I haven’t done this practice in a few years but my goal is to do this every year going forward. The monthly theme in the TRU TRIBE Running Team for December was self reflection. After doing more research on the subject, how beneficial it is and knowing that the most successful leaders do this, I decided to take some time to do it. While I have not read James Clears’ book yet, Atomic Habits (I should be getting it today!), I checked out his website and he does an annual review every year. So I decided to try it out his format.
James mentions in his last annual review that’s it’s uncomfortable to “brag” about himself and his business and to be so vulnerable by sharing some uncomfortable information. I agree but I figure it’s part of my personal growth process and if it inspires others to do the same, then great! So here it goes!
2019 Personal and Professional Self Reflection
What went well this year?
- Great year of races and events
- 1293 logged miles on Garmin/2,648 logged miles on Fitbit (I wear this 24/7 but not sure how accurate this mileage is?)
- Zero Injuries
- 5 ultras (Black Canyon, Crown King, Jackrabbit, Canyon De Chelly, Across The Years)
- 10 other races
- First Time Experiences: First trail half (Vail), First Double Down (Big Pine) Longest Night trail race (Jackass)
- Breast Cancer 3-Day in Boston (raised $2200)
- TransRockies: Volunteered for 7 days
- Travel:
- Races: Crown King, Vail AZ, Flagstaff, Canyon De Chelly, Boston (Breast Cancer 3-Day)
- Professional: Las Vegas (Consumer Electronic Show with ChiLiving), Denver (Assist Danny with a workshop), Asheville (assist Danny with Instructor Training)
- CO: TransRockies 8 day volunteer gig
- Personal: Rocky Point 2x
- Personal/Professional Growth:
- Certified 1 ChiRunning Instructor
- Foot Collective Workshop
- Meditated 424 times (sometimes I do it multiple times a day)
- Toastmasters: 9 speeches delivered
- Running for Brews Tempe: met 50 of 52 weeks (have only canceled 5x times in 7 years)
- Rolled out TRU TRIBE Running Team
- Might Networks: Community Masterclass
- Like A Boss 12 month Bootcamp
- The Running University
- Certified approximately 59 ChiRunners (doesn’t include privates and didn’t have a good way to track)
- First 100K finisher
- First International Client who did her first 50K
- 9 Ladies Training Programs (LTPs):
- 86 participants
- 2 100K finishes
- 24 Ultra finishes
- 4 first time ultras
- 11 first time double downs
- 19 longest race (night or day)
- 10 first trail race
- 13 first night trail race
- 10 DNFs (Did Not Finishes)
What didn’t go so well this year?
- Deadlines: TRU TRIBE Running Team roll out was delayed several months from original projection and I’m still rolling out slower than planned.
- Strength Training: still not make this the priority it should be.
- Toastmasters: Was going to finish my 2nd Distinguished Toastmaster but decided to stop even though I was pretty close. Started program all over again to learn new educational path online. I figured all the work I put into the 2nd one was not wasted as I learned through the process. I also made this decision because newer members were using the online platform and it was getting hard to mentor them without knowing the system.
- Blog: I keep having great intentions of writing more but I only wrote 17 blog posts last year. Eleven of these were Member Spotlights so truly only 6 were my writing material.
- Like A Boss 12 Month Bootcamp: Started this very excited and once I started working hard on my TRU TRIBE Running Team, I stopped.
- 10 DNFs: While I don’t consider these failures because many of these decisions are necessary. It’s always a smart idea to stop before pushing your body to a point of potential danger due to injury or hydration/nutrition issues. Crown King had a 54% DNF rate. Part of this were issues with the race itself which were addressed by and with the race director. DNFs are always a great reason to reflect on what could’ve been done differently.
What did I learn this year?
- Need to be more realistic with deadlines. I tried rolling out TRU TRIBE Running Team in the middle of some heavy travel times which didn’t allow me to focus on it the way I wanted to.
- As I started this process, I realize I need to have better ways to track what I do. This process took a lot longer than I wanted to this year.
- Blogging is not my favorite thing to do. I need to work on spending time doing things for my business that inspire and drive me. I’ve learned it’s much better to spend time doing less things well/more often rather than trying to do too many things less often and not well.
- Learning to let go is still hard no matter how much I meditate! 🤣:
- I was crushed after the Crown King DNF situation. It was our last ultra of the 4 for the 212K Challenge. Some things were out of my control but I took it personally for awhile. I was disappointed in some of the decisions to DNF from my athletes but more disappointed in myself for so many reasons . It took me longer than I wanted to get through some emotions after this race. However, through this process I made some changes to my ultra Ladies Training Programs and I am always grateful to learn from my mistakes.
- Growing my business is hard! Making the decision to go online and create the TRU TRIBE Running Team was easy. I’ve had this on my to do list for several years. My big learning lesson for this was/is that not all my peeps will follow me where my business takes me and not to take this personally. I struggled with this for awhile but have been working through it and feeling a lot better about it. Knowing that I’ve impacted so many people whether they continue to follow me or not is a huge accomplishment and I need to focus on that.
2020 Goals
(I realize not all of these are SMART goals right now but I need to get the list out)
- Races:
- Elephant Mountain 50K (was my first in 2014, shooting for a PR)
- TransRockies 6 Day Stage Race, 125 miles with 20K feet of elevation gain in CO
- First 100 miler at ATY on 12/30-12/31 as I go into 2021 (my 50th birthday year)
- Personal:
- Spend more focused time with family:
- Greg: Monthly Day Date on calendar
- Mom and Dad: see them at least 1x a week
- Letting my gray hair grow out! I’ve decided as I get closer to my 50th year that I want to see what it looks like. If I don’t like it, I will dye it again.
- Spend more time on self development by using the following tools: books and podcasts.
- Strength Training at least 2x a week
- Checking in on people I haven’t talked to in awhile
- Need to schedule a regular health check up. I take it for granted that I am healthy but I pay too much in monthly health insurance to not use it.
- Ten speeches in my Toastmasters club
- Continue my daily meditation practice as I believe this (and ChiRunning) have had a huge impact on my life and who I am today.
- Create a system to track all of this so it’s easier next year!
- Spend more focused time with family:
- Professional:
- Assist Danny and Katherine in May at Kripalu for a 5 Day ChiWalking/ChiRunning retreat (join us!)
- ChiRunning/ChiWalking Instructor Weekend in November
- TRU
- Rebrand – new logos
- TRU TRIBE Running Team: Keep building on this: adding content, increasing engagement, getting more guest speakers, creating more courses and member only events so I can keep helping more ladies reach running and life goals.
- Continue LTPs and integrating them with TRU TRIBE Running Team.
- Learning more about Instagram for my business and doing more videos whether it’s facebook lives, IG stories or TV and You Tube.
If you made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read through it! This was a rigorous process that took me several hourly sessions. Now I have to make my goals SMART and I will have a clear direction of what needs to happen in 2020!
