What a Difference a Year Makes! The Power of Reflection
How much has changed, and how much have you changed with it?
Think back to where you were this time last year.
What was happening in your life? What were you looking forward to? What mattered most to you? What were you hoping the coming year would bring?
Now look at where you are today.
Twelve months can hold an extraordinary amount of life. New experiences, unexpected opportunities, personal milestones, challenges overcome, relationships strengthened, lessons learned and countless everyday moments that shape our lives.
And yet, how much of it do we really stop to acknowledge?
Are we seeing the whole picture??
Our brains are naturally wired to pay more attention to problems, threats and things that go wrong. It’s a deep-rooted survival mechanism that has helped keep us safe. This tendency, known as negativity bias, can mean that our disappointments and unfinished business take centre stage, while our achievements, strengths and positive experiences barely get a mention.
So what might we discover if we deliberately looked at our year through a different lens?
Seeing things with fresh eyes
Taking time to reflect gives us an opportunity to see our year, ourselves and our possibilities differently.
We can recognise strengths we didn’t know we had, acknowledge achievements we’ve taken for granted and discover that some of our experiences hold more value than we first realised.
It’s also worth remembering the transient nature of life: our thoughts, feelings, perspectives and circumstances are constantly changing. Something that feels overwhelming today may look very different tomorrow.
Recognising this can help us feel more appreciative of the past, more confident about the future and more at ease with where we are right now.
What about the year ahead?
Reflection also gives us an opportunity to consider what we genuinely want from the coming year.
Of course, there’s value in setting goals and having aspirations. But alongside what we’d like to achieve, we can also consider what matters most to us, what we’d like more of in our lives and how we’d like to feel along the way.
And we don’t have to wait until everything is exactly as we’d like before we can experience moments of contentment, appreciation or enjoyment.
Reflections & Intentions: A coach-led workshop
At Work Wellbeing’s Reflections & Intentions workshop brings these ideas together in an uplifting, interactive session.
Through psychological insights, thought-provoking coaching questions and shared conversation, our experienced wellbeing coach helps participants recognise what they may have overlooked, discover new perspectives and consider what they genuinely want from the year ahead.
An opportunity to celebrate how far we’ve come, appreciate where we are and look forward to what’s possible next
