You’ve likely already read a dozen articles about starting your year off right, about putting 2014 behind you and starting strong. But looking back can actually give us the courage to move forward.

Sometimes the past can be painful. I certainly had some painful moments in 2014 both personally and professionally. Did you? And do those scary times ever make you a little nervous to take the same chance in the future?

In early December I hosted our annual IH team retreat. This year, instead of hotels and boardrooms, we decided to hit the beach. We rented a beach house on the South Carolina coast and what transpired was so special.

One of our special guests was Katherine Eitel, creator of The Lioness Principle and a dear friend and mentor. Katherine taught us how to deepen our team communication and trust.

On one of our morning beach walks we found some amazing treasures-seashells, sand dollars, starfish and…a COURAGE rock. Yep, right there on the sand was this message for us.

To step into the 2015 version of our best self, let’s take a look back. Read below for a few quick tips on how looking back can build your courage to do amazing things this year.

Looking Back to Move Forward

Want to make some major, positive changes this year in your practice?

Whether that change is expanding your team, leaving your practice, adding new services, updating protocols…it’s all change.

Change takes courage.

You’ve probably heard that having courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It just means you’re doing IT anyway. Whatever your IT is…

First take a look back.

Even before you start setting goals, take a look back at what you accomplished last year. I’m not just talking about the big wins but also all the little things. What about the hard things? The things you never thought you would do.

Here’s an exercise to bring to your first team meeting in 2015. The IH team has studied closely with Katherine Eitel and this exercise she taught us, we do with ALL of our client teams. We did this together at our retreat in December.

The Accomplishments Game.

1-Split up into 2-3 groups depending on the size of your team
2-Each group writes down the team’s accomplishments for the last year
3-Be as specific as possible
4-Come back and add them all to a large Post-It note or poster board
5-The group with the most unique items (things the other team didn’t think of) WINS a cute, fun prize,

What we came up with was amazing! We literally had over 100 accomplishments.

Last year was interesting for us. It wasn’t our biggest year ever. It wasn’t the easiest year ever but WOW, did we accomplish a lot and grow and learn. And THAT gives me courage to move forward.

We have some BIG stuff in store for 2015! Some really cool new partnerships and opportunities that we’ll share with you.  Like you, it takes courage to step into the next big place.  But looking back makes us courageous TOGETHER!