EP 267 Reflecting on Challenges: Lessons Learned from the First Half of the Year
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Bold Goal Crusher podcast, the podcast where we crush our goals and live boldly. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and today we're going to talk about something incredibly important, reflecting on the challenges we faced and the lessons we learned in the first half of the year. I'm big on reflection, and I know many times life.
Sara Mayer: is going full speed ahead, but we need to stop and take a pause and do some reflection because life is full of ups and downs. And it's through our challenges that we often gain the most valuable insight. So let's dive in to how to reflect on those experiences and use them most importantly to propel us forward.
Sara Mayer: So first, Let's talk about the importance of reflecting on challenges. When we take time to reflect, we gain a deeper understanding of our experience, which helps us grow and improve. And reflecting on those challenges allows us to identify [00:01:00] patterns, recognize areas for improvement, and also appreciate our resilience.
Sara Mayer: So reflection is not about dwelling on the negative. but about pulling out those learning lessons from it. It's about understanding what went wrong and more specifically why it happened and what we can do to prevent that in the future. It's also about acknowledging what we did right. Even in the difficult situations, there are nuggets of success and sometimes we miss that because we're so focused on the negative.
Sara Mayer: So if you haven't reflected on the first half of the year, I encourage you to do it today. So how do you get started? First, you have to set time aside, some quiet time, uninterrupted time for reflection. I always like to get a comfortable space. That's really where you can think and write about the year.
Sara Mayer: And it's time to be honest with yourself in your process and your experiences. So I like [00:02:00] to have, I do have several notebooks. I grabbed the wrong one. If you're watching on YouTube, I have several notebooks that are great for this. The first one is driven to succeed. It's a goal oriented journal for high achievers.
Sara Mayer: There's lots of space in here, but what's really great is there are over a hundred prompts. So if you're not subscribed to YouTube, check out our YouTube channel, the bold goal crusher podcast, and we'd love to have you check us out on video. So when you set time aside. I like to have a separate notebook and the reason I like to have a separate notebook is because when I achieve that goal, seeing the journey throughout the pages is really rewarding because sometimes we forget the struggle at the beginning.
Sara Mayer: So you want to start by reviewing the goals you set at the beginning of the year. What were you hoping to achieve? How far have you come? What goals have you met? And what ones have maybe been a little challenging for you? And this will set the stage for that reflection. And [00:03:00] we've talked about in this podcast, if you haven't listened to the last few episodes, jump back, celebrating.
Sara Mayer: But specifically today, we're talking about diving in and pulling out the challenges and the learning lessons from that. So you want to make a list of significant challenges that you face so far. So could it be just getting started, not knowing what to do? Or you hit a real roadblock. You were like, I'm doing this and then you hit a roadblock and you just stopped or you busted through the roadblock, but it may or may not have been the best decision.
Sara Mayer: So these can be a mix. And I want you to specifically list the obstacles that stood in your way. and the situations that tested you and your resilience. So once you have your list of challenges, it's time to dig into each one. So here are some questions to help you reflect in each challenge without beating yourself up, [00:04:00] because most of the time it's not about you, it's about the situation.
Sara Mayer: So first you really want to describe what happened. So Describe the challenge in detail. What were the circumstances? Who was involved? What led up to the challenge? And that's why a great goal journal is important. And once you have an understanding of what happened without the emotion, then it's time to dig into the emotion.
Sara Mayer: So reflect on your emotional response to the challenge. So I didn't know what to do. And I felt inadequate, or I felt I wouldn't be able to achieve my dream, or I felt defeated, whatever that may be. How did it make you feel at the time? Were you frustrated, angry, discouraged, sad? And this understanding of your emotional response can provide some valuable insights.
Sara Mayer: And so what happened? How did you feel? And the next is, what did you do? So [00:05:00] think about how you responded to the challenge. What actions did you take? Did you try and overcome the obstacle? Did you just quit? Did you focus on doing something that was easier? That is a response that a lot of clients have. I have my other notebook here, the habit tracker.
Sara Mayer: I also have a task tracker. I meant to grab that one. But What most people or a lot of my clients will do is this is hard. My goals and dreams are hard. And so I'm going to put a task on this list and cross it off. So I feel productive. So I feel like I'm contributing, but you're really just being busy. So they'll put something on here.
Sara Mayer: Clean the oven. I had a client and clean the oven all the time. That was her go to and I'm like, aren't oven self cleaning? Like, why are we cleaning the oven? And it was because instead of doing the hard stuff, she wanted to feel productive. So she did that. So you need to be honest about what you did, [00:06:00] what worked and what didn't work.
Sara Mayer: No judgment here. It's just about putting pen to paper as to what it was. What did you learn? So I, you want to identify the lessons you learned from the challenge. What did the experience teach you about yourself, others, or the situation? And in that situation, when I don't know what to do, this is my client who cleaned the oven, when she didn't know what to do, she did something that was easy to feel productive.
Sara Mayer: When something was hard, she did something easy. She just got busy. Other people may say, I don't know how to do it, so I took six courses. But I never took action. So they their go to is learning. I'll learn more. And once I learn enough, then I'll be able to do it. And other people will just do it and then make a lot of mistakes.
Sara Mayer: So it's really about figuring out what happened. How did you feel? What did you do and then what did you learn from that? And [00:07:00] as you reflect, you'll start to see some patterns and you'll gain a deeper understanding of your experience. And this process can be very enlightening and empowering. It's not a beat up session, though.
Sara Mayer: So make sure you're coming at it from a place of curiosity. I want to learn more about my natural reaction to change or when something's hard or when I face an obstacle. So I always tell this story, but if you're new here, it's a good one. If you're new here, this may be your first time hearing it.
Sara Mayer: So let me share a personal story. So when I was working with some friends, we wanted to found a nonprofit and we, I had a friend who like gives out jobs, and so somebody got the fun job, create the social media. Somebody had to create the logo. Somebody got to do whatever. And I got the job of filling out the 501 C3 paperwork, the nonprofit paperwork.
Sara Mayer: It's 276 pages, very daunting whenever you deal with the IRS. [00:08:00] And I would get to the second question and be stuck. And the first question was, what was the name? We had decided that as a group. The second question, which seems super easy, what's the address of the organization? And I got stuck because I would say, do I put my address?
Sara Mayer: Do we need a post office box? If we get a post office box, how do we pay for it? Cause we're not a nonprofit yet. And so then I would put it off because I just didn't. I didn't know how to answer that question and I didn't know who to ask. And to be honest, I probably didn't want to ask anyone. So I ended up cleaning my desk, doing all these other things and just pushing that to the side.
Sara Mayer: Was the goal of starting a nonprofit important? Yes. Was it something that was easy? No. Did I know how to do it? No. Okay, so that got pushed off for several months, and then finally had to give myself a little pep talk and say, Sarah, people [00:09:00] found nonprofits every day. Other people have done this. You're a very smart person.
Sara Mayer: You can either figure it out or find somebody to help you. And that project was halted. And so I had all this disappointment and frustration. And once I reflected on what was going on and gave myself that pep talk, I was able to move forward. And now I actually help others with filling out nonprofit paperwork.
Sara Mayer: So life comes full circle, but it wasn't until I actually reflected on what was going on and what was. thing that was stopping me. I didn't know how to move forward. So once you've gone through this process of all the challenges and you want to look at each and every one, you want to either set new goals based on your reflections, set more realistic goals for the second half of the year, or really incorporate the lessons you've learned to address the areas where you want [00:10:00] to improve.
Sara Mayer: So making sure that. You're either learning you're either finding someone to help you or you're setting time aside. Maybe it's oh, I was so busy. I didn't have time to work. And then it's about really developing that plan. We don't love smart goals around here because I want your goals to be dreamy and big.
Sara Mayer: But I do encourage you to have smart objectives. That's the detailed plan for achieving your goals, outlining the steps you need to take. Now, you don't need to know step one through a thousand. You just need to know the first 10. So once you start outlining those steps, you need to take and the timeline for each milestone, that's where you'll come up with a well thought out plan.
Sara Mayer: And those are the tasks you want to actually add to your to do list. A word of caution. We don't need to do everything or know everything to achieve our goals. The reality is many times when you're trying to do something new, a big [00:11:00] goal, you're not an expert. You're an expert in some area of your life, but when you try and do something new, you're a beginner.
Sara Mayer: And You don't need to be afraid to seek support from others. So share your reflections, share your new goals with a trusted person and gain help. Other people have done something similar to what you're trying to do. So just know you don't need to do it alone and you don't need to be an expert out the gate.
Sara Mayer: And then stay flexible. Remember, the challenges are a part of life and setbacks are inevitable. Any achievement that anybody's achieved has come with challenges. And so you want to stay flexible and open to adjusting your plan and. I love talking about celebration. Many times we accomplish something and it was hard when it first started and then it was easy and then we brush it off.
Sara Mayer: We need to take the time to celebrate progress, no matter how small and acknowledging that boosts your [00:12:00] confidence and keeps you motivated. So that's why I love to have a goal journal in here because. Like I did a goal journal for one of the goals I was working on. It was like, oh, it was so hard to figure out how to set up a Google account and get all the paperwork in order.
Sara Mayer: And then later I'm like, oh, I just finished this government application. So it's really cool to look back at what the struggles were and then now what you've become an expert in. Sometimes we forget the journey to becoming an expert. So in conclusion, reflecting on challenges that you face in the first half of the year, actually at any time, is a powerful tool to learn and grow.
Sara Mayer: So don't brush that off, but you need to do it from a place of positivity with a process. By setting aside time, identifying your challenges, reflecting on your experiences, that can propel you forward. So use these lessons in this process to [00:13:00] set new goals, maybe develop a plan, seek support, stay flexible and celebrate your progress.
Sara Mayer: So thank you for joining and listening in to the bold gold crusher podcast. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who may benefit. Don't forget to hit subscribe in your podcast. player that you're listening to this in today, as well as join us on YouTube. You can see me in real life.
Sara Mayer: And remember you can crush your goals and everything that gets in the way. So you don't have to work double time. So let's get to it.
