What are you observing and thinking about your life?

As I take a moment for reflection, I am struck by four different events in my life that reveal different aspects of who I am. 

When is the last time you paused to engage in self-reflection about what’s happening in your life—professionally, personally, or both? 

I ask that question knowing that there are times such meta-awareness happens spontaneously for me (this morning) and there are times that I plan for space in my schedule, (the beginning and end of the day, week, month, and year).

How are you engaging with your thinking? What are you thinking and learning about your thinking?

Stepping back from being in my everyday reality/busyness enables me to realize how I want to approach what is present for me now:

• I’m about to head into a two-year training program, which I believe will bring great personal challenges and rewards. 
• Just yesterday, I accepted an ongoing project that will bring me into new relationships with colleagues. It’s an undertaking that’s founded in the work that I have been doing for decades and yet it is also uncharted territory with the startup.
  

  This morning’s walk

• This morning I decided that I needed to engage in a small yet important-to-me project that I’ve been thinking about since 2013.
• And sitting on the couch with my cup of coffee early this morning, I heard the snow and sleet tapping at the windows. I realized I was not relishing the idea of walking the beloved dog. 

How are these related you might ask? Here’s my thinking:

• I am so looking forward to my training, and am making time to prepare myself—organizing materials, planning my schedule, and anticipating the mindset about this new adventure.
  

  My creation—still to be named

• My project from 2013 is to submit a Zentangle pattern that I created during my Certified Zentangle Teacher training over years ago. That task feels a little bigger than I’d like… it’s not that the individual pieces are difficult, it just feels rather tedious. I have to look forward and yet it does feel like I will be sending my pattern into the void as a process is clear though the possibility of response is uncertain. (And if there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I always want feedback about my work.) I think I’ll handle my concern about the length and uncertainty of the process by sharing my work after I have submitted it to www.tanglepatterns.com—so I can be sure it gets out into the world.

• As I step into this new role in this growing organization, I’ll be using my skills of Appreciative Inquiry to guide my process. That feels like a great foundation. and a new way to utilize my learning.
• And, as I stepped outside fully prepared for terrible weather in the dark early morning, I discovered that I loved the crunch of the snow and sleet under my feet, dampness in the air, and quiet of the very early morning. I chuckled to myself because I’m not usually a negative anticipator and was delighted with my ability to be present and find ways to enjoy the moment.

All these different experiences (just like all of life) call for meta-awareness (the ability to observe my thoughts, feelings, sensations, and impulses as they are happening) and metacognition (the process of thinking about my own thinking and learning).

What do you think and feel about all of this? How are you supporting yourself through the use of metacognition and meta-awareness?

Would you like to chat about it? If so, shoot me an email and we’ll chat!

Perhaps all of this reflection is being unconsciously supported by my reading in The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. It’s a delightful and thought-provoking read. I highly recommend it!