Dagmara Asbreuk (00:00.078)
Reflection and observation are extremely powerful habits of leaders. They allow you to notice and see what is really going on, on the outside and on the inside of you. And to get this valuable input for any forward changes so that you can be closer to the vision that you are walking together with your organization and for yourself with.
And in busy life of leaders like yourself, it can be really very often neglected or minimized. This powerful habit that carries a transformational power and opportunity for yourself and for your organization. And this is why I want to unpack the power of this transformational habit today in this episode. Go into what, why and how you can embrace
this powerful habit daily and if you're inspired with starting this transformational habit. So let us start. If you have been following this podcast and its episodes, then I'm really, I'm happy to welcome you back here to the show. And if you knew, then I want to welcome you well me. want to welcome you warmly to this show. My name is Dagmara Asprek. I am a host of the show. I'm an executive and transformational coach that works with CEOs.
executives and leadership teams that are going with their organizations and within themselves to their next level and embrace and navigate changes. And in this show, I bring you many different change makers and extraordinary leaders, as well as share with you what I learned on my own journey and from this and also from guiding and empowering executives on their journey of embracing extraordinary leadership. So let's start with a question to you.
If I would ask you, what is the reason why you actually slow down, take time to reflect and observe? What would be the answer? The way we embrace the habit of reflection and observation highly depends on two things. First of all, on our end goal, on our vision that we aspire. And second of all, on our beliefs about ourselves. So let me give you my example. Many years ago when I was
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embracing reflections. I aspired to be an inspiring leader and I have embraced this reflection because I deeply believe that I have not been an inspiring leader at that time. And so the reason why I was focusing on reflection was to see what I can do better. So was acting from the energy and a place of I'm not good enough, which is so
much known and believe me, many, many leaders struggle still with it. So if you struggle with it, you're not the only one. Now today, embracing my inner transformation and shifts and growth, I do it for completely different reason. I reflect because I know deeply down that I am a transformational leader and that observation, that reflection is giving me an opportunity.
to see what is in misalignment with the vision and the truth about myself and the vision that I am creating and impact that I'm making as a leader. Can you see a little difference, a little nuance difference of perspective in this example?
The first carry an energy of I need to do better because I'm not good enough. So it's energy of pressure and judgment versus the other is fueled with trust. It's fueled with expansion. It's fueled with inspiration for bigger impacting growth. That's just this little shift of perspective for me.
made a big difference on how I reflect, what I reflect on, how often do I reflect and what I do with this reflection observation. And of course, in which depth of questions I go and what depth of self -awareness I can go into. So just pause for a moment and ask yourself, what's the reason why you're reflecting, if you're reflecting and observing about yourself, about your progress on a daily basis and maybe with your team. It's the energy of...
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We not good enough and I'm not good enough and we need to do better. Or is it rather the inspiration to make a bigger impact to knowing that you, well as your team is resourceful, is powerful, is enough and limitless. And you want to see where you need to adjust to or pivot and what you need to change in order to get to desired vision and direction.
Dagmara Asbreuk (05:12.364)
Now, what is observation and what is reflection?
Observation in simple terms is noticing something and it's seeing what is going on. And I like to see observation like going into this meta perspective where we can slow down from our busy lives, from our everyday responsibilities, duties, and different meetings and activities we do. putting ourselves, slowing down and putting ourselves in this meta perspective.
so that we can see broader what is really going on and deeper what is going on underneath the surface.
And the reason why I like to put it in a perspective of meta -observation, because already when I know that I'm going to actually see more than what I can see, because when I see further and when I see more and deeper, well, I know that it will fuel really meaningful changes, meaningful actions, and probably faster to where I want to be. So that is basically what observation in a nutshell is about, right? Now, reflection is basically for me, what you do with that observation.
And it's the result of the observation is invaluable input, invaluable input for yourself that then bring you to the next stage, which is reflection of what you want to do with this input. And that is what reflection is about for me. It's about observing and it's about reflecting on what you are observing and finalizing that reflection.
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with concrete commitments to different actions, all way of being, all way of doing and decisions and embracing them one by one.
So in simplicity, that's what, how I see observation reflection. What is it about? Now, important, our importance to say is when I say observation, I do want to highlight the importance of observation. What is going outside and what is going inside. Outside means what is going on in your team, in your business, in your organization that you lead, in your life.
How do people that interact with you show up and what is going on inside of you? The emotions, the different thoughts, the different perspective perceptions, the different triggers, the different reactions or responses to different situations. Maybe also the fact that you're procrastinating on something or you're holding yourself back. That's also an observation. So it's really
going into this habit with an open mindset and 360 degree view where you can see what is on outside and on inside. Now why it's so important to look on both?
Because.
Dagmara Asbreuk (08:30.968)
The reality that you experience with your team in your organization Business Life is simply projecting or reflecting your reality inside of you, the world inside of you, the world of your beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, your identity, your energy, your thinking and your emotions and your responses because of that.
and your triggers and your responses because of that.
So in other words, your team or situation in your business organization or life with your family is reflecting yourself. It's reflecting who you are being. It's reflecting your energy. It's reflecting your identity.
And this gives you an invaluable input to see what you might benefit to shift, to change, to transform so that you make a different impact. So that you move the team to design direction so that you empower people to take more ownership and so that you maybe gain more peace.
and more balance into your life and many other examples. Also that you come much more faster to your desired vision and goals. Let me give you some examples with that.
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So as an example, you might be facing resistance in leading whichever change and direction you are leading and navigating and orchestrating. And you might be facing a resistance and observing that resistance from employees or stakeholders, peers, whomever. Well, when you go into reflection, what you might find out is that the root cause of that
resistance is because deep down, maybe you doubt also about your capability to lead that, or you doubt about the strategy. Or maybe you can find out that you are not enough empowering people or listening to people and including them into paving that change, navigating that change, or giving them a space to even come with proactive ideas and
bring themselves fully on. Or you might find out that the people that you are not creating space for meaningful conversations and a deeper curiosity into why actually people are not embracing change and staying in resistance. There can be many reasons that you can find out from this reflection and observation of what is really going on. That's why it's important also to see this observation.
what is going on outside and what is going on inside that I will come back on later.
So inside, outside and inside of yourself, what are you thinking about them? What do you think about yourself? What do you think about your situation? Another example can be you might feel overwhelmed. And when we are overwhelmed, we have so much in our heads that we start either to procrastinate or we start to push ourselves too hard, not take breaks. Or we basically start to...
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feel bad about ourselves because maybe we are not progressing the way we want. It can happen so easily, especially when you have so much on your plate. So again, the opportunity of observation reflection might give you here a valuable insight to see, for example, that you are not delegating and empowering people enough because maybe you're holding on to the belief that you don't trust people or that they are not enough ready or that they are not experts in the field.
And of course, what you're experiencing is that team or your members are not really coming with proactive ideas and not showing up fully engaged and creating this vicious circle, which starts with you not believing in them or not believing that they can do it and not giving them space and delegating effectively and creating strategic space or space for yourself and for other things that you have.
strategic, visionary aspects in your business. Once you find out what this root cause beneath, this is the moment where you can start to shift and take empowered choices for yourself and for your team and for your organization that propel your business organization to the next level and enabling growth. But another thing would you add also this observation and this reflection can bring to you is notice what is going good.
and celebrate actually those little weeds. And why? Because naturally a biologic TV wired with negative thinking and seeing what is not working. It's very normal autopilot that most of us are conditioned with. So also that reflection observation helps us to slow down and help us to see more objectively what is really going on, establish more balance in our own mind.
And see the little wins, see the learnings, see the observations that are so powerful and celebrate them. That is going to propel us forward. That creates momentum, which we absolutely need when we are leading on navigating any change in our organization, our life. Finally, through the observation, through the reflection, catching
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These limiting beliefs, these autopilot habits, reactions, triggers gives you an immense chance to reset them in the moment, almost. What I mean by that? 95 % of our behaviors, responses, reactions, thoughts and emotions.
are running on autopilot during the day.
Realizing any vision that we have with our organization, with our team, with our businesses, is requiring us inevitably to step into the next level version of ourselves.
to embody that identity, that identity of a leader who is realizing that vision. And this is about different sets of thinking, being, responding, decision -taking, risk -taking, actions. So when we are observing and when we are reflecting, that gives us an ultimately the chance to catch our past.
behaviors or behaviors that we don't want to continue that gives us an opportunity to catch our so -called current self or past self and shift and align with behaviors, thinking decisions and action with the version of ourself that we desire to be more of.
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that extraordinary leaders that make truly a difference in the organizations that we lead and in our lives and for ourselves.
And there is one more thing what I want to share with you about observation. Let me give you an example with that. What we observe manifest. The reality we experience is a perception that we all have.
That's why we have so many different views and perceptions about the same situation, isn't it? There is no one truth. There is no one reality. It's just a perception of ourselves that is filtered through our identity, filtered through our mind, filtered through our belief system and values and distorted beliefs and assumptions. When you change your perception, the things change.
It's not the thing change itself. It's just your perception that's changed. Let me give you an example. You can see a difficult situation as something that is happening to you and judge why it's happening to you. Or you can see a difficult situation emerging as a gift, an opportunity. It's something that is giving you an opportunity to step up, to grow, to find out something new or to create an opportunity with.
The challenge didn't change. It's just your perception that's changed. And you know that by just shifting this perspective, how you see this challenging situation will prepare a different energy, action, perception, and drive to go forward.
Dagmara Asbreuk (18:04.066)
So the thing is, how we observe the situation, what perspective we bring to the situation is going to determine how it's going to realize, how it's going to manifest, how it's going to come. That's why when we are slowing down and giving ourselves the chance to observe what is going on, what is going on inside of us as well about the situation we are experiencing, what is the thought, what is the emotion.
how we perceive it, we have a chance to shift our perception about the situation, sometimes about ourselves and about others, so that it becomes really a meaningful change and that we inspire to take action forward rather than stay stuck, rather than maybe procrastinate, avoid or take the action with a lot of judgment towards ourselves.
or towards others, or dissatisfaction and frustration. So the power of observation is truly transformational.
So I hope that by now you are getting really truly inspired and excited to strengthen your habit of observation and reflection. But before you go, I want to leave you with the how. And especially I want to elaborate briefly on how you can embrace this habit with more fun, with more joy, with more ease, with more lightness.
And what kind of questions you can actually ask yourself on a daily basis that will propel these transformational shifts within yourself and in your team and organization. So first of all, frequency. How often should we reflect? If our intention is to observe and be every day closer, be in alignment with our vision and the identity of
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we want to be and making a biggest impact that we want to make, then daily reflection is definitely recommendable. Especially when you're encountering challenges along the way, this is the greatest moment to slow down and pay more attention on observation and reflection. Now, of course, apart from a daily observation and reflection, and if you can't at least weekly,
You might want, there are also periodical observations or reflections, which then are depending on your pace of the business and yourself. It can be quarterly, it can be monthly, it can be yearly. The more often you do it, the more chance you have to identify what can shift, what can change, what can be aligned with the direction of desired direction, desired vision.
And so that's about frequency. Scope. What is the scope? What kind of questions? There are many different questions that you could ask yourself. I have created a set of eight to 10 questions that I ask myself on a daily basis. And I'm going to give you a link to. In this reflection, what you want to focus on is first of all, on celebrating. Celebrating and being grateful for your daily needs, for daily learnings.
for any haas for small and big things. That is fueling your growth mindset and embracing challenges with more positivity and creating a balance, as I say, balance in your mind. How many times you come to reflective sessions with your team and you started what's not working. Let's start with acknowledging what's working. What is great, even if this is tiny. The second you want.
to really place focus on observation. Observation what is going on within your team, within your business, also in your private life, because all of that reflect you, reflect your inner world. So you do want to ask yourself in a broader range so that you have insight from different angles. And a third, you want to ask yourself what is going on inside.
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How do you feel or what were the dominating emotions during the day to see where is your focus? What are the thoughts? What are the beliefs? What are the observations of yourself in different situations? What are the challenges that you are facing and what are the opportunities that are being created thanks to them? And what are the learnings for yourself? From there, you can also start going deeper into
shifting your beliefs, those that you caught that are really not serving you. And this is really giving you an immense wisdom and awareness and self -awareness. And from there, you can, of course, take completely different actions and giving you a chance to shift, to transform, to show up differently any other day. And to help you start with, or to help you with this,
I created especially for you a PDF, giving you my questions that I reflect on daily, which are really, really making a difference. So I'm going to drop a link in the description of this episode that you can grasp and take for yourself and start using from now on. Now, last, what I want to share with you is how you can make this reflection more fun.
So sometimes, you know, planning the daily observation reflection, which I personally do at the end of the day, may feel like another task to do. we already, hopefully now at this moment in this episode, in this conversation, you already see that this is probably one of your limiting beliefs, one of your saboteurs that is trying to sabotage the action. So I hope that from now on you see this as
a valuable time to invest for yourself so that you can transform yourself and your organization to the next level with more effectively. the second, in the second, I want to actually give you one or two ideas on how you can make it more fun for yourself. One is something that I've started to experiment very recently, and this has really been interesting.
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So after I've done my reflection, which I do in written, and I do recommend you to do those reflections in written because when we put it on a paper, we can better see it and we kind of make our head much more free. And then I went to Chad GDP and I asked Chad GDP, if you were my leader or coach, sometimes I alternate, what would you tell me on my daily reflection today? And I can guarantee you.
It was really great what I received back. It was very empowering, very enriching, very interesting, fun, and gave me this probably little dopamine hack as well to do it again and again and again. So that is one way how you can actually bring fun. The second idea you can bring others to this powerful habit. For example, you can bring it to your team, make it together with your spouses, with your partners, with your friends.
Whoever you want, make it yours so that it basically works for you. So that it's more engaging, more fun and more motivating you to do on a daily basis because it's really, really pays off. of course, imagine great would be that you are sharing how these reflections transform you, how it's the impact for yourself towards your team.
It's going to be inspiring to them. You are going to deepen the trust in your team, the safe space, the connection and foster growth. And of course you need to be the first to start it, to share it with others in your team.
So concluding, is all what I wanted to share with you today around the powerful habit of observation and reflection. And I hope that you walking out inspired to either start or enhance the habit that you're already having for yourself and with your team and make it even more fun. Remember embracing this powerful habit of observation and reflection.
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is going to empower you, is going to help you to catch this autopilot and shift to a different way of thinking, way of being responses, decisions that are far more aligned with where you want to be and who you want to be. It's going to help you be more intentional, conscious and impactful leader after all. And it's going to help to navigate the change that you are leading in your organization much more.
powerfully and impactfully. So grab the link below from this episode description and immerse yourself with this powerful habit of extraordinary leaders. If you like this episode, I would very much love to hear what you take away from this episode, what inspired you, what was new for you. What would you like me to speak more about and subscribe to this channel, share with others so we can expand the reach.
fuel my motivation to create that kind of videos like today. Start with this powerful habit and remember it's not only about doing but it's about who you are become and as usual invite you to be the change that you want to see. Thank you for now and see you next time!
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