What lessons have you learnt this year?

The end of the year is an excellent time to look back and reflect on what’s been going on.

Rather than achievements ticked, targets met or money earned, I am wondering about my learning over the past 12 months.

Partly this is because I have spent quite a portion of it undertaking a graduate diploma which has pushed me, challenged me and nurtured me as no learning ever before has done, and partly a natural inclination to look at things that way.

As a measure of the distance travelled I think lessons learnt can be a useful one, so in case this reverberates, here is an invitation to you to look back over the landscape of your last 12 months and identify the markers on your landscapes where you had a breakthrough of understanding.

Often these are not “aha” moments at the time, but only reveal themselves in retrospect. And here are three of mine to start you off.

Lesson One

Even when it looks like there’s nothing happening, there’s learning going on.

Nature abhors a vacuum – that’s as true in the workplace as it is in the garden.

For a time there, no calls came in, plans did not eventuate, I wasn’t taking the action I ought to have. There was great deal of space. It looked like a plateau of nothingness. But it wasn’t.

Even though I seemed to be going through the motions and moving in a straight, flat line, something was happening. I realise now I was learning how I react to these circumstances and that when I do take action there is an immediate, substantive reaction and response from people.

This was only evident in the contrast with the apparently empty vista, and encourages me to continue to act and to persist.

Lesson Two

People value me the way I value myself.

For me it has been a huge year of re-evaluation and re-valuation.

Not being able to accept and speak of my capabilities and talents has been a block to my own progress for so many years. I am finally beginning to get out of my own way and tell others who I am, what I offer and how much I charge for it, with humility and a dose of graciousness. So that in itself has been an extraordinary and very long lesson.

Lesson Three

Something I knew before that has been emphasised and rediscovered is the value of the collaborative group.

This is the network of help, personal learning network, first followers, support group, fan base, whatever you like to call them, these are the people who absolutely believe in what you are doing even when you have doubts.

These are the people who keep you on the path – uplifted, focused and committed. I am going to make even more of an effort to give back to these people and surround myself with them at every opportunity next year.

So sit back with a glass of celebratory fizz and think about what you gained from this year that you would like to remember and do more of in the next. Cheers!