As we all end the year, we should take time to reflect on the year.  No, I didn’t say that we need to begin setting goals or resolutions for the new year.  We should be thinking about our accomplishments and basking in the completion of another year of experience in the corporate world.  Why?  Our year isn’t usually filled with praise and glory for all the things we achieve.  Companies tend to remind us more of what we do wrong than what we do right.  Well, now it’s time to capture your greatest moments.  Here’s a few reasons and benefits for engaging in thoughtful reflection.

Let’s start with something easy.  It’s a good way to keep your resume up to date.  I can’t tell you how many of us wait until we need our resume to update it.  What new skills did you build?  Do you have a few new stories that demonstrate specific leadership abilities?  Write down all the projects, skills and experiences in your resume.  Now you’re ready for that next opportunity that crosses your path.  If you can’t remember them, ask others to help you.

Once I captured my list of projects and accomplishments, I would send that information to the other individuals who worked on those projects with me.  It served as a reminder that we worked together in a particular capacity.  This was important to others because they needed such stories to support their personal development and to document their activities in their company’s performance review.  By helping others, I built my own network of supporters who would speak highly of my efforts and abilities.

According to Daniel Goleman et. al., self-directed learning, which employs reflective questioning throughout its cycle, has been shown to be an effective strategy for developing emotional intelligence and ultimately leadership competency.  Goleman put it another way when he said “No   creature can fly with just one wing. Gifted leadership occurs where heart and head - feelings and thought- meet. These are the two wings that allow a leader to soar.”  My experience with high achievers has hardly ever implied they don’t have heart.  Most have a great passion for what they do.  The “head” implies we need to balance great effort with a great plan.  How do we know what works for us?  Well, you need to know what already has worked for you. 

Mintzberg, in his recent controversial work Managers, not MBA’s, declares that “thoughtful reflection in the light of conceptual ideas is the key to management learning.”  We all use our years of work experience as a yard stick for measuring our abilities.  I always thought this to be quite risky.  Do you really have 20 years of experience or just 1 year twenty times?  Reflection is how you learn and make each year a useful year of experience.  Mintzberg suggests morning reflections.  First thing in the morning, when the mind is fresh, often after thoughts have come up since the previous day, take time to reflect. The key here is to capture, reinforce, and extend your learning in this especially relaxed time of the day.

Learning everything you know now involved a process of reflection. Even very simple learning tasks that consist of memorizing things through repetition require reflection.  MBAs study cases from companies.  They review numerous situations to learn from them.  They want to know what worked and what didn’t.   However, once we are out of school, we have a tendency to stop such thought.  This is what reflection is all about.  It’s learning from your own experience; that is, what works and what doesn’t.  Have you ever kept trying to achieve success by doing the same things over and over, every single year?  Did you get tired of getting the same results?  You weren’t learning.  The good thing about that is, you can fix it.  You’ve got time.  Now, take action. Sit back. Relax. Reflect.