Summer is always a good time to take a long break to refuel and rejuvenate after having worked hard in the past months of the current year. It is also a good time to take a step back and reflect on your professional goals, commitments and achievements.

This summer, let’s make it a special summer reflection and look at achievements and also failures from a COURAGE point of view. Did you use your courage resources to move forward? Could you have achieved a bigger impact, made more progress and felt the satisfaction and happiness you had hoped for by using your courage muscles even more? Where did you neglect to choose courage as an option? What did you not manage to achieve because you allowed your fears to take the driving seat?

Well obviously, courage is very much individual. It all starts with how you define courage for yourself. In this blog I would like to provide you with a set structure on how to reflect  from a COURAGE point of you.

In order to do so, I have established a link between the seven letters of the word COURAGE and seven different qualities. In my opinion these qualities are the drivers, amongst other factors, to behaviours and actions driven by courage.

Here are those seven qualities:

Curiosity

Opportunity

Unboundedness

Rising up

Action

Growth

Extraordinary

 

Curiosity means having the ability to allow yourself to dig deep, to learn and to know more about something by figuring things out from a number of different perspectives. It also means asking bolder questions, observing and being brave enough to charter unknown shores, to consider new ideas and to find new solutions etc.

Opportunity is, in this context, about looking for, finding and seizing golden opportunities and possibilities. It is about allowing yourself to not only consider those obvious given opportunities, but also to create desired opportunities for yourself.

Unboundedness is about giving yourself the permission to think, create and act in an infinite way, to forget about limits and norms and regulations for a while. Allow yourself to ask what if those boundaries and limits were not there. What if you could create that space?

Rising up allows you to rise, rebel, resist, maybe to protest, to speak up and so on. It gives you the possibility to get a higher level of self-confidence and achieve what at first sight might seem unachievable.

Action is simply about getting a thing done. It means to accomplish, to achieve and to reach a given target. It is about making things happen!

Growth is about the process of becoming. It is about gradual development. It is also about developing in different ways e.g. physically, mentally and spiritually. It is about maturing. In this context a growth mindset can be key so that you can thrive on challenges and are able to continue to develop your abilities.

Extraordinary is going beyond what is usual, regular, expected and the norm. It means opting for the exceptional or remarkable. With extraordinary you allow yourself to achieve excellence and magnificence and to think out of the box. With extraordinary you are able to surprise and put yourself and your achievement in the spotlight.

Now, how to continue with your reflection process considering the above seven qualities? Here is how:

First of all take a step back and get an overview of all your important professional achievements, but also take account of the goals and objectives which maybe not have been achieved. In my experience it is best to create a table and put every topic in a selected field on the left hand side of the table. Once done, you compare each item with the seven qualities. Whether achieved or not achieved ask yourself the following questions:

How successful, satisfied and happy am I with the achievement oft this goal from a scale of 1 to 10?

Which higher level of success, satisfaction and happiness would have I reached from a scale of 1 to 10, if I had used the full potential of my Curiosity, Opportunity, Unboundedness, Rising up, Action, Growth and Extraordinary?

In case of failure and non-achievement, the lack of which of the seven qualities were the drivers? How can I better train those muscles in the next half year of 2022? What kind of help and support do I need? Who can help me?

How does the overall summary about my courage in this year so far look? How do I define my courage from now on? In which ways do I want it to be the driver of my achievements, success, satisfaction and happiness at work in the second half of 2022?

By following the guidance and sources of inspiration provided, you might also develop your own ideas as to how to reflect on the basis of the seven qualities.

I wish you fun and success with your reflection process. If you find it a bit too challenging then let’s talk: contact