*In addition to self-reflection questions to ask on your birthday, the following post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Cake, friends, and family indicate birthday time! Before embarking on these festivities though, consider first answering some self-reflection questions. Previously I suggested you answer the following five questions on your birthday.
- What stands out?
- What did you accomplish?
- What went right?
- What went wrong?
- How can you move forward better in the next year?
Today I add three more self-reflection questions to the above list. Questions which will help you develop clear direction in your life. Plus determine behaviors beneficial to you achieving all you want. Since I keep a cerebral palsy focus here, I will limit any personal examples to CP related matters. Although all the questions transcend disability, meaning everyone can reply.
Three More Self-Reflection Questions to Ask On Your Birthday
What Goals Did You Set?
Reflect back on your last 365 days and recall any goals you set. Goals make life more manageable. Without them life becomes one accident followed by another.
Admittedly that does not necessarily result in negatives. Happy accidents happen too. In May my friend James and I went to a local coffee shop Coffee Phix to shoot some Youtube videos. Upon learning I am an author, the owner offered me a spot in an upcoming author event. My presentation received great feedback. If you wish, you may judge yourself.
Afterwards I made a goal to enter the public speaking circuit. Said goal prevented the successful afternoon at Coffee Phix transitioning to a one off occurrence. Rather I enjoyed the chance to speak to elementary students, high school students, and others about cerebral palsy. I hope to talk to your school or organization next!
What Did You Do On a Daily/Weekly/Monthly Basis to Achieve Your Goals?
Obviously setting a goal only represents the beginning. Achieving your goals requires action. Contemplate your past year. Pinpoint what worked your way daily, weekly, and monthly.
Recognizing such deeds proves vital. Once you identify the aforementioned, transform to habits via repetition. Logic suggests with greater frequency comes further progress. A suggestion my firsthand experiences support.
A fist pump and smile showcase my excitement after walking 13.5 miles in training.
When I turned 29 years old I remained amidst my half marathon training. Prior to my 29th birthday the longest distance I walked measured out at 7.7 miles. Through walking weekly I increased my endurance until I reached the milestone 13.1 miles.
For assistance in establishing daily, weekly, and monthly goals I recommend reading It All Starts with a Plan: Burn-Proof Success Through the Fires of Failure. The book outlines setting personal, professional, and financial goals. While not cerebral palsy specific, the read should aid you nonetheless. Full disclosure, my recommendation contains bias seeing I’m friends with the author. Actually my earlier referenced friend James wrote the book.
What Habits Hindered You?
Besides amplifying what drove your advancement, additionally note hindering habits. Debate internally or externally methods to eliminate your counterproductive activities. Seek efficiency!
Hopefully you find the graphics accompanying my various blog posts visually pleasing. I create the images using Canva. However I came to realize the time spent on the imagery I could better spend elsewhere. So I began a conscious effort to stop letting little details bog me down.
By making graphics a bit faster, I reserve extra time to handle other priorities. Quite arguably time stands your most valuable resource. Hence the increasingly efficient you become with your 24 hours a day, the improved effectiveness you discover.
Add to the List!
Do you ask yourself particular self-reflection questions around your birthday? If yes, add yours to the list circa a comment. To date our self-reflection questions lists reads as follows.
- What stands out?
- What did you accomplish?
- What goals did you set?
- What did you do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis to achieve your goals?
- What went right?
- What went wrong?
- What habits hindered you?
- How can you move forward better in the next year?
You are right about the challenge of setting goals. I have been doing a lot of reading in this area lately… and it does seem to boil down to keeping simple and managable goals, possibly a limited number of goals at a time. But one thing is becoming obvious, making a habit, even once a week, counts towards the goal.
One interesting hmmm… pattern? I noticed from all the reading I am doing is that …
A) habits are part of our cognition (or the mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through experience, senses and thought as defined in Oxford English Dictionary)…. meaning some habits fails and other succeed for a variety of reason but we need to know and understand why, etc… and;
B) habits are better than goals because goals have a definite end, whereas habits, do not. For example, a habit of attending a Cleveland Indians game every year versus a goal of attending 100 Indians game…. For all we know, you could live to 150 and attended at least one game for 105 years…. it no longer becomes a goal but a record.
I admit I’m still in the thought process, absorbing all this in, but there’s definitive truth to having both habits and goals, just a matter of how they go hand in hand with each other.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Mark. The way I see it habits will guide us to accomplishing our goals. A downside to goals are like you said, they have a definite end. In my mind that’s why it is important to continue making new goals. Always be working towards something!