“Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.” - Marcus Aurelius
Where do new years resolutions come from?
It is a natural time of year to do some introspection and reflection. We do this in software as well, called retrospectives. These are done after every sprint in an agile method of working. In a retrospective we go through the previous work to determine:
- What went wrong?
- What went right?
- What can we do better?
- What did we do well?
These questions are the used to come together as a team to create a better working environment. This makes so much sense to do for your job and your team! Why do we only do this once a year with our lives?
Taking time to evaluate other areas of your lives is just as (if not more) beneficial as it is at work.
- Have a relationship check in with a friend/family member.
- Think about what annoyances you experience in a week. What can you do about them?
- What have you been enjoying recently and is anything getting in the way of that?
We are now in the third week of January. If you made resolutions at the start of the year take a look at them now! Which ones are you still happy about? Which are harder than you thought? Can you break the hard ones down a bit more to make them easier? Do you want to continue with them or find something new?
There’s a lot of questions in the thoughts here, but you are the only one who can answer them. I am posing these questions to help start this process for you as it’s something that I am going to do as well.
(There’s probably even more questions specific to your goals or situation that only you can ask!)