Reflect & Integrate: 12 Questions to Reset Your Life, Your Leadership, Your Team
Whether you journal your answers or talk them through with a trusted co-conspirator, use these powerful questions to cultivate more Rebel Flourishing in both work and life.
It’s April, three months into 2022.
(So much for those New Year’s Resolutions…)
Whether it’s the transition to Q2, the long weekend, the coming of spring, or the fact it’s 2 years since the pandemic began, many of my clients have found themselves in a reflective mood lately.
So as an Easter / Pesach / Ramadan / long weekend gift, I offer you the 12 questions below to help you - and those you lead - to:
Reflect on the past three months
Notice what’s enabling flourishing and what’s getting in the way
Make simple choices that will enable change with ease rather than effort in the coming months
Having answered these, in a journal or in conversation with a willing co-conspirator (manager, team member, friend, partner), I hope you will find yourself refreshingly equipped with new insights that can help you sustain your wellbeing and leadership.
You’ll notice the questions are coupled together in twos. This is no accident - it’s a key feature of my coaching approach, how I encourage individuals and teams to discover new insight and action.
The first question invites you to reflect, to recall particular instances or experiences in your life. This is to ground any change you want to make in the first of my Walkways to Change - Self Awareness. Until we are honest with ourselves about what is working and what isn’t, until we are joining the dots of what’s making us tired or frustrated or confused, we won’t be equipped to face it.
The second question invites you to integrate what you’ve learned and apply it to your life. This is normally grounded in one or both of the second two Walkways to Change - Embodied Practice and Co-Conspirators.
From regular check-ins that include how you really are, to daily walks or runs in the park, to standing up from your desk stretching 2-5 times a day, Embodied Practice is repeated action designed to take responsibility for and change our reality, even in tiny ways.
And co-conspirators are the people in our lives who are invested in our flourishing. The people who offer support and cheerlead for us, but also call us to account. Because I see all the time that making change is so much easier and swifter with support. As a leadership coach, my clients can rely on me to be their Co-conspirator #1, and I encourage them to actively recruit a squad of 2-4 co-conspirators in the fabric of their lives - whether managers, mentors, partners or friends - to support the changes they are bringing about in their programme. Likewise, when facilitating team transformation, time again it’s the true co-conspirator relationships, not the ones that indulge or chastise, that allow people’s best to emerge.
Notebook ready?
Got a co-conspirator and a cuppa?
Let’s get to the questions…
What are 2-3 situations when I’ve been at my best – at work or in life?
What can I learn about myself and my strengths from these, and what step could I take to draw on my strengths more intentionally?
What has inspired or brought me hope?
What is one way in which I could make space for more of these into my daily life?
Who are the 2-5 people with whom have I felt most connected these past three months?
With whom else might I want to intentionally build connection in the next three months?
What practices, routines or habits have been supportive to me these three months?
What steps might help me gently recommit to routines that help me, but that have fallen by the wayside?
Where am I experiencing beauty (natural, human or human-made) in my life?
How might I bring more of these into my home, my workspace, my daily life?
Based on all my answers so far, what is one thing that I want to create more of in the next three months?
Based on what I’ve learned about myself here, what can I put in place (and whom can I enrol to help me) to make this a reality?
Are you a leader who’s determined to coach your people to flourishing and high performance?
Do you want to gain the confidence and approaches to unleash flourishing in your team?
Let’s talk.
