Reflecting in 2020
I love milestones. It’s not so much the milestone itself, but the marking of a new season or chapter. They are the perfect opportunity to reflect and make sense of what’s happened in the past season. It’s also an opportunity for a fresh start, and my Enneagram one wing loves the chance to make new goals and to-do lists. Wrapping up what has been one of the hardest years for all of us is certainly a milestone that is worth recognizing.
As we near the end of 2020, I’m deep in reflection - personally, professionally, and with our clients and partners. As I reflected on everything that’s happened this year, I found myself reaching for a framework we use a lot: “What? So What? Now What?”** (Bless, the Elevate Kool-Aid is strong and infiltrates all my thoughts).
Personally, it went a little something like this:
What: This year was a lot (I know, understatement of the century). In a new job, it was a year full of new experiences and getting to work with a lot of new, interesting, passionate people.
So What: The newness created a lot of growth. I learned so much, and I was challenged in so many ways (in good and also, naturally uncomfortable ways).
Now What: I want to celebrate the growth and keep getting comfortable with being uncomfortable as I continue to learn new things and experience new situations.
Professionally, I recently had the opportunity to put this tool for reflection into practice. A couple of weeks ago, Hannah and I had the opportunity to host a data party (I know, we live on the wild side). After a year of standing up an evaluation, collecting data, and working together with amazing partners we came together to reflect and learn. We were able to review data and get curious about what it means and what it tells us about the program. Our takeaway from the experience was...it was rejuvenating.
You may say that’s a strong word, but that’s exactly what it was to us. We clearly love data and learning, but sometimes when you live in the (very important) weeds, you forget the forest. It was so refreshing to sit in a reflective and learning space with our partners as they grappled with hard questions: Do these findings feel right? What was missing? What did this tell us about the work and the participants? What questions does it raise? What can we learn from this information moving forward?
Having that conversation and watching our clients make meaning out of their experiences over the past year reminded me why we do what we do. It’s not the data, it’s what it means and what we’ll do with it. It’s about learning, growth, and continually improving. It’s seeing the inspiring commitment of people we work with to want to be and be their best, because of the real implications to the individuals they work with.
Elevate spent three days last week on retreat, and we walked through this same process. We celebrated surviving 2020. We noted what we have learned and the ways we have grown. We planned for the future. Next year, and beyond, we’re looking to continue to make data and learning accessible to all, contribute to community-level conversations and efforts around collaboration, systems change, and shared data, as well as continue to improve our own internal structures so we can best support our clients. We’ve all felt the heaviness of 2020. In 2020, as a team we chose “Stability” as our word of the year (feel free to laugh). As we hope and plan for next year, we hope that 2021 will be: “Inspired.”
We hope that as you wrap up the year, your reflections and dreaming will rejuvenate you as well. Here’s to 2021 leaving us all inspired.
**If you aren’t familiar, the “What? So What? Now What?” framework is one we love to use when reflecting on data. It’s simple and effective. The University of Connecticut shares more about the here.
Blog written by Carlee Webb