Trigger Question #66:
December is the month when some of us reflect by looking back. And January is the month we look ahead. Or maybe we look both ways in December. But which view is more helpful?
In 2019, I tried to convince my coaching clients to get in the habit of doing a weekly performance assessment. Of themselves.
I planned to send them five questions every week to mull over. Here’s the problem I created for myself. Should I send the questions on Mondays or on Fridays?
(If you want the original five questions, ask, and you shall receive.)
If I send the questions on a Monday, am I suggesting that they should consider the week ahead? That they should forget what they left undone last week and, instead, plan what they should achieve this coming week? Am I influencing them to act as if the past is irrelevant because their future actions are more important than what they did, or did not do, last week?
But if I send the questions on Fridays, am I implying that it is better to look back, to consider the past? Because what matters is what they should have done, could have done better, or might better have left undone? That the future will be kinder to them if they learn from history?
I could not decide between Monday questions or Friday questions, so I asked my clients to choose. I sent them five sample questions and asked, “Do you want to receive these on a Monday or on a Friday?”
What day do you think you would choose, not knowing the five questions in advance? Would you prefer to look back, to do a performance appraisal of yourself? Or would you prefer to look ahead, somewhat like starting with a clean slate?
Before I tell you which day my clients chose, let me tell you how I explained it before I asked them to choose Monday or Friday:
Sometimes we benefit more from looking back, from reviewing what had happened, than from anticipating what will happen next. And at other times, we learn more from imagining what lies ahead than we would learn from judging the past.
Think of it as the difference between planting and harvesting; promising and delivering; planning and reporting.
And what does that difference highlight? Yes! That you must do both. You cannot harvest unless you have planted. And that there is no point in planting if you don’t intend to harvest.
You must do both. You must look forward and look back. Because a looking-back mindset can trap you in defensive thinking. (What should I have done? Or done better? Or instead?) And a looking-ahead mindset can doom you with optimistic thinking. (Tomorrow will be better. Those mistakes are in the past; I don’t need to learn from them.)
But how do you do both looking forward and back? By asking yourself better questions. Like these. Based on what I now know, would I have done what I did yesterday? Based on what I know today, should I still do tomorrow what I was thinking yesterday?
These sorts of questions pull the past and the future into the only time you have available. Today. The here and now.
Now, back to my clients. Which day did they choose, Monday or Friday? Looking back or looking forward? They all chose Friday. Why? Because they think it is more important to learn from the past than to prepare for the future? Maybe.
But I think there is another reason, one that we should all ponder. We find it easier to mull over what we know (the past) than to envision the unfathomable (the future). And so we hope for better.
Yet, is there anything you can do right now, this moment? Yes. As you face the blank slate we optimistically call the “new” year, I suggest you face your future and forgive your past.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I always look back to see why I tripped up. But if I had really looked ahead, I might not have tripped.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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P.S. I don’t know whether my attempt to influence my clients’ habits failed or whether I simply got bored with sending the same five questions every Friday. Whatever the reason, my questions morphed into a single Friday question, namely the Trigger Question. Like the one you have now read.
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