Year End Reflection and Goal Setting

Endings are the beginnings of something new.  It has been a tumultuous year, called the Great Awakening by those looking forward to transforming into a new type of society as we let go of failing infrastructures that no longer meet our needs nor care for the planet’s natural beauty.   Some of those things are beyond our control, so it is important how we choose to react with our thoughts and feelings, our awareness and actions to correct what things we can change.  Reflecting on where we have been guides us to what we want to achieve and become when we search deeply and let go.

Self-Reflection

Clarification and commitment to purpose in life is a key benefit of self-reflection.  Purpose gives meaning to both positive and negative experiences.  Self-reflection means focusing on values, goals and what we attend to with the time we have.  It means looking at all the good and the bad, the successes as well as the failures.  It means self-love and forgiveness for mistakes, knowing that is how we learn.  It means taking personal responsibility for our actions and what we attract to ourselves with our thoughts and emotions.  The more we know ourselves, the more we can influence the outside world through our character, drive and clarity of purpose.

Internal journeys can lead to emotional intelligence and the ability to handle stress.  It can lead to personal growth and confidence in many different areas of life.  It can guide you to areas of your life that you want to strengthen and manifest.  Self-reflection can help us to understand our roles in relationships and set boundaries or trust levels.  We can understand what we need from others and what we can give.  We can evaluate if our belief systems may be limiting.  We can identify what we are grateful for, take for granted, and what resources we have.  It’s important to be honest with yourself during self-reflection, but not overly critical either because we are all here to learn and evolve.

Setting Goals

Setting goals are a natural part of the self-reflection process.  Begin by reviewing the status of the goals you wanted to accomplish during the past year, both short term projects or long-term goals such as changing habits or improving relationships.  How did you use your time and skills to accomplish the goals?   If you did not accomplish the goals, what stopped you?  How did reaching the goals benefit you?

Next, establish new goals based on what you want, not want you don’t want. Be specific with the what, where, when, how and why it is important details.  Being happy or healthy is not specific enough. Plan how you know when you have it and how it will affect other aspects of your life in a beneficial way.  Consider whether you already have the resources to accomplish the goal or if you need additional resources, such as taking a course or reading a book for more information.  Be specific about how you will get there and your motivation for change.  Usually no change, no different results.   Are there any limitations in your readiness to do what is necessary to make needed changes in your life?  Are the goals realistic?

Developing Motivation

There are six motivational categories described by Shella Rose Charvet in her book that trigger people’s behavior.  Awareness of these common patterns can help you to maintain the necessary motivation to manifest what you want.  Assess which type you mainly function in for each category, keeping in mind that life is complex and choices and behavior is affected by multiple factors.  Your decision-making pattern may vary for different type of situations too. 

1.     Proactive, Reactive, or Mixed Decision Process:  In proactive mode, people quickly initiate action, without a lot of analyzing ahead of time in order to just get a job done.  In reactive mode, people tend to wait for other people to initiate action, make a request or fully consider and analyze a situation before taking action before jumping in quickly.  60 per cent of people have a mixture of both types and 40 percent are mainly proactive or reactive.

2.     Important Criteria:  People use different criteria to determine what is most important or of highest value to them.  In a job, some people like a challenge, developing new skills, or designing a new project.  Other people like working with people on a team, utilize existing skills, or making a high income following a preset protocol.  When talking about the criteria that is important, they feel passion or emotion about it.  For clues to identify your most important criteria, consider what you like most about a job or how you select your friends for example.

3.     Moving Towards Goal or Away From A Problem:  A toward pattern of motivation means being focused on a goal to be achieved, gained or created.  In this mode, people are good at managing priorities and are energized by reaching goals.  They might overlook problems though.  In the away pattern, motivation is triggered by solving or avoiding a problem.  Deadlines, trouble shooting and crisis management get these people into action, rather than long-term priorities.  40 percent of people fall into each of the above patterns and 20 percent are a mixture.

4.     Internal or External Source of Motivation:  People with the internal source pattern provide their own motivation from within themselves.  They decide about the quality of their efforts and have difficulty accepting other people’s opinions and outside direction.  They can gather information from outside sources and take orders as suggestions because standards of excellence are withing themselves. They are independent thinkers.   In contrast, people in external source mode like other people’s opinions, outside direction and external feedback to stay motivated. They do take information as orders and prefer it when someone else decides and do not hold internal standards within themselves. Fitting in is important.   40 percent of people are either mainly internal or external and 20 percent are a mixture of both.

5.     Reason For Doing Things As Options or Procedures:  People with an options pattern are motivated by opportunities and possibilities to do something in a different way.  They love to develop procedures and new projects but are less keen on long term maintenance.  Bending or breaking rules using creative, new ideas can be irresistible.  People with a procedures pattern like to follow a step-by-step process.  They believe there is a right way to do things.  They are more interested in how to do things, than the why things are done.  They are good at completing what they start because procedures have a beginning and an end.  40 percent of people mainly use the options or procedures patterns and 20 percent use both.

6.     To Change or Not to Change Decisions:  People with a sameness pattern want their situation in a given situation to remain the same.  They do not like change and may refuse to adapt.  They may accept a major change once every ten years, but will provoke change only once every fifteen to twenty years.  5 per cent of people use this pattern.  Sameness with exception people like a given contextual situation to stay the same but do progress.  They will accept changes if the change is not too drastic.  They prefer situations to gradually evolve slowly and incrementally over time.  They need major changes only once every five to seven years.  65 per cent of people follow this pattern.  People with a difference pattern thrive on change and want it to be constant.  They resist static situations and like dramatic changes about every one to two years.  20 per cent of people use this pattern.  People who have both sameness with exception and difference patterns like revolutionary shifts and situations where things are evolving.  They are happy with both revolution and evolution.    They need major change every three to four years.  10 percent of people use this double pattern.

Time Spent

Ultimately, what we attend to is what we manifest.  Much has been recommended about the importance of beliefs and positive attitudes and thoughts of success as if it is already true.  If your internal critic tells you that you are not capable of doing something, then you probably can’t because the unconscious mind does not know the difference between thoughts and reality.   However, success also requires action and action involves intention, effort and time spent.  If you want to become physically fit, you must exercise on a regular basis, not just believe it will happen magically.

Part of setting goals is how you will accomplish it, or the means to the desired outcome.  Being realistic means allocating a sufficient amount of time for a given project.  Busy people tend to have many responsibilities, so priorities and wise use of time must be established.  Time is a resource. Everyone needs a certain amount of rest and relaxation, but productive people allocate time to work towards goals or solving problems too.  Nowadays virtual reality games can be quite entertaining and offer experience not possible in the real world, but neither do they change the world or complete projects.

Wishing everyone a productive and successful New Year.

Elaine

References

Shelle Rose Charvet, Words That Change Minds, 3rd Ed, Institute For Influence, 2019.

Katherine Hurst, 21 Powerful Self-Reflection Questions For Purpose In Life, https://www.Thelawofattraction.com/self-reflection