Something shifted. You can feel it. You just can't name it yet.
Stand Tall & Own It is for women in the second half of life who are high-functioning on the outside and quietly disoriented on the inside. You built your life inside systems you trusted completely — until you realized you couldn't tell what was actually yours from what you'd just learned to navigate well.
Host Andrea Johnson doesn't offer formulas. She offers honest thinking, sharp observation, and the kind of conversation that makes you pull over and sit in your driveway.
If you never slow down enough to look around at where you are, or how far you’ve come, you don’t have the information you need to move forward effectively. Rhythms of Reflection is a tool that provides a variety of options for you to develop your own process of personal growth. In essence, it’s about understanding what is, what you want, what’s possible, and devising a plan to get there. A plan that ebbs and flows with the rhythms of your life and work.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Understanding rhythms and creating a regular practice in each of these areas
Reflecting: Gathering information
Evaluating: Take the information and determine what I might need to do or not do about it
Calibrating: Creating your own standard and gauging your progress
Tools to create your standard: Remember it’s ok to start with somebody else’s system and make it your own.
You're listening to Intentional Optimist, the podcast for unconventional leaders, where you'll find inspiration, learn to discover and develop your own strengths, and hear from inspiring women just like you who are making a difference in their community. Who knows? You just might find yourself stepping up as the next unconventional leader right where you are. I'm your host, Andre Johnson, the original intentional optimist. Hey you, welcome to episode 89. Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and they say something that reminds you of something so important that you just immediately start making notes so you don't forget to go back to it and then possibly share it in your podcast? Okay, well, maybe not that last part, but you know what I mean. That happened to me in my conversation with Sylvia Worsham, who I interviewed in last week's episode number 88. You see, she and I are both Maxwell Leadership Certified Coaches, and we share a love for John Maxwell's book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Personal Growth. Now, if you've not yet read it, I highly recommend it as a fabulous personal growth starting place. And I'm going to put that link in the show notes, of course. Now it turns out that we share an affinity for law number four, the law of reflection. Learning to pause allows growth to catch up with you. In essence, if you never slow down enough to look around at where you are or how far you've come, you don't have the information that you need to move forward effectively. As it turns out, this is a natural practice for me. I had no idea that what I was doing was the first half of a fantastic growth tool. Until the last few years, however, I was mostly only reflecting without actually using the information to change and grow. However, now you've probably heard me talk plenty about reflection, recalibration, and evaluated experience. You know, we all have lulls after growth or achievement, and using that time to look back at what you've learned allows all of it to kind of sink in really good and become assimilated and then inform your next stage of development. The best way to move forward is to reflect, evaluate, and recalibrate. You see, I've developed my own system that I call the Rhythms of Reflection. It's one of the tools that I created to help those in my group coaching community launch from the beach. It provides a great variety of options for how you can do this and lends light structure to how we grow, evaluate, and plan more growth. In essence, rhythms of reflection is about understanding what is, what you want, what's possible, and devising a plan to get there. A plan that ebbs and flows with the rhythms of your life and work. My goal here today is to help you figure out how you can begin this journey. I'm going to give you some tools and ideas on where to start and how to move forward. What's important to understand though is that we all need, and I would argue actually have, rhythms by which we live. We've created our communities and societies around these rhythms, everything from education to finances and pfft whatever falls in between. Even my Beagle, Shasta, has daily rhythms of following the sun around the house. She naps in each sunny spot as long as possible before finally completely retiring to the couch. She maximizes every ray of sun that comes in every single window. Now the key for you is to identify your own rhythms and then set them up as a flexible structure that will give you the ability to move forward with productivity, efficiency, and most importantly, joy. So first, let's look at what I mean by rhythms. By definition, rhythm is a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound. You'll notice it doesn't say consistent or measured. For my purposes, I'm referring to rhythms based in nature. Rhythms that might seem constant, but there's always a flexibility in them that gives us structure without rigidity. They're regular, repeated, but not completely and utterly consistent like a metronome. You see, when a rhythm is constant, repetitive, like a drumbeat, it feels insistent and communicates urgency. It's pressing or oppressive. Ultimately, it feels fake, manufactured, a little bit like a drum track generated by a computer rather than by a real live human drummer. But when a rhythm has flex, we might call it syncopation in musical terms, switching up those strong and weak beats, you know, going with the two and the four rather than the one and the three, or even displacing beats like a ch ch ch it gives a sense of style and even fun. In music, this is usually the kind that invites you to stand up and move, you know, even if just a little bit. My son always gets embarrassed when I do that, but music makes me move, especially one with a really good rhythm. Now, the best example of rhythm in nature that I see that is constant, repetitive, yet not consistent, is the ocean. The waves are never not hitting the shore. There is never stillness. But the waves can be strong or they can be soft, but they're always coming one right after the other. Each has a swell and an ebb. That's how you create a wave after all. And sometimes they're really intense, like in a storm. Other times they're calm. But it's always surging and retreating. Always. It never stops. Of course, this isn't the only example. You could look at our solar system, look at every morning and evening, the moon cycles, every new month or each new year. And then there are interpersonal rhythms like collective breathing or chanting, drumming, martial arts, or singing and dancing. You'll notice most of these are creative expressions. Figuring out your own rhythm takes time. I started out, as most people do, with a prescribed rhythm, meaning I took someone else's process and began using it. Each time I did that, I found things that worked for me and things that didn't. I've added pieces in and within a week, yanked them right back out because they were either too much or added no value. Other pieces took me years to finally add in, and I wish I had done it sooner. So here are my thoughts on the three main pieces that you need when figuring out your own system or rhythms. You need a regular practice in each of these three areas, which, when done together, create a constant cycle of upward growth. Reflecting, evaluating, and recalibrating. That regular practice is your rhythm. You get to decide what you do when based on the value it brings to you. Of course, you'll need a starting point, but if you've not had a steady practice, reflecting is the best place to start. So let's start there. Reflecting is more than just looking backwards. It's also more than just repeating back to myself what I see or looking in a mirror. It's all about gathering information. In any situation, I am looking for my reactions to it, my feelings involved in it, and I'm looking at other people's behaviors or reactions because when I gather information from multiple sources, it informs my perspective. For our purposes here though, let's just keep it in the personal growth and goal achievement space. Otherwise, we could be chasing squirrels all day long. So in that scenario, gathering information looks a whole lot like curiosity, whether or not I met my goal. I just want to be curious about all the W's: the who, what, when, where, why, and eventually how. I want to see what worked and what didn't. Was this activity pleasurable? Did it bring me joy? Why did I even attempt it? Do I remember? Understanding experience and putting it into practice. I use several tools in this process. I'm a journaler. I personally journal every single day. It took me a while to get there, but now I have years of documentation that I can access, and it helps me get things out of my head. I also use a life wheel. This is a simple pie chart of the main areas of my life, and I fill it out every so often to see what areas might be lacking and why. All based on my own satisfaction. Do I need to do anything about it or is it normal based on what's going on right now? The next step in the process is evaluating. This is taking all that information that I gathered in reflection and determining what it means and what I might or might not need to do about it. John Maxwell says, experience teaches nothing, but evaluated experience teaches everything. I call this the so what process. So what if I didn't reach my goal? Now what? So what if I'm not where I want to be in life? Now what? So what if I'm on a completely different trajectory than I thought? Now what? You could make those all positive. So what if I completely reached the goals that I set last week instead of at the end of the month? Now what? Right? I'll be honest, I'm not always good at doing this by myself. This is where I need some outside and objective perspectives, like a coach, my best friend, my husband, or even a trusted community. I've come to understand that one of my own challenges is trusting my own decisions. So I'm learning through the help of others to get there. Now, many of my answers to these so what questions are resolved before I seek others' assistance at this stage in the game, but then I just get confirmation, and that feels really good and reinforces my own ability to make those decisions in the future. You might be in the same boat. You might not know how to answer those questions, but please know there are plenty of people out there who are ready, willing, and fully equipped, whether they're trained or not, to help you look at your own answers and help you decide what to do next. But take note, please, this is the part of the process where if you didn't get stuck in reflection, like I used to, it's really easy to get stuck. Sitting here too long creates what I call the stewing atmosphere where you just get lost in this what if, what if, so what, so what. It's one of the reasons I like to move through my whole cycle as often as possible, daily or weekly, which helps develop my muscles for moving on. That gives me the ability to go monthly, quarterly, and yearly. Now, once you have the answers to your so what questions, it's time to calibrate, or recalibrate once you get into the actual cycle. Let me explain. To calibrate means you have a standard by which you gauge your progress. When you get into your own rhythm cycle, you then recalibrate with each evaluation based on your own standard. As I said earlier, I started out with someone else's process, and I used that to set my own standards, or what we commonly refer to as goals, and eventually created my own process for that. But I also started with their standards. I used the Franklin Cubby system and followed their instructions for how to set my goals and how to accomplish them. There are some pieces of that system that I still use, but for the most part, not so much. Creating those standards for yourself means deciding what you want to be or where you want to be, even if it's just for a short term. Because forever can get daunting, right? If you want to make a big long-term decision, you might need to make some smaller, shorter-term decisions to get you there. Now, if you don't know where you want to go, you can't know if you're on the right track. So as I've said many times before, straight out of the tenet of intentional, pick a direction. You can always recalibrate and redirect. There are some standard tools that I use for calibrating and recalibrating, both for myself and with my clients. And anything I mention here is available to you. All the links are going to be in the show notes if I have a tool that I can give you. So the tools that I use are things like a good planner. Again, I started with a Franklin Covey system back in college. I've since moved through both paper and digital ones, and right now I use a paper planner while still maintaining a digital calendar and task list. This is what works for me. I created a document last year with all my favorites, so feel free to peruse that for anything that might work for you. I also look at my core values. These are the essence of who you are, and when you know them, you have a fantastic place to begin setting your own standards. I also have a one-page exercise on how to do this for yourself. But if you want a little more guidance, I have a four-module mini course that can walk you through the process. All of that is in the show notes. I use a vision board. This is a visual representation of big dreams. Now, vision boards usually are bigger than just one year, but it's important to find ways to help you see your goals and rewards in different formats. A vision board pulls in your dreams in pictures rather than words. And this one, of course, is newer to me. I famously did my first one this January, January 2022. We did it in a workshop style and recorded it, and I've provided it all as a free replay so that you can easily access it yourself. I also have a SMART goal planning worksheet. I find that I don't use this as much as I used to, but it's a great way to teach yourself how to set really practical goals. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. It's a great way to ensure that you're not setting yourself up for failure or disappointment while still helping you stretch. Sometimes I even use a mind map. I do this when I need a different kind of visual representation of how my smaller goals integrate and overlap in support of an overall goal. I place my three to five major goals in bubbles, and then I brainstorm how I'll get there in bubbles around each one. Then I look at how they connect and where something I'm doing for one goal might actually help me accomplish another. Once you have your own process or rhythm and you start reflecting and evaluating your growth based on your own standards or goals, you can start recalibrating in small or big ways. For example, small recalibrations might include adding or subtracting from your practice based on what works and what doesn't, moving a goal deadline based on how quickly or slowly you're actually making progress. Or changing your tasks and practices to help you reach your goal by your actual set deadline. Now big calibrations can be things like eliminating an entire process because there's virtually no added value to you, scrapping a goal when you realize it's just not where you want to go. Changing a degree program in college. Yep, I did this three times. And pivoting in your career based on what you've learned about yourself and where you want to go. Yep, I did that too. So these three areas, reflecting, evaluating, recalibrating, when done together, create a constant cycle of upward growth. Now, to be clear, as I said earlier, I did not wake up one day, create this entire system, and implement all of it at once. It grew organically over time to what I have today. So take what you already have and add one piece to it. Habits are best built one small step at a time. So add on to what you're already doing. Now if you're not doing anything, feel free to find a ready-made system, mine or someone else's, and just start. Rhythms of Reflection is all about understanding what is, what you want, what's possible, and devising a plan to get there. A plan that ebbs and flows with the rhythms of your life and work. So go download any or all of the tools I've provided, including a printable version of my detailed processes. Take advantage of what's out there, my friend. If you can do this on your own, fabulous! Go! Get on it. If you need guidance, help, or accountability, please reach out. If you have questions about any of the tools I've offered, please reach out. I respond to DMs and emails, and I would love to help you. Or book a 30-minute consultation, and we will together figure out your next best step to empower you to take control of your future. Whether it's in a one-on-one coaching setting or in Launch from the Beach, a group coaching community built around the structure of rhythms of reflection with other women to encourage you and cheer you on in your own journey. All my contact information is in the show notes. Let's go! Let's do this! Until next time. But maybe you're an entrepreneur looking for a support team. I'd like to personally invite you into my collaborative community, Launch from the Beach. It could be just what you're looking for. All of my contact information and all the links are included in the show notes. And don't forget, you can always connect with other intentional optimists in our Facebook community. You can follow my Facebook or Instagram page or even connect with me on LinkedIn. Additionally, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter, Optimistic Living. It's good stuff delivered straight to your inbox on a not so strict schedule, but always from the heart. Remember, unconventional leaders lead at every level, in any area, using their unique gifts. And you, my friend, are a leader. You are the future of leadership and the role models for future generations. Until next time.
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