37· Reflect and Reset
Podcast show notes
Welcome back to Frustrated and Exhausted.
Today, we’re taking a moment to pause and reflect on the year so far, as we're just past the halfway mark of 2024.
In this special episode, we’ll explore what’s changed, what we’ve learned, and how we can set intentions for the months ahead.
Grab a pen, a cup of tea, and let’s dive into a reflective journey to reset and recharge for the rest of the year.
I really hope you enjoy this one!
Here are the highlights
(2:22) Self-reflection and personal goals
(5:04) What has changed for you?
(7:08) Lessons learned over the last few months
(10:56) Personal growth and improvement
If you are looking for more support to get intentional, check out my Reset mini-package HERE.
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Connect with Ruth
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Ruth:
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted, I'm really glad that you're here with me today. Thank you for listening, I do appreciate you!
We’re going to do something a little bit different with this episode today, because we are now a little bit more than halfway through 2024, which I honestly can't really believe. And something that I like to do at set points through the year is just take a little bit of time to reflect and reset for the next part of the year to come. And so we're going to do a little bit of that in this episode, something different. And just to help you learn a little bit, think a little bit and kind of get a bit intentional, you'll get in a good place for kind of what's to come and the rest of the year.
I know how busy you are, because I am too and sometimes the thought of fitting in another thing, it can feel like a bit too much. I know certainly. I mean, I shouldn't really admit this, should I but at times in the past when I've been in really, really busy jobs. And I'll see in my diary, there's a coaching session coming up and think, “Do I really have time for this, I've got all this stuff that I need to do”. And I'm on that hamster wheel, I'm totally in it. And Busy, busy, busy, busy, busy.
But this is actually where discipline comes in, where taking time out for yourself to just think, is really, really important because it is all too easy. If we don't take time for reflection, we lose the opportunities that we have to learn as much as we can do from what we're going through. We lose sight often of our needs, which really impacts our resilience and our energy and all those good habits that we try to have can start to slip a bit. And you know, we lose focus on the things, not the necessities, obviously, the kids are still going to get fed, the dog will get walked or whatever it might be. But we lose focus on the things that really matter to us. And sometimes that includes ourselves. So spending a bit of time, just to think, to give yourself that little bit of space, you know, ideally, regularly, obviously, but whenever it is possible, can be really important.
We've all got different ideas of what success means. And what that looks like for you will be different to what it looks like for me or for anybody else. But the risk of not taking time out to be intentional about what you're working towards, whatever that is, is other people's ideas of what success look like can really start to dominate. And before you know what you're living a life that isn't really what you want. Or you just kind of floating along, you're not really thinking or doing the things that are going to move you forward in the way that you want to. the game, whatever that is, if you're working in an organization or a fairly large company, you're going to have the formal objective setting or KPIs to hit or targets to hit, depending on your role. But that's not the same as your personal goals and might not be influenced by what YOU want. But it's also about the organization, your manager, having to do what's required of you.
This is about the things that you want for yourself. So not tied to anything or anyone else. If you're at home at the moment, you might want to grab a pen and paper if you'd like to jot things down, you might want to kind of just set aside 10-15 minutes. Now, that's not how long I'm going to talk for but you might want some extra thinking time. Or maybe you're walking the dog and you're just listening alone. But feel free to press pause after some of these questions I'm going to ask you and give yourself some time just to ruminate on them and see what pops up for you.
So, without further ado, I'm going to ask a few questions. I'll leave a few short pauses but you know, you're listening to a recording so you can pause this whenever you want. If you need more time to think and you can come back to it again further down the line if you need to.
So just thinking about you now. Think back to where you were at the beginning of 2024 If you use D, what was going on?
What was happening in your life at that point? What was happening at work? What was happening in your role? What was happening at home? And what has changed since then?
What has really changed for you? It could be something big. It could be some small shifts, pretty confident something's going to have changed. What has that been?
What are you really proud of from the last few months?
What have you achieved or helped other people to achieve?
How have you used your strengths to support you in what you do? You know, we all have things that we lean into things that we're instinctively naturally good at, so how have those strengths, supported you in the last few months?
What's been difficult? What's just felt hard in the last few months? It could be something that you normally find quite easy and straightforward, and something's changed with that. It could be particular relationship or situation that you found yourself in. But what's been difficult for you?
What have you learned from it? About yourself, about other people maybe, or about the work that you do?
Just thinking about some of those things. What do you need to let go of in order to move forward? That might be a feeling it might be a relationship. It might be an attitude towards something.
And now if you thinking of the future now, if you think about fast forwarding to the end of this year, we wrapped the presents, we've done Christmas, we've done all the other festivals. We're sitting on the cusp of 2025.
Where do you want to be then? What is it that you want to be different than it is now?
Possibly even more importantly, how do you want to be different? How do you want to be showing up in the next six months? How do you want to feel?
So thinking about that. Now in this session, we’re thinking a bit about how we’re going to succeed, right? But you don’t need to set hard and fast goals for the next six months. You know, you can do that if you want. But at this point, it's really thinking about what the intentions are that you're setting for yourself now for the next few months.
How are you going to be what are you going to be doing and focusing on what you want to move forward? It’s not necessarily about the detail, but what are the really key things that you want to be thinking about working on on moving forward.
And just finally, when you've got some of those ideas down, what commitment are you going to make to yourself for the next few months?
And how are you going to make sure that you stick to that commitment? You might need some support from somebody, some accountability from someone else. How are you going to make sure that you honor that commitment to you?
So I hope that's been helpful in just starting use of thinking a little bit about what's going on for you, what you've learned from it, and what you want from the rest of this year. So obviously, I hope you've been able to press pause, I hope it's kind of let some stuff bubble up for you. If you want to get in touch and talk about any of it, then please do that. I'd love to hear from you.
Reflection really, really matters. Our ability to reflect on ourselves and our own behaviors. And what we're doing is absolutely pivotal to our ability to lead, to our ability to improve, you know, it’s how we learn and change. And taking time to reflect can be an absolute game changer in terms of how you feel about things, in terms of what you're able to achieve. And in terms of your own personal happiness as well. You know, it's not just about performance at work, it's also about how that fits with what you want out of life. And you know, that, in part, at least, is what coaching is all about.
If you want some support for a deeper reset, then I put a few details in the show notes of how you can kind of go about this. If you've got any reflections, any intentions that you'd like to share with me then please do kind of get a hold of me on LinkedIn and Instagram or wherever you are, and I would really love to hear from you. Take care.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted! Hit the Follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
