Lucy Gernon (00:00.94)
Hello there, lovely lady and welcome back to another episode of the 360 Leadership Podcast, the podcast for women in corporate leadership who want to be more successful, have better work-life balance and feel the happiest and healthiest that you’ve ever felt in your life. I aim to try and do that. If you’re a new listener, you are very, very welcome here. If you are a long time listener.
Please go and spread the word with all your friends. I know you hear this on all the podcasts, but when you rate and review and subscribe to the show, it really, really helps my small business. It really, really helps us reach more women in corporate leadership as well. So as a little Christmas gift to me, if you’ve been listening to this for a long time, will you just please copy the link to the show, send it on to your female leader friends who work in the business or corporate world, and just help me spread the love. Thank you very much in advance.
So today we are going to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is journaling. All right. And I’m going to just click in here because I had the prompts there a second ago. Where are they gone? OK, here they go. And I wanted to talk to you about journal prompts for end of year reflections. A couple of episodes ago, back on the 4th of December, I did an episode called Five Strategic Tips to ensure you log off and are fully present over the holidays.
I hope you implemented some of the strategies. I hope that you find them helpful. And this week is the week where I encourage you to really reflect on your year, reflect on your achievements, reflect on all you’ve accomplished so that you can just log off feeling great about yourself as opposed to feeling like, I didn’t get enough done or I’ll deal with that in January. Like just log off feeling excited and allow yourself to enjoy the festive season. OK.
And as part of your end of year wrap up, I’m going to share with you today six really powerful questions that are going to help you to reflect on your leadership in 2024. And why is it important to reflect? Well, first of all, you tell me all the time you want to be more strategic, right? And you tell me all the time you want to be a more effective leader.
Lucy Gernon (02:13.194)
I hear all of the time that you want to reach your potential. So a huge part of that is self-reflection. You don’t need to wait for your boss or somebody else to give you feedback in your year end. It’s important to build in a reflective process in your leadership because I do it all of the time. I reflect quite often on how I’m showing up as a leader.
for my clients, for my team, for my, like even for my family, like how am I showing up and how can I be better? Because I wanna reach my potential. And I know you wanna reach your potential or else you wouldn’t be listening to a careers podcast like mine. So I’m gonna just get straight into the journal prompts. Now, if you want these journal prompts, I am going to ask Katie, our podcast manager, she also manages 360 Leaders Club.
I’m going to ask her to pop these in our Sunday night newsletter. So I started the newsletter. If you’re not already on my email list, you’ve got to get on my email list because you get notified of new podcast episodes every single week. And also we send out a lovely Sunday night newsletter every single Sunday to get rid of the Sunday night scaries. And in the episode that’s due out this Sunday.
will be these six journal prompts. OK, so head over to lucygarnon.com forward slash newsletter and you will get the prompts emailed to you. And even if you’re like, I won’t be thinking about leadership, you might want to do this over Christmas or you might want to do this in January. And you’re definitely going to want to know actually what I’m launching in a couple of weeks. My email list are always the first to find out. So just go sign up to the newsletter and you get these to your inbox if you would like them.
So here’s the six prompts. Are you ready? Okay. So the first journal prompt is what leadership wins am I most proud of this year and what strengths did I draw on to achieve them? You’ve accomplished a lot in 2024. You’ve accomplished a lot, but what’s something that really stands out about you and your leadership and what strengths did you actually use? Now,
Lucy Gernon (04:24.64)
I needed to, I forgot to say to you, journaling is so powerful because what it does is it activates that logical part of the brain when you put pen to paper, or if you want to type, if you prefer, you can do either. It’s different to thinking about it. You get to see it totally differently and you just allow the words to flow as opposed to analyzing them going around and around in your head. Right. So that’s why I recommend journaling all of the time. What leadership wins am I most proud of?
and what strengths did I draw on to achieve them? Think about your accomplishments and your unique abilities that you brought to the table and make sure that you celebrate, allow yourself to celebrate and really feel into that positive impact that you have made with your team, but your leadership did it. Second prompt is where did I feel the most challenged in my leadership and what did these moments teach me about myself?
What did you learn about yourself? So reflect on your year and what was really challenging for you? What did you learn about yourself in those moments? I know for me, one big learning for me in 2024 is one thing that I felt really challenged by this year was hiring the right team.
I had a couple of new team members. It didn’t work out. I knew pretty quickly it wouldn’t. It wasn’t going to work out. And I feel like I was kind of just like a lot of you just wanting to get bodies in. And one thing I learned about myself is that I need to slow down because when I slow down, I speed up and they say that slow or what is it? Slow, no fast. And what is it? my God.
Slow is fast and fast is smooth. That’s it. Slow is fast and fast is smooth. So what I learned about myself as I reflected on, you know, what was most challenging, it was hiring. Why was it challenging? Because I was rushing trying to get in people to help me as opposed to really taking my time. That’s something I learned. So from now on next year for sure, if I’m hiring anybody or if I’m making decisions, I know I need to just slow down a little bit.
Lucy Gernon (06:44.77)
So that’s what I learned and I would never have learned that had I not kind of reflected on journal on this stuff. Number three then, you still with me? How did I empower my team and build trust this year? What specific actions strengthened our relationship? So it’s really important here that you explore the ways that you deepened connections with your team and encourage growth within your team.
Were there moments where somebody’s kid was sick and you let them, you know, leave early? Was there somebody who was going through a personal, like a divorce or something where you were supportive to them? List these personal moments, guys, because these small little things, and if you’re multitasking, come back to me. These small actions that you make with your team every single day are the things that keep them with you. There’s the things that keep them loyal.
So please don’t ever underestimate the value of those small connective moments. Have a think about how did you build trust with them in the big things and then how did you empower them? Right? How did you empower them? Or maybe there’s work to do there. Question number four. What beliefs about myself and my role shifted in 2024? And how has this influenced my approach to leadership?
So what beliefs about myself and my role shifted in 2024? And how has this influenced my approach to leadership? I love this question because I know that a lot of the girls that work with me in 360Liters Club, when you work with me, one of my superpowers is just helping you believe in yourself. And a lot of the women who would join would be very accomplished, but there might be a little bit of imposter syndrome there or self-doubt.
When you come into my world, you will see that that’s all BS. Right. And I love hearing when people’s beliefs change around. Well, actually, do you know what? I am too good for this company. And you know what? I’m going to leave. Or you know what? I was playing small all along and my boss was right. And now I’m ready to step up more in my role. Whatever those things are. I love seeing belief shifts. So think about yourself. What beliefs shifted? Maybe it’s for the positive. Maybe it’s not. And if it’s not.
Lucy Gernon (09:10.526)
Well, what are you going to do? Right. What are you going to do? Journal prompt number five, an important one. How did I prioritize my well-being while leading and what routine boundaries or structures helped me to maintain balance? So anyone in 360 leaders club guys who’s listening, I want you to really think about how you leveraged 360 this year, because I’ve seen you guys in the community.
documenting in our accountability posts that you want to go to the gym, celebrating on Fridays when you do that, leaning in for support when you feel yourself going off track. Make sure that maybe there’s a specific person that you’re leaning on a little bit. Get really clear on who and what supported you with Balance in 2024 and write it down because we forget what works, right? We forget what works.
So if you’re not in 360 or even if you are and you weren’t leveraging that and you’re going to the gym and maybe you’ve got a personal trainer and that’s working for you, please write down what’s working well because when you know what’s already working for you, you’ve just got to double down on it or just keep going with it, right? So think about how you did, what did you do for yourself? How did you prioritize your wellbeing and what boundaries or routines did you put in place to help you with that balance? And then finally, journal prompt number six.
What are my top three priorities for my leadership development in 2025 and what steps can I start taking now? So it doesn’t have to be right now. It’s Christmas week, but it could be right now. But please just get intentional on the areas you need to develop in. Maybe it is being more strategic. Maybe it is your executive presence, even if you’re not an executive.
Every leader needs to work on their presence, right? You’ve got to be seen as a leader if you want to command respect, especially with all the boys around you, right? Seriously, we really, really have to. Or maybe you want to get better at delegation. What are the things? Identify them and then make a plan and put a plan in place to actually begin to work on them. Like I’d said to you a couple of weeks ago, one of your priorities in January, I believe, should absolutely be focusing heavily on your development because
Lucy Gernon (11:32.45)
When you lose this new year momentum, it tends to be several months before you kind of feel, you know, you’ll get to a place where you’re like, I need to do something. Don’t do that. Don’t wait for it to go to a dip. Just be proactive, be strategic about it. And of course, as always, you know that we’re taking applications for working with me in 2025. I would love to be your personal coach if you’re…
podcast listener and it feels right. So you can just submit your application to lucygarnon.com forward slash apply. And if you qualify, we will absolutely be in touch. You’ve got a couple of options for working with me either privately or in my group coaching 360 leaders club. if leadership development and personal development, professional development is on your radar for 2025, please feel free to reach out to me. Okay.
And if it’s not, if maybe there’s another course you want to do, maybe there’s a very specific, maybe there’s an MBA you want to do, maybe there’s something you need to do, but start thinking about what are your priorities and how do they align with your long-term goals, right? If you want to be aboard one day, like what are you doing about it right now, for example? So that is it for the six questions. I’m going to do a quick recap before I let you log off for Christmas. Number one.
What leadership wins am I most proud of this year and what strengths did I draw on to achieve them? Number two, where did I feel most challenged in my leadership and what did these moments teach me about myself? Number three, how did I empower my team and build trust this year? What specific actions strengthened our relationships? Number four, what beliefs about myself and my role shifted in 2024 and how has this influenced my approach to leadership?
Number five, how did I prioritize my wellbeing and leading and what routines or boundaries helped me maintain balance? And number six, what are my top three priorities for my leadership development in 2025 and what steps can I start taking right now? And if that step is to reach out to me, I would love to hear from you. I can’t guarantee I’ll get back to you this side of Christmas.
Lucy Gernon (13:42.272)
You never know. I might, but I might just be spending time with the fan bam. So don’t worry. I will get back to you at some stage. If not the first week in January, just go to lucygarnon.com forward slash apply or I’ll definitely be on social media anyway. I can’t stay away. So I love hearing from you guys in DMs on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Just look me up. Lucy Garnon. That’s it. We link it in the show notes anyway. All right. So lovely lady. I cannot believe this is like
one more week before Christmas. Next week is Christmas Day. And I actually am releasing an episode that you don’t want to miss, believe it or not. It’s not really work related. I just want to help you with that family dynamic stuff. Sometimes family time at Christmas can be a little bit challenging for some people. And you might be around lots of negative Nellies or you might be worried about, you know, just the family dynamic. Or even if you’ve got a great relationship with your family, you just want to like really build on that.
Next week’s episode, I’m going to be sharing, it’s going to be really short, one question that will spark the best conversations at Christmas dinner. OK, so please tune in next week and until then enjoy the build up to Christmas. I will see you again on Christmas Day in your earbuds. When you’re getting your turkey ready, I will talk to you again. Take care. Bye for now.
