Ep 46 – Qs to reflect on your birthday
By Shweta
Birthdays can be more than just about how old you’ve turned. Like Emily Dickinson says, we turn not older with yours, but newer every day.
If you usually find your birthdays wallowing about growing older then this is the one for you.
I’m turning 29 this weekend and I am super excited. I have always loved birthdays. People are always super cheerful on their best behaviour and it feels so nice. I’ve loved feeling like royalty on birthdays as a kid and still do. But it’s also a brilliant time to reflect, to look back at how far you’ve come along and determine where you’d like to go in the next year. If that’s you to take some time for yourself, if not on your birthday sometime during the week, Grove to a coffee shop maybe with your favorite Journal, or just find some solitude within the quiet comforts of your home and think about the last year.
Here are a few self-reflective questions that I explore for myself every birthday
- What was my progress in the last year?
- What do I love about my life right now? What can I change for the better?
- What have I learned about myself in the last year?
- What areas of my life can I improve?
- Where do I want to be before my next birthday?
What was my progress in the last year?
Where all did I move forward and explore this always across areas of your life, professional, personal, networking, relationships, even financial, for that matter. Each of these dimensions gives you a more comprehensive perspective of how you’ve evolved and changed over a period of time.
What do I love about my life right now?
This is a very important question to ask yourself, What are the things that you’re doing that are going right for you? What gets you excited in the morning to wake up and things that keep you going? And as you explore this, there might also come up things that are not working great, and that can be followed up by asking yourself, What can I change for the better? What are the things that you can improve for yourself?
The third question you can ask yourself is,
What have I learned about myself in the last year?
The beautiful thing about birthday reflections or any reflections for that matter is to be able to check-in with yourself and see how you’ve grown and evolved. How have your thought processes have changed over the last couple of months?
Fourth, what areas of my life can I improve?
Again think across areas of your life -financial, professional, family, careers, relationships, personal growth, and learning, spiritual progress.
And lastly, the most important question,
Where do I want to be before my next birthday?
And if you’re feeling a little bit more adventurous and reflective, ask yourself this follow-up question. What is the first step you need to move towards your desired goal before next year and get started on it?
Growing old is the biggest privilege and blessing that any of us can get. Let’s use it well and reinvent ourselves every time we get an opportunity to become our best versions.
