Rupal Y. Patel
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Last week I shared with you my top tips for Capturing Your Year, and promised to share with you my biggest lessons learned as I capture mine. So without further ado, here we go:
1 - It takes ten years to become an "overnight" success. This year was a mega year for me: I published a book (which quickly became a global best-seller!), I spoke at 47 different events, was flown to 9 different countries, was a guest on 20 different podcasts, delivered projects for some of the world's biggest brands, and was on the cover of a magazine. But behind all of this seemingly-sudden success were years and years and years and YEARS of groundwork. Of doing free speaking events before I got paid for them. Of pitching myself before clients started coming to me. Of writing for the love and joy of it before getting a book deal. And while I am so much closer now to making the positive impact and having the reach that I want to make and have, I am still not totally there. But I know there is no fast track. There is no "overnight" success. There is always work to be done. And I have to keep doing the doing, event when the results feel elusive. Because success takes time. And it takes its own time. 2 - Managing our emotions is one of the hardest and most essential skills to master. During this very big year, I've had really high highs and really low lows. There have been heart-shredding tragedies, spirit-soaring achievements, and every accompanying emotion between those two extremes. And while I usually see it as an asset that I feel the feels so intensely, it can also be exhausting. And every human being I have worked with struggles with this too. Managing our emotions - our fire, our intensity - is hard. But we have to do it. Because our emotions don't always serve us. They are often a habitual reaction instead of a considered response; an animal brain instinct instead of human brain thoughtfulness; an ego-savior, instead of achievement-enabler. And for me, managing them takes practice (and a commitment to doing things like taking deep breaths in the moment, building in ample alone time, focusing on what I can control instead of obsessing over all the annoying/stupid/ridiculous/slow/illogical/unjust/maddening things I can't). If we don't learn to manage our emotions they will, of course, manage us. 3 - Don't wait for a vacation to recharge. As you've probably guessed, I am a high-energy, high-intensity person. When I am "on", I am on. And my work requires me to be "on" quite a lot: I help organizations solve big problems, I mentor leaders, I speak in front of audiences. (And some days, I solve big problems, mentor leaders, and speak in front of audiences and then whiplash into parent-mode without a spare minute to pee or inhale a Snickers!) But the only way I can sustain my pace is because I build in time to refill my batteries regularly throughout the day, instead of trying to cram it all into a vacation. My form of recharging can be anything from watching some silly TV (Ghosts is a recent frivolous favouite), running an errand, ordering takeaway for lunch, or simply reading a book late into the night so the only person I am "on" for is myself. Because if I don't remember to recharge, my body will finds ways to remind me: I'll get a sore throat, my joints will start to hurt, my neck will get tight, and no number of massages will be able to work out the Gordian knots in my shoulders. So don't wait for the knots (I have to remind myself... and maybe you too?). Take 10 minutes (or 30 or 90...), and recharge now. However you can. I'll be back next week with my next installment of Lessons Learned in 2022, so watch this space.
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I don't know about you, but I love this time of year. For me, it's a time for reflection and review and recalibration, and that’s why this week I wanted to share with you one of the most valuable tools from my personal tradecraft toolkit: Capturing Your Year.
Now, I hear so many people talk about their year like it ran away from them or that it felt like a “throw away” year. But even when the pace of life feels relentless, we grow and change and make progress. It’s just that we're not used to registering that growth or change or progress concretely. And what a waste that is. What a waste to look at a day, a week, a month, a year and think “I’m glad that’s over” or "There's so much still left to do" or "Where the heck did the time go". But instead of despairing or wondering, here's what you can do instead: 1 - Block out a 60-120 minute chunk of time in your calendar before the end of the year where you can be distraction-free and interruption free. Go somewhere quiet, peaceful, and enjoyable, and bring a journal or a pad of paper (or computer) with you. 2 - Review your calendar. Literally look at every single day from 1 January to now and look at all the meetings you had, appointments you made, people you met with, webinars you attended, events you went to, vacations you took, conferences you participated in, projects you started, etc, and start mentally reliving some of those moments. This will: a) remind you of just how-damned-much you did this year, and b) start to prompt your brain for what comes next. 3 - Capture your biggest lessons learned, mistakes made, and successes achieved. Write it all down in as much detail as possible and sit and reflect. Let the successes sink in. Let the accomplishments and holidays and all the FUN things you did sink in. And let the mistakes and the lessons you learned from making them sink in, too. 4 - Distill the above into your “Top Lessons Learned” (ideally 10-15). And think about any changes you want/need to make in your work, life, relationships, health, etc that will make it harder for you to repeat any mistakes and easier for you to move forward better, smarter, stronger. 5 - Make concrete plans. If any of those changes require other people’s input (in your business, say), or if there is anything you need to eliminate or adapt or add (a new gym membership, for example), then PLAN IT INTO YOUR CALENDAR and think about how you will integrate your lessons learned in the year to come. 6 - And finally, if you are feeling generous, share your list. You can share it with friends, family, co-workers, or just a trusted friend. But I find that by sharing our lessons, we relearn them and they get embedded that much deeper. It’s also a really nice way to make sure that others around us can learn from our experiences, good and not-so-good. 7 - Repeat each year! I have done this exercise every year for almost a decade, and each time I do it, I am forced to to confront hard facts (instead of my unreliable memory) and am reminded of how far I’ve come, how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown, and how much I’ve done. In one short year. Our memories are painfully inadequate at remembering things accurately, and too often we think a year (month/week/day) was a “waste” when a Capture Your Year exercise proves it was anything but. So don’t rely on your memory. Join me this December as I sit down to capture the year, crystalize key lessons and takeaways, and embed the lessons into next year. I’ll be sharing my Lessons Learned with you starting next week, so stay tuned! |
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