I’ve spoken highly of Martin Heider (@martinheider) in previous posts. This year, I was able to experience his passion and caring nature at Agile2016…seriously, every interaction is a wonderful moment for me.
Now obviously my days at Agile2016 are quite chaotic as part of the program team, but when Martin tells you he has something for you, you make sure to find time! He handed me new cards from a project that he is working on: www.retroflection.org. A series of intense questions that you can ask yourself one a day from various contributors.
The first card in my deck was “What is holding you back from believing more in yourself?” by @gerrykirk. Sure, I could quickly state several answers that would be safe and even accurate but not truly the root answer.
Within one question, I’m in love with this:
- Reflection: Reflection is not done in minutes. You have to dig. You have to explore. You have to be willing to not settle for the easy answer. I may know that I think through talking but I also don’t allow myself the time to think/talk. There is always the next big issues/task to do that quickly trumps the reflection time. The deep reflection time that pushes me to grow.
- Community: I was immediately flipping through my deck to see who contributed, what their question was, etc. I think this just rings true to my experience in the Agile community. One person didn’t ask me a powerful question, many did. One question didn’t help me grow, many questions did.
- Open: I logged a question. Then I logged another. My last question I submitted was “How can you pay it forward?”. This was a great way of paying forward while being inclusive.
- Personal: I thought about doing this blog post and not actually giving the answer. However, this is one of the reasons I completely support this project. I was planning on doing this post today. Yet, this question couldn’t have been more perfectly timed for me. Over the weekend, I struggled to support a friend. I don’t know what to do or how to provide what she needs. Still, I would drop everything to try. When it comes down to what is holding me back from believing more in myself…it’s that I have too many responsibilities that I don’t always feel like I’m succeeding at, which means my willingness to tackle more suffers. I’m a perfectionist. I want to be the person people can depend on. I want to deliver for others. So when they set the bar high for me…I go after it. Turns out, I’m not good at setting the bar for myself. Yet, these days I do believe in myself – I just still struggle with the balance of putting me first vs focusing on others. Something I need to work on.
My head is spinning with ideas of how to leverage this within teams: pose a single question in the retrospection, focus a development plan on a question, etc. For me today, I simply want to thank Martin again for making a difference in my life.
What is holding you back from believing more in yourself (@gerrykirk source)?
