With a new year on the horizon, what can we learn from 2014? Such milestones as a calendar year coming to a close provide the perfect opportunity to reflect on and evaluate the past 12 months.
John Dewey said, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” Take a moment to reflect on your experiences, decisions, successes, and failures in 2014. What did you learn? Did you make the “best” use of your time?
Reflection is time consuming and has an important role in our personal and professional growth. Take the time to think through this past year with purpose. Be critical but don’t be too hard on yourself. Analyze, question, and draw upon your conclusions as you assess how your year went. Use this reflective process as a starting point to help you plan ahead for 2015.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you reflect upon 2014:
- What did I celebrate? Did I celebrate success often enough?
- Did anything distract me from being fully present at work, at home, with friends, etc.?
- Did I spend quality time with the people I care most about?
- What memories did I create for myself and for others?
- Did I stretch myself to learn something new?
- What did I avoid?
- Did I have fun and laugh aloud often?
- What would I have liked to have done differently?
- Did I freely allocate time to people, organizations, and causes that are important to me?
At any given time it is wise to consider the question: What is the “best” use of my time right now? Sometimes it is simply talking on the phone with a friend, taking a nap, going for a walk, playing with a young child, going shopping with a teenager, getting a massage, enjoying a hobby, etc.
As you begin the year 2015, be mindful of timewasters. What are your timewasters? These can range from a variety of common timewasters such as: too much television, video games, talking on the phone, excessive texting, and even getting too much rest by constantly oversleeping.
Time is a valuable resource that cannot be replenished. Let’s not waste it. Before you launch into a new year, I would love to hear about your 2014 recap! Please share it with me by leaving a comment.