Aaron Stites

Introduction

This article is about the one word to describe what I learned in 2023 and the Guiding Priniciples I will use to guide me in 2024. I also describe how I tend to plan and reflect in case that is helpful for anyone.

Lesson Learned

One word to describe what I learned in 2023: Patience

No, the idea of patience was not new or novel to me in 2023 but as I look back at nearly every area of my life, that is the number 1 lesson I learned. I wish I could tell you that I learned this lesson early on in 2023 but, as I suspect is often the case, it required time and a fair amount of frustration to learn this lesson. As frustrating as some experiences may have been, I wouldn’t trade any of them in return for something “easier” as the lessons I learned as a result of the frustration is of great value to me.

This is where some of you may be looking for examples of the lessons I learned. However, I am not inclined to share examples publicly as the stories involve people I care about and I don’t want any potential for harming their character in any way and I cannot think of a way to prevent that other than saying, I had some experiences that tested me in various ways and although frustrating at the time, I truly believe I am better today as a result of those experiences. Fair enough? I hope so!

Guiding Principles

Curiosity

Curiosity is defined as a strong desire to know or learn something. By trade I am a UX Researcher so this comes pretty naturally to me. Curiosity allows me to seek to understand people and the problems they face or perhaps why they may behave a certain way in different situations. Curiosity ought to cause me to pause and seek to understand before jumping to conclusions and cause me to pause and understand why others have not come to the same conclusion.

Compassion

Sometimes people and things are difficult. In the past, I have found it more difficult to be patient when I lacked compassion for others. That doesn’t mean I didn’t care about others, I just may not have allowed my curiosity to see the whole picture which actually made it harder to have compassion for others at times. Compassion ought to cause me be even more clear and kind in my interactions with others while seeking to have as objective of a view as possible.

Courage

Sometimes it is easy to take action or speak up. Other times, it is more difficult. I have found myself on both sides of that scale many times in many different contexts. To be at my best, courage will be required to put fear aside and do or say what is necessary but to do what is necessary from a place of understanding built on curiosity and a place of compassion built on genuine care for the other people that might be impacted by my actions.

Conclusion

So there you have it. Through various situations in 2023, I ultimately learned that more patience is likely required for me to operate more effectively moving forward. I tend to believe that by being more intentional about curiosity, compassion, and courage, the required level of patience may decrease or be more easily achieved. Difficult situations are almost certain to occur and maybe even increase in 2024 but I believe these guiding principles will help me navigate the waters of 2024 efficiently and effectively.

Play along?

If you are willing, feel free to share what you’ve learned and how you intend to operate going forward in the comments below or in a thread where you see this posted. If not, do this on your own for yourself.

Here is how I tend to reflect and plan. This is not the only way but I find that it works for me.

1. Schedule a time and name a place for your reflection and planning. I tend to do this early in the morning in my home office. This is a time and place that is optimal for me. Find what is optimal for you.
2. Choose how you will reflect and plan.
   I tend to get several blank sheets of printer paper and start reflecting on my experiences for the previous time frame. Once you have all of your reflections out, start writing down goals, projects, and other items that are on your mind.
   Note: I do some version of this daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly. There are some planners and other systems that help with this as well but I tend to prefer a fairly blank slate.
3. If you don’t already have a set of guiding principles, consider how you need to behave in order to accomplish what you have set out to do. Those guiding principles also ought to inform the habits you need to continue or implement to stay on track.

You may be asking how I ended up with the lesson learned and guiding principles by reflecting and planning and honestly, I wasn’t “planning” for that to happen but those things came to me as I simply allowed myself to reflect and plan without overthinking things too much. Maybe this process allows you to come up with words as lessons learned and guiding principles and maybe it doesn’t but I am confident this exercise will be rewarding for you if you give it a shot.

I hope this article has been helpful for you in some way. If it has, please feel free to let me know. If you have thoughts that might be helpful for myself and others when it comes to planning and reflecting, I am happy to hear those as well!