Building on Your Wins This Year  

 

The end of the academic year is rapidly approaching on most campuses, and with it comes the buzz of activity that surrounds commencement and student departures. Whether you are faculty, staff, or administration, the end of the academic year often brings days packed with the tasks of wrapping up projects and events.  

Before you settle into the rush of the end of the year, we’re inviting you to reflect with us on how the year has gone, and how you can apply what you’ve learned. This week in Leadership Insights, we’ll share some useful ways to think about what served you well, what you would change moving forward, and how to incorporate those lessons into your future work.  

What Served You Well This Year?  

Reflecting on what has served you well creates a foundation for intentional growth and sustainable success. When you identify your effective patterns, you can replicate and build on them rather than constantly reinventing your approach. 
 
This type of reflection serves several key purposes in your professional development. It: 

• Builds self-awareness of your strengths. You gain clarity on which strategies, relationships, and decisions actually moved the needle. This helps you to distinguish between being busy and being effective. 
• Creates momentum for the year ahead. Success breeds success. When you recognize what worked, you can lean into those approaches with confidence and expand their application to new challenges. 
• Informs strategic choices. Understanding your effective patterns helps you to make better decisions about where to invest your time and energy. You can say yes to opportunities that align with your proven strengths and no to those that don’t. 

Take a few minutes today to reflect on the following prompt and jot down some thoughts:  

Think about the moments this year when you felt accomplished or proud of your work. You could also think back to moments when you received recognition for good work. Try to write down at least 2-3 occasions when you felt especially successful.  

What stands out to you about those moments? How do you feel thinking about those moments now? What skills or behaviors were necessary for you to be successful in that work?  

What patterns do you notice in the different moments you came up with?  

The key here is to be specific about what you accomplished, and to connect those outcomes to the behaviors, relationships, or strategies that made them possible. This creates a roadmap you can follow and adapt as new challenges emerge.  

Pro tip: if you’re struggling to come up with those moments, look back through your calendar to remind yourself of what you worked on this year. You can also use Sophia as a brainstorming partner to expand this prompt or deviate from it slightly.  

Next time, we’ll focus on what didn’t serve you well this year.