Debriefing 2024
To Clear The Way For 2025
When I sat down and reflected on all that had happened in the past year, things were far less onerous than I initially thought they would be. If I were to decide on an overarching theme for the last year, the common denominator, in the regret column, would be simply, “I failed to show up.”
The momentum of the latter part of the year and ease in which I felt in flow with the energy of ‘doing’, is something I wish I had in the first half. Which echos what I wrote about in, “If Only There Was A GPS For the Entrepreneurial Journey”, that if a person waits until everything is perfect, then we stop ourselves from doing anything and doing it anyway.
Cognitive Biases
I have a lot of evidence where previously, I leaned so far into the ‘less than awesome’ or the regrets, about me + my business, that I tipped right over. And even though that is familiar, my debrief of 2024, was in fact brief.
Confirmation bias is focusing on information that matches our beliefs, and with a heart swelling with gratitude, my beliefs have been up-levelled and aligned more with my entrepreneurial values.
Previously, after reflection, my inner dialogue, may have sounded something like…
“See, you say you want a business, but yet you didn’t take advantage of the time to actually work on it.”
And that dialogue isn’t wrong, based on what I see as the through line for the start of the year.
Yet, the change is how I’m interpreting whose voice I hear, when my inner voice is saying things like that.
Active Listening
Becoming an active listener is an integral part of emotional intelligence. Not to mention, something I do—for others, so this time I did it for myself!
As entrepreneurs, solo-preneurs, writers, coaches, consultants, et al. who likely spend a majority of our time hashing things out in our own minds, using active listening skills can be a game changer.
The method I used when reviewing 2024, supported me in doing so. Because I had a format that kept me curious, open and engaged, so I could flesh out value from looking at my regrets, instead of getting bogged down, or more accurately triggered.
Emotional regulation is a muscle I’m constantly working on strengthening, and knowing that I have a penchant for hindsight bias, being both mentally and emotionally grounded made my exercise easier and positively impactful.
Minding The Gaps
After discovering the loose ends and gaps, I found were left open, I then fit them into three categories:
Things I wish I had done more of.
Things I wish I had done better.
Things I wish I had done differently.
Which if left unattended, would not have supported the well being of both Me + My Business.
I could have made excuses, but instead I made apologies.
After acknowledging the gaps, I apologized to myself, and to my business, for not doing more, not doing things better, and for not doing things differently.
Then I forgave myself.
For some this may read to touchy-feely, but I’m serious.
The things on my list could easily be dismissed as being insignificant and not needing any attention. Frankly, I wouldn’t have considered some of them at all, before.
Forgiveness is a conscious choice to cease feeling resentment or animosity towards someone, something, and/or some experience.
It is about you releasing the discord attached to the person or to what happened or didn’t happen, and choosing emotional peace.
Knowing that unresolved past events and experiences, in ANY relationship, have the potential to show up in the midst of future challenges—I chose emotional peace.
Celebrating the Positives
For everything on my list that I want more of—I celebrated. Not once, twice but three or more times.
Anchoring positive feelings of pride, fulfillment, accomplishment and joy, is something I didn’t give enough credit or energy to. This was a gap I knew I had, so I made up for it.
Both sides of the exercise have informed and inspired how I am looking forward and supports a feeling of connection between Me + My Business.
Having cleared the air and the way for making goals and intentions for the new year!
Inquiry
Is there an apology you are waiting for from someone?
Have you had an impactful experience apologizing to someone?
What is your relationship with forgiveness?
Is there a visceral feeling you’ve had after apologizing to someone or forgiving someone?