Easy Way to Practice Gratitude, Gain Perspective, Plan Ahead

Questions to help you practice gratitude, gain perspective on the past week, and think prospectively about the week ahead. Excellent. I've put these in a recurring calendar event every Friday afternoon as a reminder. (Will I do them fully each week? No. But when I can, and really need to, they'll be there, easy access.) Give it a shot. Tell me what you think.

15 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Friday

By Adrian Granzella Larssen, February 21, 2014

From: The Muse, link here.

Some weeks at work, you’re totally on your A-game. You’re crushing every important call, you’re cranking through your to-dos like nobody’s business, and you’re getting high-fives and ’atta boys (or girls) left and right.

And then there are those other weeks—when even being on your B-game would be nice.

Athletes, like professionals, have on streaks and off streaks, too. But unlike professionals, they often take the time to look back over their performance, analyzing in great detail what went well, what didn’t, and what contributed to their “game” either way.

Business coach Laura Garnett sees this as a lost opportunity. In a recent Inc.article, she suggests that we could all use a bit of this athletic-style evaluation in our working lives—and proposes a series of 15 questions to ask yourself each week to reveal your peaks and dips in performance, energy, and excitement. “By going through these questions and answering them honestly, you will uncover the root cause of great or less-than-optimal performance,” she says, “and [can] make changes to enhance or avoid it going forward.”

No matter what kind of week you had today, try spending 15 minutes answering these questions and seeing what you can uncover about your work life:

1. What was the most enjoyable work activity of the week?
2. How many enjoyable work moments did you have?
3. How many frustrating or boring moments did you have?
4. How would you describe your impact on others you work with, your customers, or those whom you come into contact with this week?
5. Is this the type of impact you want?
6. If not, what prompted this change in desired impact?
7. Were you challenged this week?
8. Were you bored?
9. What were your biggest and most exciting challenges this past week?
10. How confident did you feel this week?
11. Did you have any negative mental chatter about yourself?
12. Are you practicing actively believing that you can achieve whatever it is you have set your sights on?
13. Are you committed to having joy and groundbreaking results at work?
14. What distractions came up this week that prevented you from getting the most out of your job?
15. How can you avoid that going forward?

Garnett advises going through this exercise at the end of each week, writing your responses down in an ongoing document you can reflect back on from time to time. But even if you did the exercise once a month? We bet it would have a serious impact.
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Remember, this can all apply to areas of your life outside of work. Give it a try!