Paul Duxbury

Working Out Loud – Reflective Practice In Action

Reflecting on activities, events and projects in your can help you progress from complete beginner to a more skilled person who has learned from their experiences. It is also a useful tool for project teams and indeed whole organisations to adopt in order to improve their performance. It can very much be as Andy Lancaster recently mentioned in a Tweet something akin to “working out loud” as we reflect on our learning throughout a project or piece of work.

Here are some methods that you might want to consider.

Reflect Actively

Active reflection during an activity/project creates the opportunity for improving your performance as you start to spot gaps in your knowledge or things you tend to struggle with. “What should I do now?” is a common question when we are first starting on something. “What could I have done better?” is an example of the kind of question reflective practice raises. The answers you come up with can lead to a greater level of skill and confidence. They can also aid in problem solving and decision making to take a project forward.

Take Action

Taking action about what you find will lead to personal and professional growth and development. If you find any gaps in your knowledge, more studying, a course or webinar, or finding a good coach or mentor can all take your skills to the next level. Adjusting priorities and determining new lines of action within a project can lead to success in the delivery of the project.

Set Goals

Reflective practice can also help you set goals. In terms of your professional development/career will no longer feel like it is not within your control and that things just happen to you at work. Instead, you will be feel more in charge because you know what you want and don’t want. The goals you set with the help of your reflective practice will be like a road map to the destination of your choosing. Otherwise you might end up driving around with no clear direction or with a project going off target and not being delivered.

Achieving your Goals

Once you have defined your goals, it will be time to take the practical action needed to achieve them. For each action that is a stepping stone toward your goal, you can apply reflective practice to make sure you are on the right track.

The Best Ways to Reflect

how can you get started? Here’s an easy formula. You might find it helpful to create a worksheet on your computer and print out several copies. Fill them in and analyse your answers. Again these can be adapted for an individual or a group working together

What happened?
What was my role in the event?
How do I feel about what happened?
Who owns what happened?
What was the outcome of the event?
How was the outcome different or the same from what I expected to happen?
What could I have done better in this situation?
What actions can I take to help ensure a better outcome next time a similar situation crops up?

Answering these questions requires honesty, and the willingness to learn and grow. No one is expecting you to be perfect. However, most people will want to be the best they can be in their profession, so apply reflective practice and see what a difference it can make to you.

Discovering Those Learning Moments

Ever since my friend Ady Howes asked a question on Twitter under the hashtag #LoveCPD the role of reflection as part of our learning process has been very much at the forefront of my mind. It’s for that reason that I have interrupted my planned series of posts and want to reflect on reflective practice or discovering our learning moments.

Nowadays there is a great deal of emphasis placed on being our best self. Some of the techniques for accomplishing this are thousands of years old; they just have a new name. Reflective practice is the new term for the ancient process of trying to “know yourself” in order to transform your life through positive change.

The word reflective refers to reflection, or thinking about, certain areas of your life or events in your life and how they turned out. As the event is reflected upon, you are able to explore it in greater depth in order to learn lessons from your experience. As a result of what you learn, you can develop goals to improve your skills in that particular area and follow through with action steps to achieve your goals.

If you’ve been feeling “stuck” in your career or personal life, reflective practice could just be what you’re looking for to transform your life. Let’s look at how to get started.

Starting Reflective Practice

A good starting point is to keep a diary or journal. A small notebook that can be carried with you and/or a folder on your computer with various files you create can all help.

Next, it is important to understand the process of reflection in reflective practice. Reflection is an active process of observing your own experiences in order to evaluate how you were able to handle certain events or occurrences in your life. It is not intended to make you feel bad or beat yourself up over what did or didn’t happen. For each event you wish to explore, simply evaluate the situation in a calm manner to learn from it.

Some events will not require a great deal of analysis. Others might be worth digging deeper because you might spot a pattern or problem you weren’t aware of before.

Learning from Past Actions

A lot of us can be negative and pessimistic. Our negative self-talk tells us we are a “loser” or failure. Reflective practice can help transform you into a winner by cutting the cord of negativity and setting you on a path to personal transformation.

The secret of successful reflective practice is to learn how to look at your actions and experiences without being quick to judge them. It also means taking the time to examine them – rather than just rush to the next thing on your to-do list without learning any lessons from what you’ve said, accomplished, or tried to do.

Through examination, we learn more about ourselves, and in that process of learning, we open ourselves up to a range of new possibilities. Through learning from experience, we can become even more successful in our personal and professional lives.

Learning Moments

We’ve all done it. Repeated the same mistake at least twice. Had a “disaster” in terms of our work life or personal life, such as the loss of a job or the (bad) breakup of a relationship. When this happens, have you:

Stuck your head in the sand and just ignored what was happening?
Blamed others for what happened?
Or did you sit down to reflect on what happened to see what lessons you could learn from it?

Chances are that like many others, you’ve done 1 and 2 most of the time up until this point in your life. With reflective practice, it is time to begin doing #3 regularly.

You can start small and then work your way up to the bigger issues as and when you need to. You can start your journal with something that happened today in your work or personal life, and reflect on how it went.

For example, did you have to give a PowerPoint presentation at a meeting today? How did it go? Were you prepared? Were there any technical or other issues that cropped up? If so, how did you handle them?

Maybe you talked to a family member on the phone and things got a little out of hand. What happened? Were there any things you could have done or said differently?

We hate it when things don’t go well at work or we argue with the people we care about. Often, though, these are some of the best “learning moments” that can highlight areas of our life we need to work on in order to be our best self. Once you have evaluated the event, think about what lessons you’ve learned and how you can do better next time.

In relation to the presentation, it might be:

Get to the room earlier to set up better
Conduct a practice run using the equipment to avoid technical glitches
Make the lettering on the slides bigger so everyone at the back could also see clearly

In relation to the phone call with the family member:

Don’t mention topic X
Avoid the blame game
Change the subject if they start going on at you about Y or Z
Remind them you are an adult and while you appreciate their input and caring, you’ve already discussed the issue at least once and don’t need to again.

These are just a few examples. You should be able to come up with many of your own, relevant to your personal circumstances, once you start on the path of reflective practice.

In subsequent posts I will delve a little deeper into this.

Can You Be Too Perfect?

Having looked at fear of failure and success I want to now look at how being a perfectionist can stop you from achieving what you want.

Let’s start by understanding what perfectionism is not. Perfectionism is not the admirable quality of holding yourself to high standards. Rather, perfectionism is the fusion of high standards with your self-worth. A less-than-perfect performance damages a perfectionist’s self-worth in their opinion. The possibility that their performance will not be flawless is debilitating to them, and they can become paralyzed by the idea of doing something.

A perfectionist believes that they can never be good enough. They consider any mistake they make to be an indication of their value as a person and therefore no mistake is permissible. They seek to avoid shame and judgment by being perfect.

Successful professionals are typically not perfectionists, although they may be people who hold themselves and others to high standards. The hesitation and over-analysis that is common to perfectionists does not help them to advance in a profession.

What Perfectionism Looks Like

Perfectionists are often chronic procrastinators. They spend so much time preparing for a task that they never get to the task. The anxiety surrounding their fear of making a mistake is disempowering, so they often feel unable to proceed with their work.

Perfectionists may be aware that their perfectionism is a disadvantage to them, but they consider it the price they have to pay to be successful. Perfectionists hold others to high standards, too, and can be very critical of them. But even though they are quick to criticize, they have a hard time accepting criticism, which can stop them from moving on with their work.

Perfectionism is a big de-motivator. Perfectionists can be reluctant to try new things because they are afraid that they won’t be able to live up to their own standards when they do it. And, if they do try something new, they will often abandon it quickly. The mistakes that anyone is bound to make when learning a skill are so painful to perfectionists that they will quit before they gain mastery. As a consequence, they never enjoy practicing the skill, be it speaking a language, playing an instrument, or participating in a sport.

Because perfectionists are so risk-averse, they rarely are able to innovate or be creative. They have all-or-nothing thinking, and won’t do anything if they can’t devote themselves to it totally. They are often hiding the fact that they are imposters.

How to Overcome Perfectionism

Many of the ways of overcoming perfectionism have to do with recognizing that it is a hindrance, not a help, in achieving your goals. If your goal is to do an excellent job in a presentation for work, being obsessed with every little detail stands in your way rather than helping you.

If you are overwrought over things that are out of your control, you aren’t completing things that are in your control. If you are focused on past errors, you aren’t working on tasks that can actually move you toward your goals. So step back, look at the big picture, and put perfectionism in its place.

Another approach to overcoming perfectionism is to heal the parts of you that causes it. Perfectionists are weak on self-acceptance and self-compassion. To overcome perfectionism, learn to love yourself in all your imperfect glory. Honor the work that you do, even if it is less than perfect.

Honour your commitment to high standards, but don’t let your failure to meet them make you feel unworthy. Treat mistakes as lessons you can learn from. Let go of the personal hurt you feel over them. Be analytical about them, freeing yourself from the impact they have over your feelings of self-worth. Enjoy your successes and victories. Celebrate them. Let your successes, not your errors, define you to yourself.

Are You Scared Of Success?

In my last post I looked at the question of the fear of failure which can be paralyzing. However, the fear of success can be equally so. At the heart of the fear of success is the fear of change. Change, after all, is stressful, even when it’s a change that you work hard to achieve.

What Fear of Success Looks Like

Fear of success really is the fear of the changes that come with success. Success can come with a higher degree of responsibility, for example. A successful person has to make more decisions concerning money, people and other matters. Fear of success can cause you to shy away from success because you fear the additional responsibility that you would have to shoulder.

You may fear success due to a fear of a higher degree of scrutiny than you currently have to deal with. With a higher profile, any future failures get more publicity. That is true whether your greater visibility is on the pages of a fan magazine or in the corridors of your office building.

Fear of success also arises because of the fear of interpersonal changes. Maybe you are afraid of losing friendships if you are promoted or become more successful, or of having to deal with envy or jealousy of old friends or family members. You may fear developing a reputation among people as someone who chose money, fame, or a more demanding career over living a more “normal” life. Your overweight friends may resent your commitment to losing weight and re-gaining your health. Some people mistakenly equate success with a lack of spirituality or humility; perhaps you fear the loss of those qualities. Or perhaps the success that you seek would put you in the position of creating enemies and your fear of success stems from that.

People who fear success take steps to avoid it. So they may avoid completing projects or they may take on so much work that they can’t give each project the amount of time necessary for successful completion. People who are afraid of success may talk a lot about what they have done or will do but aren’t currently taking much action. They may second-guess themselves a lot, starting a project, stopping it, re-organizing it, starting it again, but finally never getting it done. They may try every diet that comes along, lose some weight, then abandon it and gain the weight back. As with many means of self-sabotage, fear of success may cause people to be more distracted than usual.

How to Overcome Your Fear of Success

If fear of success is standing in the way of you reaching your goals, you need to know that there are ways to overcome your fear and allow you to stay on your path to success. First, make an intentional effort to remain positive in your approach to reaching your goal. Remind yourself that change is inevitable and if you don’t choose your change, change will choose you. You have the right to be the one to decide what changes enter your life. So make the decision and pursue it with gusto.

Make it a point to maintain your authenticity. It may happen that you lose some of your old friends if you have a large change in your life because your common ground shifts. But don’t let it be because of your pride. Keep your perspective on life and your sense of humor. Maintain friendly relations with your old friends.

If your fear of success is related to a fear of becoming unspiritual, find a way to maintain your spirituality. Use your religious practice, a course of intentional giving, or whatever is appropriate to your spirituality to guide you. Study the lives of other spiritual people who used their worldly success to make a positive impact in the world.

Think of your success in the larger perspective of the world. Honor the positive impact your success can have on the world and in your life and work hard to make it meaningful. Shying away from making that impact would be a shame.

Finally, accept your ambition to achieve your goal and make your dreams come true. Fear of success, like any of the self-sabotaging techniques, works when your inner self is at odds with your outer self. Help your inner self to accept the decision to set and achieve your goals.

Are You Scared Of Failure?

Fear of failure is an irrational fear that you will not succeed that has so much power over you that it can stop you from moving forward to achieve your goals. Since it paralyzes you from taking action to achieve your goals, it pretty much guarantees that you won’t meet them. So anyone who has a goal to meet or a dream to make come true needs to conquer any fear of failure that may be burdening them.

Inevitably if you are looking for a new job having been made redundant the question “what happens if I don’t find a new job?” is going to surface. So in this quite long post I want to look at what fear of failure looks like but also how to overcome that fear.

What Fear of Failure Looks Like

Fear of failure can stem from negative associations with failure that go back as far as childhood or it can arise after experiencing a harsh episode in which someone felt like a failure.

In the first case, where the fear of failure arises from a long time of feeling inadequate, people with a fear of failure feel a sense of shame at being inadequate or incompetent. Maybe a harsh parent or care-giver magnified small failures they had when they were growing up. Now, they are afraid to try new things or to challenge themselves to achieve success. They give up easily when they encounter a difficulty. They settle for ordinary, mediocre lives instead of reaching for higher opportunities.

In the second case, the fear of failure arises from an important negative experience. Someone may be fired, say, and that causes such trauma that they lack confidence to get another job or to try to pursue a challenging career. Or someone else may have a relationship end in a cruel and hurtful way, so that the result is a fear of moving forward to meet someone else and find love again. The reluctance to act is due to a fear that the painful event will be repeated.

In either case, people with fear of failure shy away from situations in which they don’t think they will be entirely successful. For them, failure isn’t a learning experience. Failure is a shameful experience that feels like the end of the world. As a consequence, they fail at something simply because they never try it. In that way, failure is inevitable; the fear has won.

Fear of failure can lead to other self-sabotaging efforts, such as procrastination and low self-esteem. People with fear of failure may avoid starting new projects, or may start them but then fail to follow through on them. Or sometimes they set out on a project but then subconsciously cause themselves to fail, as though they want to prove to themselves and others that they were right all along – that they would fail at their attempt.

Fear of failure can cause feelings of shame, disappointment, anger, frustration and confusion. And it can lead to physical symptoms, some of which can be pretty scary. You can experience breathing problems like shortness of breath or rapid breathing, stomach problems like nausea or diarrhea, as well as faintness, tremulousness, flushing and excessive perspiration. People experiencing fear of failure may feel an overwhelming, general sense of dread.

How to Overcome Fear of Failure

If you are experiencing serious, debilitating fear of failure, the kind that is destroying your life, you should seek the help of a mental health professional. For more manageable cases, there are some self-help steps that you can take to get your fear of failure under control.

A small group of loving, supportive friends or family members is very helpful when it comes to overcoming fear of failure. They can help you heal your wounds. They can point out the successful qualities that you have but ignore. And they can give you practical advice that helps you to succeed in more challenging environments than you are used to being in.

If you don’t already have people like that in your life, you can look out for support groups in your community. Another self-help step is to do something that you can be pretty sure that you will succeed at, and then build on that, starting with low-stress steps forward. A good singer can join a choir, and even volunteer to do solos. A good dressmaker can make some items for sale at a community or crafts sale, attaching a card with contact information in case the purchaser wants more. By doing something that you are good at, and putting yourself in the position to get some recognition for it, you start to build up your experiences of being a success.

Another way of attacking fear of failure is to analyze it. Discover what it is that you are actually afraid of. Are you afraid that if you ask your boss for a promotion, she will turn you down? Then prepare for the promotion. Document the contributions that you have made to the company. Compare your achievements to others in your role and in the role you seek. Do special projects or take on more responsibilities in anticipation of your request. Make yourself highly promotable. It increases your chances of getting promoted. If, after all that, you still don’t get the promotion, ask for an honest assessment why. Take the response seriously but not personally. The feedback may be what you need to go on to more success.

Finally, the most important means of self-help that you can engage in is the one that takes the most persistent work. That is, to change your relationship to failure. Instead of thinking of failure as a personal flaw that you should be ashamed of, think of it as a learning experience that can help you grow.
Learn to treat failure is a step along the path to success. Do what you are afraid of. You might, after all, succeed. If you succeed, use your success to change your mind about yourself. And if you do fail, examine what happens. Do you die? Do people you love die? In other words, so what if you fail?

Eleanor Roosevelt said it best:

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Finally, to overcome fear of failure, think of what would happen if you didn’t do the thing you are afraid of. First, the thing wouldn’t get done. Second, the personal growth that you would experience by overcoming your fear of failure wouldn’t take place. And, third, the future as it would exist afterwards won’t exist. The world won’t have been changed in that direction. Are you willing to give your fear that much power? The world will be that much poorer for your contribution. You will be that much poorer for yielding to your fear. If that’s not what you want, don’t let it happen.

Your goals and dreams are as big and as powerful as your fear. Give your goals and dreams the upper hand. Let them conquer your fear.