Clarity Check-in
I originally shared this with my newsletter readers shortly before New Year 2021/2022. For me, the days between Christmas and New Year’s have always been important as a time of reflecting and recharging. But this is a tool that you can really use any time of the year and as often as you like.
I learned about it from a friend: ever since the beginning of the pandemic, my friends Sabrina, Sarah and I have met up for a weekly mastermind group call. If you don’t know what that is, a mastermind group is basically a group of peers who meet up regularly to update each other on their progress, give each other advice, and serve as accountability partners.
My calls with Sabrina and Sarah have been invaluable to me over these past 18 months. As all three of us are educators we naturally tried out many different session frameworks for these calls. One that we used a number of times and that I really enjoyed was the clarity check-in that Sarah introduced us to:
It’s a series of deceptively simple, disarming questions that leave you a lot of room to choose how to reply, but that run deep if you let them. You can answer them alone for yourself or use them with another person or a group of people:
Clarity Check-in
When you think about the last year/month/week…
What worked? What didn’t?
What is the state of your mind? Your body? Your soul?
What is something you’re grateful for?
What is something you celebrated? What is something you mourned?
What is something you acknowledge about yourself?
What are you looking forward to? What is your intention?
Hope this was useful to some of you. I’d love to hear if you discovered something surprising.
Until next year!
All the best,
Sarah
EDGY vocabulary from this blog post:
recharging = when the battery is empty, you have to recharge it
mastermind group = a group of people, often with different professional backgrounds, who meets up regularly for structured sessions where they talk about experiences, challenges, and plans
peer (noun) = a person of the same age, or professional level, etc.
accountability partner = a person who holds you accountable: someone who supports you in achieving your goals by checking in with you and asking about your progress regularly
invaluable = so useful that you cannot put a price on it
deceptively simple = it looks simple but it really isn’t
disarming = breaking down your defences in a positive way so that you become open and honest
mourn = to feel a great sadness about the loss of something, especially after someone dies
acknowledge = something that you notice and then openly accept, value, or give thanks to