December 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Do you have a process for reflecting on the year that was - and for setting yourself up for an amazing year to come?
Joining me today is successful ABC broadcaster and host of Radio National’s ‘This Working Life’, Lisa Leong.
I sat down with Lisa for a chat about her annual tradition of reflecting on the year and setting goals for 2025.
Many of us do this, but how many of us are happy with the result? This episode covers a range of strategies you can use to reflect and set goals for a more successful 2025.
Lisa shares:
- 📓 Some unique strategies for using a diary to reflect on the past year
- 🔮 Why you should do a "pre-mortem" for the incoming year if you want to succeed
- ✂️ The importance of reflecting on what to remove from your life each year instead of what to add
- 🎯 What you should be doing instead of a traditional New Year’s resolution
Key Quotes:
“For me, discipline is freeing. I see a lot of freedom in discipline.”
“Don't worry too much about ‘how is that going to happen’, but just have the vision there - and the magic happens.”
Connect with Lisa via Instagram, or check out This Working Life.
My latest book The Health Habit is out now. You can order a copy here: https://www.amantha.com/the-health-habit/
Connect with me on the socials: Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanthaimber)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/amanthai)
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work and live, I write a weekly newsletter where I share practical and simple to apply tips to improve your life. You can sign up for that at https://amantha-imber.ck.page/subscribe
Visit https://www.amantha.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
Credits:
Host: Amantha Imber
Sound Engineer: The Podcast Butler
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you like me. At the end of every year,
you spend some time thinking about the year that was
and making plans and dreams for the year to come.
But how effective are your plans and do you actually
end up achieving the goals that you set at the
start of the year. Joining me today is ABC broadcaster
and host of Radio National's This Working Life, and also
(00:23):
my very good friend Lisa Leong. Lisa and I thought
we would sit down for a chat to discuss the
methods that we're using to reflect on the past year
and set ourselves up for an amazing twenty twenty five.
In this episode, we explore some unique strategies for using
a calendar to reflect on the past year, why you
should do a pre mortem of the upcoming year if
(00:46):
you want to succeed, and what you might want to
consider doing instead of setting New Year's resolutions. Welcome to
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber.
(01:10):
Before planning for the year ahead, it's pretty common to
look back on the one that's just passed. But what's
the best way to reflect? Should we just shut down
some random memories or is there a more structured approach.
I decided to start things off by asking Lisa what
she's doing this December to reflect on the year that was.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So I've been doing the same little reflection for a
couple of years now, so maybe I'll tell you what
I do. But there are some other ones that I've
used in the past. If you don't want to do
this way, there is an exercise which I called the
life flow exercise, which you can do for your whole life,
and that is mapping the highs and the lows subjectively
(01:54):
of your whole life. That exercise is used so you
can see the patterns of what may peak a peak
and what made a trough. So basically the lower line,
you sort of do it like a timeline, the lower
part of the line, so that's horizontal. That is the
time that's gone by, so it could be in ten
year incremental, five year increments. And then you map really
(02:16):
subjectively highs or lows, and that's whatever it means to you.
So it could be happiness, it could be energy, whatever
you want. I use this for each year as well,
so I've done it for my life and I tend
to do it for a big reflection, but I also
find it really useful just for the year as well. Amanthas. So,
I have a diary where there's a month at a glance,
(02:39):
and so I generally put in the big things that
I've been doing so that I can do this exercise later.
But you could look at your calendar and basically I
will map out my whole year. So it's basically every month,
so January, February, March, April, May, June, and I subjectively say,
is this a high or a loaf for me? And
(03:01):
my graph is really interesting this year. So I did
this exercise to prepare for this, and I was very
sick at the beginning of the year. I came out
of the blocks potentially a bit too hard.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And was sick in February.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Got COVID in March, and then quite sick in May.
So something wasn't happening for me at the beginning of
the year. So that's useful just to know that health
wise just wasn't firing. And then the year settled quite
well and you know, sort of grew and I think
(03:38):
what I noticed about the highlights of the year were
a couple of big events, and you were part of
one of those where we did the ARI event on
the stage and it was just really fun. We had
a lot of joy and we were singing and dancing.
That was really fun.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love that that was for me.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, So the theme there is about teaming and collaboration
with people you love, and that whole event was filled
with that. I felt. Then my ABC work was a
high because I just really enjoyed, you know when you
can really enjoy the broadcasting and connecting once again with
(04:17):
community and people. So once again connection and then I
put a high. I went away and learned some so
further learning is another one. I learned some chickun which
is like tauchy, and then I did this year zen
meditation Amantha, and I think what happened was that's a
(04:37):
new thing I added this year which helped me make
a better year by the end, because meditation is a
practice and I think I just slowly diligently built on
it and I think that helped me really. So if
I'm just going to show you even though we're on radio,
but it's basically that it grew up. My reflection never
(04:58):
usually looks from low to high, but I had one
of those years where I just started. Usually it's the
other way. Usually I burned out by the end, Amantha,
But this year I was really happy that it went
back and then discovered pickleball as well in the US.
So there's something about fun about presence with the meditation
(05:23):
and also balance as well. So that's kind of my
big reflections. What do you make of that approach?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So I like how you describe what you've done there.
So the life flow exercise, I have never thought to
apply that to one year. So we actually had a
dinner I want to say, maybe a year and a
half ago at south By Southwestern Sydney in twenty twenty
three with a mutual friend of ours, where we all
shared our life flow over the course of our life.
(05:53):
And I mean, I think that it's such an interesting
exercise to do with friends or family or loved ones
just gained so much insight into their life that you
didn't know even if you thought you knew the person well.
But I like how you've applied it to one year
of your life and taking that birdsie view of the
year and thinking about, Okay, what thematically can I learn
(06:16):
from that? What are the things that connected the highs?
What are the themes that I can deliberately take forward,
and also what can I do about the lows? Do
you look for themes in the lows and think about
what can I learn from that?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Exactly? So with the troughs, what you're trying to do
is not go on autopilot. So that's when those habits
really they become ingrained and you repeat the same mistakes
over and over. So you do it gently. But I
look at the troughs and say, you know, is there
anything I could tweak going into next year which might
(06:48):
mediate those troughs a little bit. I mean, life happens,
and so there's always peaks and troughs.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's never a.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Straight line, because maybe you're dead if there's a straight line.
So I think definitely with looking at the troughs. So
the health and health in itself was possibly a little
bit about balance and quite a lot about discipline. And
discipline is such a strange word, but for me, discipline
(07:15):
is freeing. I see a lot of freedom in discipline,
and it's something that both you and I look at
a lot, which is when you create a new routine
and you're disciplined about it, then it gives you so
much freedom because if I wasn't so sick at the
beginning of the year, I would have had that freedom
to do the things that I actually wanted to be doing,
(07:36):
which is the actually being on radio, because I had
to sort of stop doing that for a little while,
and you know, when I was ill, and so that
was not a great time for me, and people rely
on me as well, so having to let people down
didn't feel good those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The other thing that stood out to me is how
you're mapping your monthly calendar. You and I want to
dig into that a little bit more and also share
something that I tried to form as a habit very unsuccessfully,
but my partner Neo, has been insane in terms of
his consistency with this habit. So when we moved in together,
I got us both a sentence in a day diary.
(08:15):
So I don't know if you've seen these, No, there
are five year diary where you basically write one sentence
a day, and how it works is that for the
five years, there's one block per each year, and so
like essentially every what are we were like Tuesday, the
twenty sixth of November today, So every twenty sixth of November.
(08:37):
Then when today, if I actually kept this as a habit,
I was writing my twenty sixth of November sentence, like
one sentence long diary, I could look back at twenty
twenty three and see what was happening on this day
last year. Right, Hopefully I've explained that in a way
that makes sense to listeners.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
No, I I totally get it, even if it was confusing.
Somehow I've found a way to understand.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
That we possibly got there. So my partner has been amazing,
and he's done this every day for the last year
and a half. Almost every day. He's already up to
the repeat. He's up to the repeats, which is really interesting,
and it's become like a nighttime ritual. When we get
into bed, he'll write in his diary and I'll look
at him and go, oh wow, there's such virtuous behavior.
(09:20):
And I just can't bring myself to write in my
diary for whatever reason. I'd much prefet to just be
reading on my kindle. And so for hum it's like
it's really good because you can kind of flick through
and that's a bit of a summary. But I want
to know about your method because I feel like there's
got to be a method that I can stick to,
and your sounds maybe a little bit easier.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah. So I mean, I have a diary. It's a
gratitude diary that I found when we're in the Gold
Coast and I was wandering around and you know, one
of those little shops and then you go in there
and it smells and it has crystals in it. Because
right up the back I found a gratitude diary and
(10:01):
I bought the first one, Like I've got them all
in a row on my shelf in twenty I can
see the first one twenty sixteen, and that was a
really big year for me because I had changed quite
a lot in my life, and so I started this
practice of writing in this gratitude diary. But it's actually
it's formatted really well. You know when you find a
diary and you think it's formatted really well. So this diary,
(10:22):
it has space for each day where I write a
little bit of gratitude and a little bit of reflection,
but it has just a month and tiny little boxes amanthas.
So you might prefer this because I can not write
every day, but I can definitely write trends. So when
there's an event on or where there's something beautiful, you know,
(10:42):
I might put a sunshine and a heart, and I
am sort of mapping as I go the big things,
and then I use a bit of the Google calendar
as well, because my Google calendar has everything in it,
and so you know, then I can go back and go, oh,
that was a good month, or looking back, that was
a tough one, because at the time you might not
know either.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I like that the Google calendar. It's like what you're
describing visually reminds me. So I came across in terms
of thinking about what is a visually great way to
represent things and easily put it up on the wall.
So it takes minimal effort to record what are the
highlights or low lights of a day. This company, they're
called new Year speltneu Year. They sell these amazing wall
(11:28):
calendars that is an entire year and you can stick
it on your wall, and so theoretically you could have
the whole year at a glance for doing this process,
which is making me think maybe for twenty twenty five,
I might actually do this. I love that. Can you
do it? And then report? Yeah, I'll report back in
a year yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's interesting because obviously if it's a bad day caused
by anyone in your family, you might want them to
see the wall calendar.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You might have to use code words. That's all right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Please try that, because I do think somewhere where you
can reflect, as I said, sometimes you don't know it's
a low until later, but just somewhere where you can
map things is quite useful, I think so.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Funnily enough, I do not have an annual ritual for this,
and I feel like, given how much I speak and
write about productivity and habits and rituals, that might come
as a surprise. I feel like I've been searching for
the thing that fits for me and I haven't found it.
And so when I was preparing for this chat with you,
(12:34):
I was thinking, well, what process might I try this year?
And it's probably something that I'll do with my partner
because he's also sort of quite reflective and quite self
optimize like me, and I wanted to share with you
some questions that I found when I was doing some
research aline to think about, what are some questions that
I think I would find helpful to draw out what
(12:56):
has this year meant to me? And how can I
make more sense of it? So let me share some
questions with you. Tell me which ones resonate. Okay, So
what changes did I experience this year? What were the
moments of joy I experienced this year? Yeah, what strengths
did I discover in myself? What were the most valuable
lessons I learned this year? And then what did this
(13:19):
lesson teach me? What are three moments from this year
that I'm thankful for? What was the biggest risk I
took this year? If I review this past year, what
was the best thing that happened each month? Which I
quite like because of recency bias, because I think as
humans we obviously have a tendency to overweight things that
(13:39):
happen more recently. So I like the idea of going
month by month in what ways have I positively impacted
the lives of others this year, which for me is
a motivating force to get out of bed every day
and do the work that I do. How did I
step out of my comfort zone this year? And as
I reflect on the past year, what am I most
looking forward to in the coming year.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
There's a lot of questions, but which ones you think
of the most powerful? Trying to think.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I remember when COVID was first happening and I attended
a beautiful Zoom meeting held globally to sort of reflect
on what had happened, and there was an amazing question
that was asked, and it was something like, what is
truly essential for me?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Now?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Therefore?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What should I let go of?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And so I was listening to your amazing questions, which
were reflective, and I was thinking something about what might
I let go of as well? Might be quite useful
because there's a lot of additive you know, the subtracting
part as well, just to get that bit of balance,
because I feel like sometimes we miss out on that,
(14:51):
don't we, you know, what didn't serve me? What might
I let go of?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah? I love that, And I feel like because we're
both of the yes and mindset, I think for both
of us, we're very additive, exactly like joint pickleball hobby
and case in point, yes, ad ad so true?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Do you know what I mean? That's part of maybe
my reflection, Amantha, which is the you know, if I'm
always adding, that's probably how I got sick because I
can't actually do everything, and so I mean we can
talk about moving forward my favorite ones from your list.
So definitely the joy, because that is such a good
(15:36):
question to reflect on at the end of the year.
What moments brought me joy?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
You know? Who was I weird?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
What was I doing? And I think that is a
really helpful question. And the you know, I love lessons?
What can I learn from? And it reminded me, so
I said, there were a few frameworks that are quite useful,
and dom price from it, Lassie and you know his l's,
you know, so his four l's that became five l's,
(16:06):
So the you know, what do I love? What do
I loathe? A bit American? And what are my lessons?
And what did I long for? That's his four l's.
And then he added a fifth L, which is what
did I laugh at?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I didn't know about that fifth L? YEA, yeah, great,
you know when did I laugh? Barely laugh?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And so that framework as well is very sort of
similar to that trying to get the balance and reflect
on things. And I like it because you can do
the four l's and then you can share it with
your partner or your teammates, and so that could also
be quite a good reflection to do in teams as well.
(16:52):
I think some sort of retrospective would go well at
the end of the year in teams.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Let's shift gears to thinking about how we look ahead
to twenty twenty five. Again. I want to start with
your process here, and I don't know if it's different
for work and non work looking ahead or if it
all merges together. So talk me through how do you
think about the year ahead?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
So I mentioned that I had big changes in twenty sixteen,
so that was a career change and a life sort
of change, and I knew that I had to change something.
So it was about, okay, how do I move from
one thing to the other. So I set some clear
(17:40):
sort of goals in what I wanted to achieve in
my life. And the way I helped myself do that
was then I beamed myself, not just to say we're
doing it for next year. It wouldn't be at twenty
twenty five. It would be at the end of twenty
twenty five when I was doing a reflection. I'm so
(18:00):
happy that this happened to me. And you write your
end of the year reflection like it's happened and then
I go back and I go what am I doing
today that would bring that to life? And you do
that every day and then you see where you are.
So that was with a very specific goal now as
(18:24):
I'm in a sort of a different place now where
it's about, like I really am loving the things that
I'm doing, whether it be at the ABC or the
other collaborations that I've been doing, and so really it's
about setting an intention, so a little bit different from
a news resolution, which we know have very high fail
(18:49):
rates and nearly one rate for me one, So I
don't do that anymore, and I do an intention. So
an intention some people use a word or just a feeling.
So for me, it could be something like space or simplicity,
(19:12):
because you know, I'm really about that idea of maybe
being in flow, so I'll sort of choose something that
can be my north star for the year. So there
is a theme of simplicity, freedom, and a little bit
of non striving. So that kind of stressful ambition. I'm
(19:34):
just pairing that back, maybe just for the health part
as well, so still loving passionate, mastery, discipline and excellence
and all of that good stuff, and then paired with
an idea of community, servant, leadership and connection is what
(19:54):
I would say.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So how do you get to that intention? Can you
unpack your process for doing that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, so it depends now on the piece of the
life flow that I did for twenty twenty four. So
looking at the peaks, what made it so? So that
was definitely connection of community and collaboration. But then when
I was feeling the most joy, So the peaks creative
(20:23):
flow plus this sense of spaciousness. So even with the
tai Chi Cousin Chikung training that I was doing, there's
very much a sense of that integration. When everything feels
like this is so easeful and flowing and loving, that's
when I'm feeling the most joy, and then the trough,
(20:46):
you know, the health and feeling like I'm overwhelmed, burnt out.
I'm really trying to pick an intention that doesn't lead
me to that state again, and that intention is one
of that freedom and joy and love. It's like an
antidote to overwhelm the stress that you add to yourself
(21:09):
and that feeling of oh wow, I'm going to burn
out again.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Right. Yeah, we will be back with Lisa soon, and
when we return, we'll be discussing the pie chart strategy
you can use to dissect your life in the most
detail possible, and why you should do a pre mortem
of the upcoming year if you really want to succeed,
if you're looking for more tips to improve the way
(21:35):
you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter
that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.
That's Amantha dot com Amantha.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
What do you do then to set your goals for
the new year?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So at work, I have a very clear process and
we work on a financial year. Yeah, so in a sense,
it's doing a check in around how we going, do
we need to change the goals. We've actually simplified our
company goals quite a lot. But with general life, now,
with yourself, yeah, I know with myself, I don't have
a clear process. Like sometimes I'll think about this concept
(22:19):
of word of the year or theme of the year,
but I've never really embraced that. But I was thinking
about a process that I do with my partner because
we're quite reflective and we will do it. Used to
be a monthly relationship check in, but we've since evolved
that to something that we're now starting to do. Like,
(22:42):
we've got certain themes that we think about in our lives,
and what I'm imagining is that this year we will
think about those themes and think about, well, what matters
coming into twenty twenty five. And I like your thought
around thinking about where do you want to be at
the end of the year, and then work backwards to
create that. So maybe I'll talk you through some of
(23:03):
these themes that we think about, because I feel like
my bias is to focus too much on some things
but to the detriment of other things. So health is
obviously something that I think about a lot and write
about a lot, and that's definitely a focus for us.
I think there are like bad habits bad sounds very judgmental,
(23:25):
but habits that we've both fallen into because it's been
a tough year work wise, And there are good habits
that we've maintained, but then there are habits that were like, Okay,
I think we need to shake that one off.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So yeah, like that's like a sprinkling.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
It is, So we'll be doing that with health. Finances.
You know, we talk very openly about finances in our relationship,
and that feels really important given that finances are a
common cause of conflict in relationships. So we work really
collaboratively and jointly there, and I daresay we'll think about, okay,
like what do we want to achieve financially. We also
(23:59):
think a lot about our relationship and how we're communicating
and relating to each other and intimacy, and I don't
think the goals, but they're probably more what are the
things that we want to continue there and build on.
We talk a lot about Frankie, and you know, Frankie
is my daughter, Neo is stepdad to Frankie. And parenting conversation.
(24:22):
If I think about the pie chat of the things
that we talk about in our relationship, Frankie is a
fair chunk of that pie chart, and thinking about her
and her happiness and her well being. I don't know
if there would be a goal per se, but there
might be an intention in terms of how we parent
and what is our approach to helping be great parents
to Frankie.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
That's really useful doing that quite regularly because one of
the things about parenting that I've noticed is that, of
course your child really changes every single year. And they
need different things. I mean, my daughter is a teenager now,
so of course our parenting has completely changed from when
she was a little one. So I think that's a
(25:03):
really good thing to do quite frequently together.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
We're very mindful on that. Then there's family and friends.
I think for me a useful habit that is it
a habit or is it a ritual, I don't know,
but something that has served me really well. And because
I know that one of the things that brings me
joy is having regular catch ups with my close circle
of friends. Every Monday, I will send text messages to
(25:29):
my friends with the intention of firstly checking in. But
also I know that weeks where I've got at least
one or two friend catch ups are better weeks because
of that connection. It's important to both of us. I
think it's important to humans. So that is something that
I think I will maintain. And I know Neo's got
some goals around how he wants to be intentional around
(25:51):
certain things, you know, with regards to connections. So that
is something that I think I will continue. But I
also think would I refine that in some way. But
that's been ritual that served me really well this past
year work, but more so work life balance, because my
balance has been really out of whack in the last
twelve months. There's been a lot of work, and obviously
(26:13):
if there's a lot of work, there are sacrifices or
compromises that you make in other aspects of your life.
And also neo, because I think when you're thinking about balance,
you can't isolate it from the people that you're in
the same household with or the people that you're close to,
because it has a flow and effect. Yeah, and so
I think for both of us, we're thinking a lot
around how can we craft a year that feels more balanced.
(26:36):
And if we think about the pie chat and just
where energy is going in that pie chat, a lot
of it went to work in the last twelve months. Yeah,
and you know, I want to think about what do
I want that energy pie chart to look like across
these different categories. Fun and hobbies is another category, and
I'm aware that it feels like a bit of a
shopping list of categories.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
No, the pie chat is actually another good retrospective way
of looking at the year, and some people can map
it from zero to ten as well, and you can
see where things are out of whack. If you do
it as a pie chart and then you sort of
show where you sit, then you can see if one's
ten out of ten and one's zero out of ten. Oh,
(27:18):
my pie chart is out. So it is actually a
really good reflective exercise.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So fun and hobbies, and then there's two more categories.
Are there are eight segments nine and we did try
to collapse it into less. Nine seems like a lot,
but I welcome your bills, Lisa. So fun and hobbies
and this definitely fell by the wayside. So I mid
year decided that I would take up sewing again as
a hobby. I used to sew a lot in my
(27:42):
teenage years, and then because of the amount of sewing
that I was doing, it actually began to feel a
little bit like a chore and then I just stopped.
But it was something that I actually became quite masterful
at considering my age. I felt really proud of my skills. Nothing.
And then Neil and I went to Vietnam in July
(28:05):
and we visited and formed like a bit of a
relationship with this local tailor, and it was just fascinating
to see how they work and their processes, and it
made me think, I think I want to take this
up again. I want to relearn and remember how to
sew and craft physical things out of nothing. Which when
you're a knowledge worker, as we both are, it's quite
(28:28):
gratifying to be working with your hands for the thing
that is your hobby.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And it's still consuming because you know, so you're not
sort of sitting there still thinking about work. You really
have to focus. I think that's a really amazing thing.
And how have you gone with that?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
This year? Terrible? So got a sewing machine for my birthday,
which was wonderful. I started strong. I did a few projects,
but funnily enough, they were mainly with Frankie and we
would sew together and that was actually a really beautiful
experience and that was definitely some of the highlights if
I think about the life flo there were some highlight
moments where we got to sew toys together and almost
(29:05):
just a bit of an education as to how a
soft toy is made. A lot of work goes into
creating a soft toy, which Frankie loves her soft toys.
But then because of the imbalance in work, that hobby
fell by the wayside and goals and intentions that I'd
had around really embracing this hobby just deteriorated, basically, like
I did a little bit of sewing about a week ago,
(29:27):
and I feel like this has almost become a little
bit of a signal to me to go, where's my balance?
And if I've got time for sewing, then it's like
a signal to say, you're good, You're in balance, You've
got the energy for your hobby, which means that work
is perhaps more under control. So that's become like an
interesting little I guess checkpoint for me to go, how
(29:49):
am I going and how am I going with the balance?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Because what got in the way of doing the sewing
was it just I'm exhausted, so I have no.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Energy, exhaustion and stress and just a very high I workload.
Is that all the categories personal growth? Yes? And then
hopes and dreams? So personal growth which can come from
I guess a lot of these, and then hopes and dreams,
which is really for Neo and I when we have
our check ins, it's like, what are our hopes and
(30:18):
dreams for the next month or the next six months.
And you know, while we reflect a lot, it also
encourages us to be very future focused and go like,
what are we thinking about? What are we dreaming about?
And how can we make that happen. So they're the
categories that I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about what
do I want twenty twenty five to be, and then
(30:41):
also thinking about it in partnership with my life partner,
what do we want a craft as our twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I'm wondering whether you could do then a yearly one,
so you could do a twenty twenty four pie chat,
and then you could do your if everything you know
turns out bewed flea in twenty twenty five, what does
that pie chat look like? So sort of melding it
with that future thing and just saying and it doesn't
even need to be a number, but it could be,
(31:11):
you know, with health, I'm feeling dot dot dot. You know,
we're doing dot dot dot, you know, doing you know
a little bit of sewing for a hobby, you know,
every week I've made five pieces or you know whatever,
But sort of do it more as a discursive This
is at the end of the year and I'm doing
my pie chat, and this is what has happened. That
just is one suggestion for how you might have fun
(31:33):
with the yearly pie chat.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I like that thinking about what is the balance of energy?
Where is the energy going? Yeah? I know that the
energy was out of whack this year. So what does
an ideal year look like? Yeah? Of energy?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
And what does my little pie chat if I had
to do it again, what would they look like?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I mean, I think the visual reminders are so strong
when you are trying to stay true to whatever intentions
that you have. I like the idea of actually create
a visual of the pie chat and pinning it on
the fridge so that it is there every day to go.
I have it going with that at the end of
every week, going how is the balance this week?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And have you heard of the you know, the pre
mortem exercise?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yes? But can you share what this is for those
that don't know it?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So we could tie in a bit of a pre
mortem exercise. So a post mortem is when you analyze
something after it's happened and said, oh wow, what went
wrong and what went right? So that's called the post mortem.
A pre mortem is a useful exercise, and it's basically
what if I'm talking about the end of twenty twenty five,
(32:38):
That's what I'm utilizing is this concept of pre mortem.
So I'm beaming myself into the future and I'm describing
it like it is happening right now. Because humans are
terrible at being able to properly project ourselves into the
future and say, oh, you know, and set goals. So
we set unattainable goals. But we also think that we
can do way more than we can in a year.
(33:00):
So what the pre morton does is it says, let's
be mourselves into that future state. So it could be
five years hence, if you really want to look at
a vision, or it could be December twenty twenty five,
and you describe your roaring success, so you know, Amantha
roaring success. You know, you describe that maybe like a headline,
(33:21):
and then you also look at the flip side, which
is a kind of terrible disaster, so a disaster state,
and then you write out like a paragraph of what happened,
and you can do it like an article in you know,
the Age or in the Australian Financial Review roaring success.
This happened Amantha, you know, started sewing in her backyard
(33:44):
and then you know, suddenly all.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
These beautiful things happened.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
So you describe that future stage, and then you do
the opposite for the you know what made it terrible?
Amantha snowed under way too much work, had it even worse, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And then got burnt out.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So then you do the other side and then you say, well,
what contributed to that? And it's in that process of
writing the story where you can sort of crystallize, and
they're often surprising things. Hugging Row from Stanford, he runs
these pre mortems and I'll just do your quick story
to tell you about what is non obvious. So Stanford
(34:27):
Medical School, their pre mortem roaring success is to actually
create innovations in the science area that would change the world.
And they initially thought that it was about enticing more experts,
high level experts, medical researchers into their organization. But what
(34:49):
they actually found out through doing the pre mortem is
that a lot of the difficulties happened because of bottlenecks,
because there were not enough to support people like nurses
and the way they get their grants, that these nurses
got snowed under with these things that they absolutely had
to do to get funding in the first place, and
(35:09):
it didn't matter even if they attracted all these medical researchers.
Without the nurses, they wouldn't be able to do anything,
no breakthroughs. And so through doing the pre mortem, it
opened that up, and so I actually go, this is
fascinating and you can definitely use it for your own
career and you can unearth things that wouldn't be obvious
(35:30):
through just doing it. I'm setting a goal and why
do we repeat every year the same bad habits.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
What I love about that is I've only run pre
mortems where you think about what if everything is a
total failure? Well really, and how do we look back
and how do we prevent that? But I've actually never
done a pre mortem from memory where it's like, what
if this was a raging success? What are the things
that led to that? For me, I've always used that
(35:57):
pre mortem in the work context. I haven't really used
it in my personal life to think about how do
we prevent shit from going wrong?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
But how do we actually promote things going right? I
love that angle as well.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Strictly speaking, pre mortem is about all the things that
go wrong, So strictly speaking, it would be a pre
victorim if we're talking so maybe your Latin brain has
gone pre mortem that can't be about pre victorim. So
strictly speaking, that's why amanthas so you have been doing
it right. It's just an instance that they do both
(36:30):
and sometimes there's overlap, but many times you can bring
out different things. And also I think energetically what they
say is it is better if you're doing this personally.
So I've mainly done it for teams as well, the
pre mortem pre victim both sides. And by the way,
you want to make sure that you get really different
people doing it, not just the leadership team, to get
(36:52):
the voices in the room. You can do it anonymously
as well. If you're doing it personally, it's kind of
better to make sure that you do the pre victorium.
But even just focusing on the pre victorim, because of
the way our brains work, it's actually better to focus
on the positive things rather than putting any energy into
(37:13):
or intention into the negative things, because sometimes we can
create our own futures by focusing on the wrong things.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I used to do a vision board as well, did
you yeah for the year ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
So you know when I was talking about the changes,
when I was doing big changes, and I really did
need to shift big things. So one of the big
things was that I was getting into the innovation space
and I wanted to do the customer focused innovation program
at Stanford, but it was really expensive and I couldn't
really see a way to get there. And I had
(37:48):
this picture of Stanford and I put it on the
vision board and I just had it there for a
year and then I actually got this opportunity to go.
And I remember my brother was living there at the
time and he dropped me off and it was in
the backside of the university, so not the normal entrance,
(38:09):
and I walked in and I looked up and it
was the same vantage point.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Oh that was in this vision board. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
It's those things that I, you know, when I used
to really want to change things up. Just putting yourself
into that future and don't worry too much about how
is that going to happen, but just having it there
and the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I think to sum up what we've talked about, and
I hope that this has been helpful for anyone listening
and thinking, you know, what is in your control when
you're thinking about the year ahead and the year that
has just gone, and how can you create the year
ahead to be even better or a better one than
what you've just experienced. I remember I heard this concept
(38:53):
a few years ago around sliding versus deciding, and in
so many things like whether that be in you know,
entering into a new relationship, or deciding to stay in
a workplace. You know, the idea of just sliding into
something where you're just you're kind of on you know,
autopilot versus deciding, I think sums up what we've talked about.
(39:16):
So I know, for me, sliding into next year versus
deciding to make different changes to make twenty twenty five
a better and richer year and a year that has
more sewing in it as well, it's definitely going to
be my approach to thinking about the year ahead.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
So I was a seventh year lawyer, and I'd realize
that every year had just rolled on, and I thought,
so this idea of in the morning when you wake
up and you think, I choose this day. So if
I'm not happy, I'm just not going to let it
roll on because it was just another day, or I
wonder if I should do something about this tick Over
seven years later, right, that was a inertia and so
(39:56):
I thought, today I choose I either choose to stay
or I choose to do something about it, And so
what am I going to do today? So that was
you know, when you want a big change. I mean,
some people just want to stay, you know, and happy,
and that's an awesome thing as well contentment and gratitude.
But if you do want to change something, then watch
(40:17):
that inertia.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I would say, Lisa, thank you so much as always
for sharing the super interesting and helpful rituals and strategies
that you have in your own life. I I'm going
to be listening to this conversation again and really writing
down notes to help improve my process. I've learned so much,
So thank.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
You, Thank you, Amantha. And you know this is all
a fun experiment, isn't it. What works for me might
not work for others. But you know, keep on sharing.
And if it helps you reflect and helps you, you know,
feel a little bit better than job done, and if
it makes it feel worse than dougle amynight something else like,
that's part of the lab, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I hope you love this chat with Lisa as much
much as I did. I know there's at least a
couple of strategies I'm going to be trying to implement
this year to see if I can get the best
twenty twenty five possible. And if you want to hear
more of Lisa, you can find links to her socials
and this working life in the show notes. If you
like today's show, make sure you hit follow on your
(41:19):
podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop. How
I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the
Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation
If you like me. At the end of every year,
you spend some time thinking about the year that was
and making plans and dreams for the year to come.
But how effective are your plans and do you actually
end up achieving the goals that you set at the
start of the year. Joining me today is ABC broadcaster
and host of Radio National's This Working Life, and also
(00:23):
my very good friend Lisa Leong. Lisa and I thought
we would sit down for a chat to discuss the
methods that we're using to reflect on the past year
and set ourselves up for an amazing twenty twenty five.
In this episode, we explore some unique strategies for using
a calendar to reflect on the past year, why you
should do a pre mortem of the upcoming year if
(00:46):
you want to succeed, and what you might want to
consider doing instead of setting New Year's resolutions. Welcome to
How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies
for optimizing your day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imber.
(01:10):
Before planning for the year ahead, it's pretty common to
look back on the one that's just passed. But what's
the best way to reflect? Should we just shut down
some random memories or is there a more structured approach.
I decided to start things off by asking Lisa what
she's doing this December to reflect on the year that was.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
So I've been doing the same little reflection for a
couple of years now, so maybe I'll tell you what
I do. But there are some other ones that I've
used in the past. If you don't want to do
this way, there is an exercise which I called the
life flow exercise, which you can do for your whole life,
and that is mapping the highs and the lows subjectively
(01:54):
of your whole life. That exercise is used so you
can see the patterns of what may peak a peak
and what made a trough. So basically the lower line,
you sort of do it like a timeline, the lower
part of the line, so that's horizontal. That is the
time that's gone by, so it could be in ten
year incremental, five year increments. And then you map really
(02:16):
subjectively highs or lows, and that's whatever it means to you.
So it could be happiness, it could be energy, whatever
you want. I use this for each year as well,
so I've done it for my life and I tend
to do it for a big reflection, but I also
find it really useful just for the year as well. Amanthas. So,
I have a diary where there's a month at a glance,
(02:39):
and so I generally put in the big things that
I've been doing so that I can do this exercise later.
But you could look at your calendar and basically I
will map out my whole year. So it's basically every month,
so January, February, March, April, May, June, and I subjectively say,
is this a high or a loaf for me? And
(03:01):
my graph is really interesting this year. So I did
this exercise to prepare for this, and I was very
sick at the beginning of the year. I came out
of the blocks potentially a bit too hard.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
And was sick in February.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Got COVID in March, and then quite sick in May.
So something wasn't happening for me at the beginning of
the year. So that's useful just to know that health
wise just wasn't firing. And then the year settled quite
well and you know, sort of grew and I think
(03:38):
what I noticed about the highlights of the year were
a couple of big events, and you were part of
one of those where we did the ARI event on
the stage and it was just really fun. We had
a lot of joy and we were singing and dancing.
That was really fun.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I love that that was for me.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, So the theme there is about teaming and collaboration
with people you love, and that whole event was filled
with that. I felt. Then my ABC work was a
high because I just really enjoyed, you know when you
can really enjoy the broadcasting and connecting once again with
(04:17):
community and people. So once again connection and then I
put a high. I went away and learned some so
further learning is another one. I learned some chickun which
is like tauchy, and then I did this year zen
meditation Amantha, and I think what happened was that's a
(04:37):
new thing I added this year which helped me make
a better year by the end, because meditation is a
practice and I think I just slowly diligently built on
it and I think that helped me really. So if
I'm just going to show you even though we're on radio,
but it's basically that it grew up. My reflection never
(04:58):
usually looks from low to high, but I had one
of those years where I just started. Usually it's the
other way. Usually I burned out by the end, Amantha,
But this year I was really happy that it went
back and then discovered pickleball as well in the US.
So there's something about fun about presence with the meditation
(05:23):
and also balance as well. So that's kind of my
big reflections. What do you make of that approach?
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So I like how you describe what you've done there.
So the life flow exercise, I have never thought to
apply that to one year. So we actually had a
dinner I want to say, maybe a year and a
half ago at south By Southwestern Sydney in twenty twenty
three with a mutual friend of ours, where we all
shared our life flow over the course of our life.
(05:53):
And I mean, I think that it's such an interesting
exercise to do with friends or family or loved ones
just gained so much insight into their life that you
didn't know even if you thought you knew the person well.
But I like how you've applied it to one year
of your life and taking that birdsie view of the
year and thinking about, Okay, what thematically can I learn
(06:16):
from that? What are the things that connected the highs?
What are the themes that I can deliberately take forward,
and also what can I do about the lows? Do
you look for themes in the lows and think about
what can I learn from that?
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Exactly? So with the troughs, what you're trying to do
is not go on autopilot. So that's when those habits
really they become ingrained and you repeat the same mistakes
over and over. So you do it gently. But I
look at the troughs and say, you know, is there
anything I could tweak going into next year which might
(06:48):
mediate those troughs a little bit. I mean, life happens,
and so there's always peaks and troughs.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's never a.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Straight line, because maybe you're dead if there's a straight line.
So I think definitely with looking at the troughs. So
the health and health in itself was possibly a little
bit about balance and quite a lot about discipline. And
discipline is such a strange word, but for me, discipline
(07:15):
is freeing. I see a lot of freedom in discipline,
and it's something that both you and I look at
a lot, which is when you create a new routine
and you're disciplined about it, then it gives you so
much freedom because if I wasn't so sick at the
beginning of the year, I would have had that freedom
to do the things that I actually wanted to be doing,
(07:36):
which is the actually being on radio, because I had
to sort of stop doing that for a little while,
and you know, when I was ill, and so that
was not a great time for me, and people rely
on me as well, so having to let people down
didn't feel good those sorts of things.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The other thing that stood out to me is how
you're mapping your monthly calendar. You and I want to
dig into that a little bit more and also share
something that I tried to form as a habit very unsuccessfully,
but my partner Neo, has been insane in terms of
his consistency with this habit. So when we moved in together,
I got us both a sentence in a day diary.
(08:15):
So I don't know if you've seen these, No, there
are five year diary where you basically write one sentence
a day, and how it works is that for the
five years, there's one block per each year, and so
like essentially every what are we were like Tuesday, the
twenty sixth of November today, So every twenty sixth of November.
(08:37):
Then when today, if I actually kept this as a habit,
I was writing my twenty sixth of November sentence, like
one sentence long diary, I could look back at twenty
twenty three and see what was happening on this day
last year. Right, Hopefully I've explained that in a way
that makes sense to listeners.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
No, I I totally get it, even if it was confusing.
Somehow I've found a way to understand.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
That we possibly got there. So my partner has been amazing,
and he's done this every day for the last year
and a half. Almost every day. He's already up to
the repeat. He's up to the repeats, which is really interesting,
and it's become like a nighttime ritual. When we get
into bed, he'll write in his diary and I'll look
at him and go, oh wow, there's such virtuous behavior.
(09:20):
And I just can't bring myself to write in my
diary for whatever reason. I'd much prefet to just be
reading on my kindle. And so for hum it's like
it's really good because you can kind of flick through
and that's a bit of a summary. But I want
to know about your method because I feel like there's
got to be a method that I can stick to,
and your sounds maybe a little bit easier.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah. So I mean, I have a diary. It's a
gratitude diary that I found when we're in the Gold
Coast and I was wandering around and you know, one
of those little shops and then you go in there
and it smells and it has crystals in it. Because
right up the back I found a gratitude diary and
(10:01):
I bought the first one, Like I've got them all
in a row on my shelf in twenty I can
see the first one twenty sixteen, and that was a
really big year for me because I had changed quite
a lot in my life, and so I started this
practice of writing in this gratitude diary. But it's actually
it's formatted really well. You know when you find a
diary and you think it's formatted really well. So this diary,
(10:22):
it has space for each day where I write a
little bit of gratitude and a little bit of reflection,
but it has just a month and tiny little boxes amanthas.
So you might prefer this because I can not write
every day, but I can definitely write trends. So when
there's an event on or where there's something beautiful, you know,
(10:42):
I might put a sunshine and a heart, and I
am sort of mapping as I go the big things,
and then I use a bit of the Google calendar
as well, because my Google calendar has everything in it,
and so you know, then I can go back and go, oh,
that was a good month, or looking back, that was
a tough one, because at the time you might not
know either.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I like that the Google calendar. It's like what you're
describing visually reminds me. So I came across in terms
of thinking about what is a visually great way to
represent things and easily put it up on the wall.
So it takes minimal effort to record what are the
highlights or low lights of a day. This company, they're
called new Year speltneu Year. They sell these amazing wall
(11:28):
calendars that is an entire year and you can stick
it on your wall, and so theoretically you could have
the whole year at a glance for doing this process,
which is making me think maybe for twenty twenty five,
I might actually do this. I love that. Can you
do it? And then report? Yeah, I'll report back in
a year yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
That's interesting because obviously if it's a bad day caused
by anyone in your family, you might want them to
see the wall calendar.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
You might have to use code words. That's all right, Yes.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Please try that, because I do think somewhere where you
can reflect, as I said, sometimes you don't know it's
a low until later, but just somewhere where you can
map things is quite useful, I think so.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Funnily enough, I do not have an annual ritual for this,
and I feel like, given how much I speak and
write about productivity and habits and rituals, that might come
as a surprise. I feel like I've been searching for
the thing that fits for me and I haven't found it.
And so when I was preparing for this chat with you,
(12:34):
I was thinking, well, what process might I try this year?
And it's probably something that I'll do with my partner
because he's also sort of quite reflective and quite self
optimize like me, and I wanted to share with you
some questions that I found when I was doing some
research aline to think about, what are some questions that
I think I would find helpful to draw out what
(12:56):
has this year meant to me? And how can I
make more sense of it? So let me share some
questions with you. Tell me which ones resonate. Okay, So
what changes did I experience this year? What were the
moments of joy I experienced this year? Yeah, what strengths
did I discover in myself? What were the most valuable
lessons I learned this year? And then what did this
(13:19):
lesson teach me? What are three moments from this year
that I'm thankful for? What was the biggest risk I
took this year? If I review this past year, what
was the best thing that happened each month? Which I
quite like because of recency bias, because I think as
humans we obviously have a tendency to overweight things that
(13:39):
happen more recently. So I like the idea of going
month by month in what ways have I positively impacted
the lives of others this year, which for me is
a motivating force to get out of bed every day
and do the work that I do. How did I
step out of my comfort zone this year? And as
I reflect on the past year, what am I most
looking forward to in the coming year.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
It's a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
There's a lot of questions, but which ones you think
of the most powerful? Trying to think.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
I remember when COVID was first happening and I attended
a beautiful Zoom meeting held globally to sort of reflect
on what had happened, and there was an amazing question
that was asked, and it was something like, what is
truly essential for me?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Now?
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Therefore?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What should I let go of?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And so I was listening to your amazing questions, which
were reflective, and I was thinking something about what might
I let go of as well? Might be quite useful
because there's a lot of additive you know, the subtracting
part as well, just to get that bit of balance,
because I feel like sometimes we miss out on that,
(14:51):
don't we, you know, what didn't serve me? What might
I let go of?
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah? I love that, And I feel like because we're
both of the yes and mindset, I think for both
of us, we're very additive, exactly like joint pickleball hobby
and case in point, yes, ad ad so true?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Do you know what I mean? That's part of maybe
my reflection, Amantha, which is the you know, if I'm
always adding, that's probably how I got sick because I
can't actually do everything, and so I mean we can
talk about moving forward my favorite ones from your list.
So definitely the joy, because that is such a good
(15:36):
question to reflect on at the end of the year.
What moments brought me joy?
Speaker 1 (15:42):
You know? Who was I weird?
Speaker 2 (15:43):
What was I doing? And I think that is a
really helpful question. And the you know, I love lessons?
What can I learn from? And it reminded me, so
I said, there were a few frameworks that are quite useful,
and dom price from it, Lassie and you know his l's,
you know, so his four l's that became five l's,
(16:06):
So the you know, what do I love? What do
I loathe? A bit American? And what are my lessons?
And what did I long for? That's his four l's.
And then he added a fifth L, which is what
did I laugh at?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I didn't know about that fifth L? YEA, yeah, great,
you know when did I laugh? Barely laugh?
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And so that framework as well is very sort of
similar to that trying to get the balance and reflect
on things. And I like it because you can do
the four l's and then you can share it with
your partner or your teammates, and so that could also
be quite a good reflection to do in teams as well.
(16:52):
I think some sort of retrospective would go well at
the end of the year in teams.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Let's shift gears to thinking about how we look ahead
to twenty twenty five. Again. I want to start with
your process here, and I don't know if it's different
for work and non work looking ahead or if it
all merges together. So talk me through how do you
think about the year ahead?
Speaker 2 (17:19):
So I mentioned that I had big changes in twenty sixteen,
so that was a career change and a life sort
of change, and I knew that I had to change something.
So it was about, okay, how do I move from
one thing to the other. So I set some clear
(17:40):
sort of goals in what I wanted to achieve in
my life. And the way I helped myself do that
was then I beamed myself, not just to say we're
doing it for next year. It wouldn't be at twenty
twenty five. It would be at the end of twenty
twenty five when I was doing a reflection. I'm so
(18:00):
happy that this happened to me. And you write your
end of the year reflection like it's happened and then
I go back and I go what am I doing
today that would bring that to life? And you do
that every day and then you see where you are.
So that was with a very specific goal now as
(18:24):
I'm in a sort of a different place now where
it's about, like I really am loving the things that
I'm doing, whether it be at the ABC or the
other collaborations that I've been doing, and so really it's
about setting an intention, so a little bit different from
a news resolution, which we know have very high fail
(18:49):
rates and nearly one rate for me one, So I
don't do that anymore, and I do an intention. So
an intention some people use a word or just a feeling.
So for me, it could be something like space or simplicity,
(19:12):
because you know, I'm really about that idea of maybe
being in flow, so I'll sort of choose something that
can be my north star for the year. So there
is a theme of simplicity, freedom, and a little bit
of non striving. So that kind of stressful ambition. I'm
(19:34):
just pairing that back, maybe just for the health part
as well, so still loving passionate, mastery, discipline and excellence
and all of that good stuff, and then paired with
an idea of community, servant, leadership and connection is what
(19:54):
I would say.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
So how do you get to that intention? Can you
unpack your process for doing that?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, so it depends now on the piece of the
life flow that I did for twenty twenty four. So
looking at the peaks, what made it so? So that
was definitely connection of community and collaboration. But then when
I was feeling the most joy, So the peaks creative
(20:23):
flow plus this sense of spaciousness. So even with the
tai Chi Cousin Chikung training that I was doing, there's
very much a sense of that integration. When everything feels
like this is so easeful and flowing and loving, that's
when I'm feeling the most joy, and then the trough,
(20:46):
you know, the health and feeling like I'm overwhelmed, burnt out.
I'm really trying to pick an intention that doesn't lead
me to that state again, and that intention is one
of that freedom and joy and love. It's like an
antidote to overwhelm the stress that you add to yourself
(21:09):
and that feeling of oh wow, I'm going to burn
out again.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Right. Yeah, we will be back with Lisa soon, and
when we return, we'll be discussing the pie chart strategy
you can use to dissect your life in the most
detail possible, and why you should do a pre mortem
of the upcoming year if you really want to succeed,
if you're looking for more tips to improve the way
(21:35):
you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter
that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.
That's Amantha dot com Amantha.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
What do you do then to set your goals for
the new year?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So at work, I have a very clear process and
we work on a financial year. Yeah, so in a sense,
it's doing a check in around how we going, do
we need to change the goals. We've actually simplified our
company goals quite a lot. But with general life, now,
with yourself, yeah, I know with myself, I don't have
a clear process. Like sometimes I'll think about this concept
(22:19):
of word of the year or theme of the year,
but I've never really embraced that. But I was thinking
about a process that I do with my partner because
we're quite reflective and we will do it. Used to
be a monthly relationship check in, but we've since evolved
that to something that we're now starting to do. Like,
(22:42):
we've got certain themes that we think about in our lives,
and what I'm imagining is that this year we will
think about those themes and think about, well, what matters
coming into twenty twenty five. And I like your thought
around thinking about where do you want to be at
the end of the year, and then work backwards to
create that. So maybe I'll talk you through some of
(23:03):
these themes that we think about, because I feel like
my bias is to focus too much on some things
but to the detriment of other things. So health is
obviously something that I think about a lot and write
about a lot, and that's definitely a focus for us.
I think there are like bad habits bad sounds very judgmental,
(23:25):
but habits that we've both fallen into because it's been
a tough year work wise, And there are good habits
that we've maintained, but then there are habits that were like, Okay,
I think we need to shake that one off.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So yeah, like that's like a sprinkling.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
It is, So we'll be doing that with health. Finances.
You know, we talk very openly about finances in our relationship,
and that feels really important given that finances are a
common cause of conflict in relationships. So we work really
collaboratively and jointly there, and I daresay we'll think about, okay,
like what do we want to achieve financially. We also
(23:59):
think a lot about our relationship and how we're communicating
and relating to each other and intimacy, and I don't
think the goals, but they're probably more what are the
things that we want to continue there and build on.
We talk a lot about Frankie, and you know, Frankie
is my daughter, Neo is stepdad to Frankie. And parenting conversation.
(24:22):
If I think about the pie chat of the things
that we talk about in our relationship, Frankie is a
fair chunk of that pie chart, and thinking about her
and her happiness and her well being. I don't know
if there would be a goal per se, but there
might be an intention in terms of how we parent
and what is our approach to helping be great parents
to Frankie.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
That's really useful doing that quite regularly because one of
the things about parenting that I've noticed is that, of
course your child really changes every single year. And they
need different things. I mean, my daughter is a teenager now,
so of course our parenting has completely changed from when
she was a little one. So I think that's a
(25:03):
really good thing to do quite frequently together.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
We're very mindful on that. Then there's family and friends.
I think for me a useful habit that is it
a habit or is it a ritual, I don't know,
but something that has served me really well. And because
I know that one of the things that brings me
joy is having regular catch ups with my close circle
of friends. Every Monday, I will send text messages to
(25:29):
my friends with the intention of firstly checking in. But
also I know that weeks where I've got at least
one or two friend catch ups are better weeks because
of that connection. It's important to both of us. I
think it's important to humans. So that is something that
I think I will maintain. And I know Neo's got
some goals around how he wants to be intentional around
(25:51):
certain things, you know, with regards to connections. So that
is something that I think I will continue. But I
also think would I refine that in some way. But
that's been ritual that served me really well this past
year work, but more so work life balance, because my
balance has been really out of whack in the last
twelve months. There's been a lot of work, and obviously
(26:13):
if there's a lot of work, there are sacrifices or
compromises that you make in other aspects of your life.
And also neo, because I think when you're thinking about balance,
you can't isolate it from the people that you're in
the same household with or the people that you're close to,
because it has a flow and effect. Yeah, and so
I think for both of us, we're thinking a lot
around how can we craft a year that feels more balanced.
(26:36):
And if we think about the pie chat and just
where energy is going in that pie chat, a lot
of it went to work in the last twelve months. Yeah,
and you know, I want to think about what do
I want that energy pie chart to look like across
these different categories. Fun and hobbies is another category, and
I'm aware that it feels like a bit of a
shopping list of categories.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
No, the pie chat is actually another good retrospective way
of looking at the year, and some people can map
it from zero to ten as well, and you can
see where things are out of whack. If you do
it as a pie chart and then you sort of
show where you sit, then you can see if one's
ten out of ten and one's zero out of ten. Oh,
(27:18):
my pie chart is out. So it is actually a
really good reflective exercise.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
So fun and hobbies, and then there's two more categories.
Are there are eight segments nine and we did try
to collapse it into less. Nine seems like a lot,
but I welcome your bills, Lisa. So fun and hobbies
and this definitely fell by the wayside. So I mid
year decided that I would take up sewing again as
a hobby. I used to sew a lot in my
(27:42):
teenage years, and then because of the amount of sewing
that I was doing, it actually began to feel a
little bit like a chore and then I just stopped.
But it was something that I actually became quite masterful
at considering my age. I felt really proud of my skills. Nothing.
And then Neil and I went to Vietnam in July
(28:05):
and we visited and formed like a bit of a
relationship with this local tailor, and it was just fascinating
to see how they work and their processes, and it
made me think, I think I want to take this
up again. I want to relearn and remember how to
sew and craft physical things out of nothing. Which when
you're a knowledge worker, as we both are, it's quite
(28:28):
gratifying to be working with your hands for the thing
that is your hobby.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And it's still consuming because you know, so you're not
sort of sitting there still thinking about work. You really
have to focus. I think that's a really amazing thing.
And how have you gone with that?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
This year? Terrible? So got a sewing machine for my birthday,
which was wonderful. I started strong. I did a few projects,
but funnily enough, they were mainly with Frankie and we
would sew together and that was actually a really beautiful
experience and that was definitely some of the highlights if
I think about the life flo there were some highlight
moments where we got to sew toys together and almost
(29:05):
just a bit of an education as to how a
soft toy is made. A lot of work goes into
creating a soft toy, which Frankie loves her soft toys.
But then because of the imbalance in work, that hobby
fell by the wayside and goals and intentions that I'd
had around really embracing this hobby just deteriorated, basically, like
I did a little bit of sewing about a week ago,
(29:27):
and I feel like this has almost become a little
bit of a signal to me to go, where's my balance?
And if I've got time for sewing, then it's like
a signal to say, you're good, You're in balance, You've
got the energy for your hobby, which means that work
is perhaps more under control. So that's become like an
interesting little I guess checkpoint for me to go, how
(29:49):
am I going and how am I going with the balance?
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Because what got in the way of doing the sewing
was it just I'm exhausted, so I have no.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Energy, exhaustion and stress and just a very high I workload.
Is that all the categories personal growth? Yes? And then
hopes and dreams? So personal growth which can come from
I guess a lot of these, and then hopes and dreams,
which is really for Neo and I when we have
our check ins, it's like, what are our hopes and
(30:18):
dreams for the next month or the next six months.
And you know, while we reflect a lot, it also
encourages us to be very future focused and go like,
what are we thinking about? What are we dreaming about?
And how can we make that happen. So they're the
categories that I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about what
do I want twenty twenty five to be, and then
(30:41):
also thinking about it in partnership with my life partner,
what do we want a craft as our twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
I'm wondering whether you could do then a yearly one,
so you could do a twenty twenty four pie chat,
and then you could do your if everything you know
turns out bewed flea in twenty twenty five, what does
that pie chat look like? So sort of melding it
with that future thing and just saying and it doesn't
even need to be a number, but it could be,
(31:11):
you know, with health, I'm feeling dot dot dot. You know,
we're doing dot dot dot, you know, doing you know
a little bit of sewing for a hobby, you know,
every week I've made five pieces or you know whatever,
But sort of do it more as a discursive This
is at the end of the year and I'm doing
my pie chat, and this is what has happened. That
just is one suggestion for how you might have fun
(31:33):
with the yearly pie chat.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I like that thinking about what is the balance of energy?
Where is the energy going? Yeah? I know that the
energy was out of whack this year. So what does
an ideal year look like? Yeah? Of energy?
Speaker 2 (31:46):
And what does my little pie chat if I had
to do it again, what would they look like?
Speaker 1 (31:50):
I mean, I think the visual reminders are so strong
when you are trying to stay true to whatever intentions
that you have. I like the idea of actually create
a visual of the pie chat and pinning it on
the fridge so that it is there every day to go.
I have it going with that at the end of
every week, going how is the balance this week?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And have you heard of the you know, the pre
mortem exercise?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yes? But can you share what this is for those
that don't know it?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So we could tie in a bit of a pre
mortem exercise. So a post mortem is when you analyze
something after it's happened and said, oh wow, what went
wrong and what went right? So that's called the post mortem.
A pre mortem is a useful exercise, and it's basically
what if I'm talking about the end of twenty twenty five,
(32:38):
That's what I'm utilizing is this concept of pre mortem.
So I'm beaming myself into the future and I'm describing
it like it is happening right now. Because humans are
terrible at being able to properly project ourselves into the
future and say, oh, you know, and set goals. So
we set unattainable goals. But we also think that we
can do way more than we can in a year.
(33:00):
So what the pre morton does is it says, let's
be mourselves into that future state. So it could be
five years hence, if you really want to look at
a vision, or it could be December twenty twenty five,
and you describe your roaring success, so you know, Amantha
roaring success. You know, you describe that maybe like a headline,
(33:21):
and then you also look at the flip side, which
is a kind of terrible disaster, so a disaster state,
and then you write out like a paragraph of what happened,
and you can do it like an article in you know,
the Age or in the Australian Financial Review roaring success.
This happened Amantha, you know, started sewing in her backyard
(33:44):
and then you know, suddenly all.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
These beautiful things happened.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
So you describe that future stage, and then you do
the opposite for the you know what made it terrible?
Amantha snowed under way too much work, had it even worse, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And then got burnt out.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
So then you do the other side and then you say, well,
what contributed to that? And it's in that process of
writing the story where you can sort of crystallize, and
they're often surprising things. Hugging Row from Stanford, he runs
these pre mortems and I'll just do your quick story
to tell you about what is non obvious. So Stanford
(34:27):
Medical School, their pre mortem roaring success is to actually
create innovations in the science area that would change the world.
And they initially thought that it was about enticing more experts,
high level experts, medical researchers into their organization. But what
(34:49):
they actually found out through doing the pre mortem is
that a lot of the difficulties happened because of bottlenecks,
because there were not enough to support people like nurses
and the way they get their grants, that these nurses
got snowed under with these things that they absolutely had
to do to get funding in the first place, and
(35:09):
it didn't matter even if they attracted all these medical researchers.
Without the nurses, they wouldn't be able to do anything,
no breakthroughs. And so through doing the pre mortem, it
opened that up, and so I actually go, this is
fascinating and you can definitely use it for your own
career and you can unearth things that wouldn't be obvious
(35:30):
through just doing it. I'm setting a goal and why
do we repeat every year the same bad habits.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
What I love about that is I've only run pre
mortems where you think about what if everything is a
total failure? Well really, and how do we look back
and how do we prevent that? But I've actually never
done a pre mortem from memory where it's like, what
if this was a raging success? What are the things
that led to that? For me, I've always used that
(35:57):
pre mortem in the work context. I haven't really used
it in my personal life to think about how do
we prevent shit from going wrong?
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (36:04):
But how do we actually promote things going right? I
love that angle as well.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Strictly speaking, pre mortem is about all the things that
go wrong, So strictly speaking, it would be a pre
victorim if we're talking so maybe your Latin brain has
gone pre mortem that can't be about pre victorim. So
strictly speaking, that's why amanthas so you have been doing
it right. It's just an instance that they do both
(36:30):
and sometimes there's overlap, but many times you can bring
out different things. And also I think energetically what they
say is it is better if you're doing this personally.
So I've mainly done it for teams as well, the
pre mortem pre victim both sides. And by the way,
you want to make sure that you get really different
people doing it, not just the leadership team, to get
(36:52):
the voices in the room. You can do it anonymously
as well. If you're doing it personally, it's kind of
better to make sure that you do the pre victorium.
But even just focusing on the pre victorim, because of
the way our brains work, it's actually better to focus
on the positive things rather than putting any energy into
(37:13):
or intention into the negative things, because sometimes we can
create our own futures by focusing on the wrong things.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
I used to do a vision board as well, did
you yeah for the year ahead.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
So you know when I was talking about the changes,
when I was doing big changes, and I really did
need to shift big things. So one of the big
things was that I was getting into the innovation space
and I wanted to do the customer focused innovation program
at Stanford, but it was really expensive and I couldn't
really see a way to get there. And I had
(37:48):
this picture of Stanford and I put it on the
vision board and I just had it there for a
year and then I actually got this opportunity to go.
And I remember my brother was living there at the
time and he dropped me off and it was in
the backside of the university, so not the normal entrance,
(38:09):
and I walked in and I looked up and it
was the same vantage point.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Oh that was in this vision board. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
It's those things that I, you know, when I used
to really want to change things up. Just putting yourself
into that future and don't worry too much about how
is that going to happen, but just having it there
and the magic happens.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I think to sum up what we've talked about, and
I hope that this has been helpful for anyone listening
and thinking, you know, what is in your control when
you're thinking about the year ahead and the year that
has just gone, and how can you create the year
ahead to be even better or a better one than
what you've just experienced. I remember I heard this concept
(38:53):
a few years ago around sliding versus deciding, and in
so many things like whether that be in you know,
entering into a new relationship, or deciding to stay in
a workplace. You know, the idea of just sliding into
something where you're just you're kind of on you know,
autopilot versus deciding, I think sums up what we've talked about.
(39:16):
So I know, for me, sliding into next year versus
deciding to make different changes to make twenty twenty five
a better and richer year and a year that has
more sewing in it as well, it's definitely going to
be my approach to thinking about the year ahead.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
So I was a seventh year lawyer, and I'd realize
that every year had just rolled on, and I thought,
so this idea of in the morning when you wake
up and you think, I choose this day. So if
I'm not happy, I'm just not going to let it
roll on because it was just another day, or I
wonder if I should do something about this tick Over
seven years later, right, that was a inertia and so
(39:56):
I thought, today I choose I either choose to stay
or I choose to do something about it, And so
what am I going to do today? So that was
you know, when you want a big change. I mean,
some people just want to stay, you know, and happy,
and that's an awesome thing as well contentment and gratitude.
But if you do want to change something, then watch
(40:17):
that inertia.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I would say, Lisa, thank you so much as always
for sharing the super interesting and helpful rituals and strategies
that you have in your own life. I I'm going
to be listening to this conversation again and really writing
down notes to help improve my process. I've learned so much,
So thank.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
You, Thank you, Amantha. And you know this is all
a fun experiment, isn't it. What works for me might
not work for others. But you know, keep on sharing.
And if it helps you reflect and helps you, you know,
feel a little bit better than job done, and if
it makes it feel worse than dougle amynight something else like,
that's part of the lab, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I hope you love this chat with Lisa as much
much as I did. I know there's at least a
couple of strategies I'm going to be trying to implement
this year to see if I can get the best
twenty twenty five possible. And if you want to hear
more of Lisa, you can find links to her socials
and this working life in the show notes. If you
like today's show, make sure you hit follow on your
(41:19):
podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop. How
I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the
Warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation
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