New Year’s Traditions?
Resolutions and Reflecting
Two of the most common positive activities that people engage in at this time of year are reflecting on the year that was and making promises to themselves about the year ahead. Something I find so interesting about people is how they’ll wait for a particular moment of the year to practice one or both of these activities. But, recognizing that’s just how people are, I’d like to engage in a little bit of both of them and invite you to do the same.
First, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that you’ve been following along for a year now. I want you to know how much I appreciate when you tell me that you save my emails when they arrive so you can read them when you have time. In a world that excels at packaging quickly and easily digestible content, it means a lot to me that you would put my writing aside so that you can give it more time. Like many other metrics I’ve discussed, open rates are just proxies for things that I’d rather know but can’t measure. While it’s nice to see that you open my emails, what I truly wish for you to open is your minds. That’s the kind of engagement I care about. So thank you for not just subscribing but for taking a journey with me.
Next, as I look forward to the coming year, I hope that I can engage with you more. Having a forum to share my thoughts and ideas is nice but talking isn’t teaching and listening isn’t learning. Just because I wrote something and you liked it doesn’t mean that we’re changing the world (or even how you coach). Change happens when we choose to act differently as we move through the world. Sharing how we change and what those changes have meant to us inspires further change in all of us. I’m a better person and coach because of the work I do here. I hope that you’ll be willing to share your growth as well.
Shifting from my reflection and resolutions to yours, I invite you to expand your reflective work in the coming year. As I discussed in one of my presentations at this year’s AVCA convention, Music and Magic, as well as in my series on building a coaching philosophy, there are many ways of reflecting on your work. Many of you reflect on your choices and actions already. You ask yourself if the drills and games you use worked. You ask yourself if today’s practice plan worked. As Donald Schön wrote in The Reflective Practitioner, “We are…at once the subjects and the objects of action. We are in the problematic situation that we seek to describe and change, and when we act on it, we act on ourselves” (1984, p. 347). I invite you to remember that, not only are you part of the situation you are reflecting on, you are a changeable part of that situation. While you may default to changing other parts of the situation, look for moments when changing yourself may be more productive than other kinds of change available to you.
Lastly, I want to encourage you spend time in reflection throughout the year and not just at the beginning or end of years and seasons. It is possible to spend time reflecting on your choices as well as on your values regularly without being overwhelmed and without feeling like you are aimlessly adrift. A phrase I like to remember in my coaching is, “it’s never too late to make it better.” You don’t need to wait until a season is over to make changes or to try new things. You can make small tweaks or even large shifts while things are in motion.
Try it. Not all change is progress but there is no progress without change. I’m looking forward to the coming year to try new things. I hope you are too.