects and I don’t have time for them. I love doing the podcast. I’m doing a ton of reading and research and formulating ideas and trying new things and implementing them myself. The problem is I’m finding that doing the podcast every week I am not having time to do other projects that I’m interested in exploring.
Things that fill up my cup such as creativity and play and connecting with other people.
When I look at the overall picture, doing the podcast every weekend is fun, but it takes time away from other things. My husband is also my editor, so it affects the whole family’s weekend. I want to push myself and try new things and do new things. I feel that if we move the tempo to every two weeks then I’ll have more time to push myself in other directions as well as try new things. I also think it is a key part of making this journey happier.
Making time for things that bring me joy.
I had been thinking about this schedule change already. Then at the beginning of September my friend and I enjoy going to a conference together. Unfortunately that of course didn’t happen. What they did this year is a virtual summit online. The guy who created it, Lewis Howes, is a well-known podcaster. Before all the speakers he would come online and talk to us and give a motivational speech. On day one he asked us to rate ourselves in four areas of our life. Basically the same idea as I had just done for the podcast, reflection and review. Take a look at where you are at right now and figure out how you are doing.
The four areas that he asked us to look at are: our health, relationships, career or business, and thoughts.
On each of those categories, rate yourself out of 10. Initially I know you’re just going to ignore me and you’re not actually going to write those four things out. So, what I want you to write out is health, relationships, career/business and thoughts. Take the time and rate yourself out of 10. Be honest with yourself. This is only for you.
My health number is very low right now and it’s just something that if I didn’t check in or I guess I didn’t check in soon enough, I’ve let slide. It’s definitely something that’s really important to me. It is on my values list. My relationships number is lower as well. That is partly due to COVID, but also part of that is just making time and figuring out with social distancing how to make that work. As for thoughts, I think I’m actually doing pretty good on this category. I attribute a lot of that to the podcast. Being accountable to you and being on this journey together. It is something that I’m always talking about and interacting with our community.
Its important to check in with yourself and see how you are doing.
I wanted to share those four things with you because I think it’s important to check in with yourself and see how you’re doing. I am really grateful to Lewis Howes for reminding me how important this is. Revising the podcast doesn’t mean failure, it just means we’re trying something new. I am excited about these other projects and I want to push myself to do more interviews. That kind of stuff takes different preparation and planning as well as allowing myself time to be creative.
I also hear from a lot of people saying they didn’t have time to listen, so they binge listen the podcast. I think by going to every two weeks you’ll have time to listen and really think about and see how it could to be implemented in your life, instead of another episode coming out the next week before you have had time to challenge yourself.
Really try and build up this community of support for people who are seeking their happy as well.
Another one of the things I really want to do more of is community building. To just get online and encourage more interaction as well as figure out more ways to hear from you and see how you’re doing. Really try and build up this community of support for people who are seeking their happy as well. If we could keep up with the Joneses on the happiness factor, that would be awesome!
I had the idea for this podcast thanks to a friend who pointed out to me that explaining the reflection and review process as an actual life tool, as opposed to just for the podcasts or just for business, is a really great tool in your life. To be able to analyze the decisions you previously made. Ask yourself, do they still serve me?
One of the guys I really enjoyed reading his take on all of this was James Clear. I know I’ve mentioned James before because I really enjoyed his book Atomic Habits and we talked about that back in Celebrating The Small Wins. He also has his newsletter that comes out every Thursday. It is called the 321 Newsletter and I really enjoy it. When you go to James’s website he also has a list of a bunch of articles that he’s written with a ton of great reading. One of the things he talks about is that he does a reflection and review at the end of every year, and then he does a values check in halfway through the year. So he basically checks in on himself every six months and I really like that. I think that’s something for me that I want to aspire to as opposed to just New Year’s goals.
Really starting to check in more than once a year.
This week I am challenging you to try a reflection and review on your life. Are the decisions that I’ve made previously serving me or are there things that I would like to change and just haven’t taken the time to think about it and figure out what I’d like to try next?
Remember no decision is written in stone.
You don’t even have to do something for the next six months. Just trying something new and seeing how it feels. Or eliminating something that you just kind of let sneak back into your life that perhaps you know doesn’t serve you. Nothing has to be forever. It’s worth trying and evaluating and seeing if it still serves you or if you really want it in your life.
Remember 2020 has been a challenging year and so some of the stuff that we’ve done to deal with this crazy year maybe doesn’t serve us anymore. It might have helped us in the beginning, but now maybe what we need to do is pivot and revise and figure out how we’re going to deal with it moving forward.
We know so much more now and the world is opening up more because we know how to protect ourselves and be careful. So there is less staying home and avoiding the world. I think that’s a good thing as long as it serves your goal and you’re going about it the right way. Take a look at your life and actively make some decisions and analyze and review what previous decisions that you’ve made.
That’s your challenge for this week.
It probably won’t surprise you that my quote this week is from James Clear. He says,
“It is not the natural course of things to figure it all out on the first try.”
James Clear
So basically, he’s just given us permission to keep trying different things until we figure out what’s best for us.
All right Happy People. I’m not sure what to say. Do I say have a great week because I’m not going to talk to you for two weeks? I also need to rename the midweek motivator because it’s now going to come out on the off week. It’s so confusing. There are many things to figure out. I’m still going to say it.