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Annual Review 2024

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The annual review allows us to see what worked well so we can celebrate & build on our success and what didn’t work well so we can adjust & change direction.

Hansei which is Japanese for self reflection is an integral part of Lean. I have been using this Lean concept in my personal life for a long time and this is the 12th year I have published my annual review (annual hansei) online.

I will be happy to see the end of 2024, it has been the hardest and most challenging year of my life.

I said exactly the same thing about 2023, my Dad passed away in August 2023 and it was a horrific year. 2024 was worse because my family and I have spent this entire year without my Dad – every family occasion, every happy event, every sad event, every birthday, every anniversary, every conversation – Dad was missing and dearly missed from it all.

Over the past few years my life was challenged in ways I had not planned for and certainly would not have asked for. Because of these challenges, I reached very few of the goals I set.

I could have done without these challenges yet ironically I wouldn’t want to lose the lessons I learned or the work I have done to push through these challenges.

It’s almost like I have been guided away from what I want towards what I don’t want.

That is life – we make plans and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. I have realised that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel.

Whatever 2024 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2025 everything that supports & nurtures you.

I use the Wheel of Life (below) to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution. When reflecting on your year, you can use these categories or create some of your own.

Here is my Annual Review for 2024

1. Relationships:

The loss of my Dad is something I carry every minute of every day. There are no words to describe the enormous loss Dad is from my family’s lives.

2024 was spent adjusting to this loss, I’ve never felt such deep, overwhelming, all consuming sadness. It’s like every cell in my body is full of sadness and there is no room for any other emotion.

I do feel other emotions like joy and happiness yet these are fleeting, they come and go. The sadness is constant, it feels like a part of me, not something I can remove myself from, etched in my DNA, a part of my soul.

My Dad’s passing has heightened my awareness of the fact that time is not finite, we don’t have a never ending supply of time.

One day our time with those we love will run out.

One day our own time will run out.

This is a constant reminder to spend time with those we love.

Whilst I spent much time with Mike and my family in 2024, it seems that all of my relationships came second to the overwhelming sadness I felt. I didn’t bring anywhere near the best version of myself to anything and anyone in 2024, such is the nature grief, it’s all consuming.

As with every year previous Mike, my family and friends the most important people in my life and I am dearly grateful for them.

2. Sense of Self:

Over the past few years, personal development and personal strategy stopped working for me and weren’t improving my life anymore.

I knew I needed something more meaningful and so last year I added the category Sense of Self to the categories of my life.

Sense of Self,

combines my relationship with myself, my story, my soul & spirituality including personal development and personal strategy
is all about who I am, who I want to be and how I feel about myself and the world around me
is where I work on the concepts of self love, self worth, self esteem, self belief, self trust, self confidence, self respect, self awareness and self observation

Over the past few years, my Sense of Self has been on very shaky ground, chipped away at with every new challenge.

I’m a born optimist and so I will find something positive in every difficult situation.

The positive of being challenged in the external world is that I turned into my inner world and focused on, learned about, got support with and built a more solid foundation for my Sense of Self.

Developing a strong Sense of Self is like building armour for the battles of the external world from the inside out. I’ll be writing more about Sense of Self in 2025 – a most fascinating subject.

3. Health:

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, the quality of every area of our lives is totally dependant on our health.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health yet over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level.

I actually went backwards in terms of most of my health goals over the past few years. 2024 was slightly improved yet that wouldn’t be difficult as the baseline was at an all time low.

Health is a fickle thing – one day you have it and the next you don’t, one day you don’t have it and the next day you do. Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health ebbs and flows like the tides, it’s never one thing or another and improving health is never a straight line or a consistent forward motion.

The important thing is to keep working on health, keep learning about it, keep focusing on it, keep prioritising it, don’t give it away for anyone or anything – it is our greatest wealth.

4. Work:

Over the past 3 years I have spent the least amount of time in this category which is ironic as for the previous 25 years it was where I spent the most time!

I left the corporate world in October 2021 and wanted to set up own business but life had other plans for me! I took time off from the working world and 3 years later I am still enjoying this time off!

No job or salary can compete with how precious this time has been, this time has been life changing.

This time away from the working world,

meant I had a precious time with my Dad during the last stage of his life – that time was the greatest gift of my entire life
allowed me to slow down and see my life more clearly without the fogged up glasses caused by racing around at a million miles an hour
gave me the space to realise what work filled my life yet no longer interests or serves me
gave me much clarity on what I want to do in terms of my work going forward

One constant that stayed with me over the past few years while everything else took a break was writing.

Writing has been a constant my entire life, it’s always been there, in the background, part of my daily life, waiting patiently for me to slow down and give it the time and attention it deserves.

As challenging as the past few years have been I have consistently sent a weekly email to my community for over 4 years. This one single, solitary weekly email kept me sane and the replies I received from my readers kept me writing on some very hard days.

This one single, solitary weekly email taught me,

much about writing and the discipline required for consistent writing
how to share more of myself and be more confident in my writing
that everyone goes through hard times and writing is a very powerful tool for connection during these hard times

People may not speak about the challenges they face, we may not see it on their faces or on social media yet people will share it with you through their writing, in their own words. Anything that gets people to open up about their challenges is an incredibly important human connection tool – such is the power of writing.

You can sign up to my weekly email here.

I had three simple goals for my writing in 2024,

Write more

In 2024 I wrote more than I have ever written in any previous year. I am for the first time in my life, writing more than I am sharing, this is a huge milestone and has been a dream of mine for a very long time. Now I have to figure out how to share more of my writing – this is a wonderful place to finally find myself in!

I created an email course, the first course I have created in over 3 years. I loved creating it yet I was so nervous sharing it online. Marketing online is a whole new world and one I’m just learning about, it’s not easy but it is fascinating! My free email course is about reclaiming your time from social media. You can sign up here https://www.siobhaindanaher.com/social-course/

Learn more about writing

Ask any accomplished writer how to learn more about writing and they will give you two pieces of advice,

Write more
Read more

Writing more than I have done in previous years taught me a huge amount about writing and my own writing style. Reading taught me how other’s write, what flows well in writing, how to keep someone’s interest and how to use words to the best effect.

I also learned about writing from other writers online. Through sharing my own writing I have connected with authors, journalists, copywriters, marketers and loads more people who use the power of their words for a living. This has been so enjoyable yet has also opened my eyes to how much I don’t know about writing and have to learn!

Improve my writing

Over the past few years I became unhappy and disillusioned with my writing. My writing didn’t accurately reflect how my life has changed. I wanted my writing to be richer, deeper, more meaningful, and more impactful. I wanted to write from a place of more transparency & openness to see where it takes me.

In 2024 my writing definitely became more aligned with who I am yet it is a journey to richer, deeper, more meaningful, more impactful, more transparent and open writing.

This journey will last as long as I continue to write which I want to be as long as I live.

5. Finance:

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish it was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions.

Being without a salary for 3+ years has decreased my overall financial value yet ironically how I manage my finances has improved dramatically. While I watched my financial value decrease further in 2024, I improved many spending habits that were not serving me.

In 2024 I completed two large financial projects and many smaller financial projects. All of these projects were aimed at streamlining my finances and moving me step by step closer towards financial freedom.

My top 3 financial learnings over the past few years stood firm for 2024,

1.One of the most important elements of finance is mindset

There are 2 types of financial mindset, abundance and scarcity, both will dictate our relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of our lives and also how much we enjoy earning and spending money.

Someone with an abundance mindset can receive €100 and feel rich yet someone with a scarcity mindset can receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough.

Someone with an abundance mindset thinks that what they have enough and that money will flow freely to them even if they are struggling financially. Someone with a scarcity mindset thinks they don’t have enough and that money will not flow freely to them even if they have loads of money and have never struggled financially.

The difference has nothing to do with numbers, it’s mindset.

I truly believe that having a growth mindset is the first step to reaching financial goals. If you want to learn more about the power of mindset read Carol Dwecke’s brilliant book Mindset, it’s a game changer.

2. Abundance is not just about money

When I left my day job over 3 years ago, my income dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance can be about money yet it’s also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy.

When we focus on the abundance of love, time, health, freedom and not just on the abundance of money, we can see how truly wealthy we really are. This wealth costs nothing and is also not for sale – it exists in all of our lives in immense abundance, if we just take the time to look.

3. Time is more valuable than money

Jim Rohn’s quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites ‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’. Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless.

6. Recreation:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times – these people are food for my soul!

I didn’t have much of a social life in 2024 which suited me fine as I didn’t feel very sociable. In saying that I did get out and about a bit more than I had in previous years.

Maybe I’ll be a little more social in 2025 – who knows!

I did travel more this year than recent previous years which is also food for my soul. I travelled with Mike, my family, my friends and for the first time in a very long time, on my own. Every trip reminded me of the love I have for the beautiful people iin my life and my love of travel.

7. Environment:

In 2022 I started decluttering our home using the techniques in Marie Kondo’s brilliant book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up – I’m still decluttering and so I’m pretty sure I’m not doing in right!

In saying that our home is much less cluttered, I have given away so much of what we no longer need which has created a great sense of space in our home. I’ve got a way to go to finish Marie Kondo’s advice yet I’m happy with progress so far even though it’s taken much longer than expected.

I’m a minimalist in that I don’t need much stuff but I only realised how much stuff I actually had when I started to declutter it!

8. Contribution:

I continued to give to charities albeit not at the level I would have when I was working. Over the past few years I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and the contributions I make which aren’t monetary. \

We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice, this has been an unexpected education for me!

That’s it, my 2024 review, it was a tough year and I’m happy to say goodbye to it.

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back on 2024 and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to 2025.

Thank you for reading and for your kind words in 2024, I really appreciate your support.

Siobhain

x x

If you want to carry out your own annual review, download your Annual Review Workbook below 😊

This is the 12th year I have shared my Annual Review online,

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

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Annual Review 2022

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In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese for Self Reflection. Self Reflection allows us to reflect on what has worked so we can celebrate & build on the successes and also reflect on what didn’t work so we can adjust & change direction.

I have been carrying out an Annual Review (Self Reflection) for many years and find it hard to believe this is the 10th year I have published this review online. (See end of this post for previous year’s reviews).

2022 was a strange year in that so many things I planned didn’t work out and so many things I didn’t plan did work out!

I reached very few of my annual goals and 2022 was full of immense unplanned & challenging change (similar to 2020 & 2021). I have realised that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel which is not necessarily the path we plan.

Whatever 2022 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2023 everything that supports & nurtures you.

Below is my Annual Review for the year that was 2022.

I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life, you can use this or your own version for reflecting on 2022.

Relationships:

Our greatest and most important relationship is with ourselves. I truly believe that how we feel about ourselves and how much we know & learn about ourselves dictates our level of success in every area of our lives.

This is why it is so important to prioritise understanding, trusting, accepting and loving ourselves. In 2022 I continued to learn more about & build my relationship with myself. I found 2022 to be a very challenging year and so my learnings were mostly about how I deal with adversity & challenges.

As always, Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything and the source of much of my happiness.

As I’m not working at the moment, I have the precious gift of lots of spare time. This gift given me so much time to spend with my loved ones. I see more of my boyfriend Mike as I’m home every evening when he gets home and I’m off on his days off. This has been blissful and a welcome change to when we were like passing ships pre Covid!

I see my parents & family more than I have ever done which brings me so much joy. Before I left the workplace I would only see my parents & family at weekends and even at that it wasn’t every weekend – now I see them every week and for a few days most weeks.

I cannot tell you how precious a gift this time is, no amount of money can buy it and no amount of time can replace it.

In 2022 I made up for not travelling the previous 2 years and had 4 trips abroad.

In January I went skiing in the Italian Alps with my friend Paula. In May Paula and I joined our friend Karin for a week in Santorini, Greece which was amazing – you can read about that here.

My Top 5 Reasons to Visit Santorini

In August, my friends Aine, Eileen and Therese and I went to VillaMoura, Portugal for a few days. I stayed longer and Paula joined me with her friends to enjoy another few days in the sun. This was such a relaxing trip with a dash of nightlife thrown in!

Mike and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend in November for the Scotland & All Blacks rugby game. Edinburgh is such a beautiful place and we had a super weekend.

I am immensely grateful for my love Mike, my wonderful family and friends and I look forward to more adventures together in 2023.

Health is Wealth:

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, our health is by far our greatest asset.

The quality of every area of our lives is totally dependant on our health.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health and over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level.

In 2022 I watched loved ones deal with ill health which was really challenging and reinforces the importance of dedicating time & energy to learning about and improving our physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health.

2022 was also challenging for me in all areas of my own health and I didn’t reach any of the goals I set for myself.

Improving our health is a journey and just like any other journey, it’s important to keep learning & moving forward no matter the pace!!

Here’s to a healthy 2023 for us all!

Work:

I started 2022 with no day job but with big dreams of setting up my own business but decided against it after watching a Ted Talk on ‘The Power of Time Off’.

I decided to do just that and take TIME OFF from working.

You can read about my decision here, The Importance of Time Off

I did continue with some work in that I was still writing my weekly emails to my community, writing blog posts, sharing these blog posts on social media and co-hosting a Personal Strategy table with the Women in Lean network.

As the year went on, I realised I needed to be true to myself and take real ‘TIME OFF’ from work and so I stopped writing blog posts and took a break from social media & the Women in Lean Personal Strategy table.

The only work I now do is send my weekly email to my community to whom I am so grateful.

It’s actually really difficult to completely take ‘TIME OFF’ from working as our human minds are wired to DO! It takes much focus and discipline to allow ourselves to just BE!

This ‘TIME OFF’ work has been the most freeing time of my entire life and I am enjoying it so much I will continue it into 2023.

I still want to work for myself and set up my own business, just not yet! 😊

Finance:

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish personal finance was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions.

In 2022 I continued to learn about personal finance and my relationship with money.

For the first time in 25 years I didn’t have a salary which taught me more than having a big salary ever could! Here are my top 3 financial learnings of 2022.

One of the most important elements of finance is MINDSET – one person can receive €100 and feel rich and another could receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough. The difference has nothing to do with numbers, it’s MONEY MINDSET. There are 2 types of MONEY MINDSET – abundance and scarcity – both will dictate your relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of your life and also how much you enjoy earning and spending money.

2. Abundance is not just about money – when I left my day job in October 2021 my income dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance is not just about money – abundance is also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy. This abundance of love, time, health & freedom brings me more joy than any amount of money ever will!

3. Time is more important than money – this is not a learning but a teaching from Jim Rohn. His quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites.

‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’.

Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless.

Pre Covid, I felt I was on a hamster wheel! I was so busy working (inside and outside of my day job), there was very little time in my week for anything else. Stepping off this hamster wheel has been without a doubt the single best thing I have ever done for myself.

Time seems to have slowed down. Time seems to be more enjoyable.

I’m no longer crazy busy, some days I’m not busy at all.

Busyness has been replaced with bliss. Bliss in that I can now enjoy the time I have and not wonder where it has gone or if I’ll have enough time to get through my to do list!

In saying all of the above, I do know we all need money to live.

I’m lucky to have worked in large companies for 25 years, I made some investments and have built a certain amount of wealth that now allows me to take this precious time away from work. When I left my day job I made a decision to spend some of this money and not worry about it. This might reduce my overall ‘financial value’ but what’s the point of earning money if we don’t spend it and enjoy every minute of that spending?

At some stage I will need to think seriously about how to balance this precious time off with my vision for financial freedom but for the moment I’m just going to enjoy it! 😊

Personal Development:

I have always loved and dedicated much time to personal development.

Just like everything in my life, personal development changed immensely for me over the past 2 years.

Every year, I used to read many physical books, listen to many audiobooks & podcasts and watch loads of Youtube videos & social media posts. I used to take online courses and learn as much as I could from mentors & coaches that I admired who were doing what I wanted to do.

This all changed in 2022.

I still read physical books as reading is one of my favourite things to do but I no longer consume so much information from others.

My personal development is now more personal. My personal development is no longer about what I learn from others, it’s all about what I learn from myself.

My personal development now comes from awareness of me – who I am, who I am not, who I want to be, who I do not want to be, my thoughts, my actions, my reactions, my beliefs, my decisions, my likes and dislikes.

My personal development now comes from observation of my life at a cellular level – why I do what I do, why I think what I think, why I behave how I behave, what is driving me forward and what is holding me back.

This consistent awareness & observation of myself has been life changing.

We can spend way too much time wondering why our outside world isn’t suiting us yet spend very little time on why our inner world even cares!

If you want to learn about how you can focus more on your inner world and less on the noisy, disruptive, all consuming outer world I highly recommend Anthony De Mello’s life changing book ‘Awareness’.

If this is the only book you read in 2023 and you follow it’s teachings, it will transform your world! 😊

Social Life/Fun:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times. No-one makes me laugh out loud more than those I love and those who love me – they are food for my soul!

Globally our social lives took a hit in 2020 & 2021, thankfully all that changed in 2022. We started meeting people again and enjoying the social side of life. This was a slow process for me and I’m probably not as social as I was pre Covid.

In saying that, in 2022 I enjoyed loads of meals out, days out, nights away, holidays and saw my loved ones way more than I ever have which brought me immense joy.

Just like everything in life, you don’t have to be doing much to enjoy yourself and have fun. Mike and i share the same sense of humour and so our home is always filled with much laughter of which I am immensely grateful for.

Environment:

For me, environment is about our planet on a global scale and our beautiful home on a personal level.

In terms of the planet, I reduced my plastic usage but the more I reduced, the more I realised I used. This is a work in progress. Global warming is a very real thing and small steps taken by many can really make a difference.

This year I re-read Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ and started implementing it in our home. This has taken way longer than I had thought and will continue well into 2023. In saying that, I have enjoyed this process immensely. I’m a minimalist in that I don’t have or need much stuff but I only realised how much stuff I have when I started to declutter it!

I have wanted to hire an interior designer to design our home for a long time. I know what I love in terms of interior design when I see it on Instagram & Pinterest but transferring that to our home is not a skill I possess.

I have started working with Wioleta Kelly who is a very skilled interior designer and I’m so excited to finally get this process started.

Contribution:

I have been supporting four charities for many years but this year I stopped all my direct debits to charities. This was a very difficult decision as these charities mean a lot to me and they do excellent life changing work. In saying that, I continued to give to charity, just not at the level I would have when I was working.

I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and which isn’t monetary. We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice, this has been an unexpected education!

That’s it, my 2022 in review.

As with all Annual Reviews, looking back and reviewing my year brings pride in what I have achieved but also many lessons learned and things I would like to do differently that I will bring into 2023.

Thank you for reading my blog posts and your kind words during 2022, I really appreciate your support. I hope whatever 2022 brought you that you can build on & learn from it to make 2023 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER.

May 2023 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness, peace & prosperity.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x x

If you want to carry out your own Annual Review, below is a list of blog posts to support you.

5 Reasons To Prioritise Your Annual Review

4 Steps To Your Annual Review

My previous Annual Reviews can be found here,

2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

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A Guide to Your Business Mid Year Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

When it comes to business strategy and the goals you have set, the Mid Year Review is the most important as there is way more progress in 6 months than can be seen daily, weekly and monthly or even quarterly which is highly motivating.

Ideally you are reviewing progress of your business goals daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly which makes your Mid Year Review easier, more streamlined and more effective,

Your Mid Year Business Review is carried out as you approach the end of June so your action plan is in place for July or shortly after.

Here are 6 simple steps to carry out your Business Mid Year Review:

Step 1 – Review your business goals, the metrics you use to measure progress and the progress itself

Are your goals still relevant?

Ensuring the goals you set at the beginning of the year are still relevant is critical to the success of your business. Having irrelevant goals means you are traveling in the wrong direction which is almost worse than having no goals!

Are the goals you set at the start of 2022 still relevant to you and your business?

Do your goals still align with your Business Vision, Mission, True North and Values?

Your Vision is your direction.

No Vision, no direction, no progress!

Are you regularly communicating your Vision, Mission, True North & Values to your people?

Are you regularly making decisions aligned with your Vision, Mission, True North & Values?

If not, your direction exists only on paper which is not the best place to have it!

Note: If you don’t have a Vision, Mission, True North & Values, now would be a good time to start thinking about creating these. No matter where you are in terms of your business, it is never too late to make positive change and that change starts with Vision, Mission, True North & Values.

Do you have the correct metrics in place?

Your metrics should highlight progress towards your goals and should also highlight obstacles that get in the way of progress towards your goals.

Do your metrics highlight progress towards your goals?

Do your metrics highlight obstacles that get in the way of progress towards your goals?

When do you review these metrics?

Are your metrics at the right level?

Are you improving your processes?

If you are not improving your processes, chances are your metrics are standing still or going backwards!

Process improvements = metrics moving in the right direction = goals achieved

Step 2 – Evaluate what worked for you, how were you successful?

What worked for you in the past quarter?

What did you do that enabled this success?

What areas of your business were successful?

What parts of your business did you enjoy?

What parts of your business brought you happiness and joy?

Step 3 – Evaluate what didn’t work for you, what got in the way of success?

What didn’t work for you and got in the way of your goals?

How did you deal with and overcome these obstacles?

What areas of your business were unsuccessful?

What parts of your business did you not enjoy?

What parts of your business did not bring you happiness and joy?

Step 4 – Make informed decisions about your key focus areas for the next quarter/6 months

Based on the answers to all of the above, what ACTION will you take for the next quarter/6 months?

Strategy reviews are only as good as the ACTIONS that are taken as a result of those reviews.

Are your 2022 goals still achievable based on progress made in the last 6 months?
Do you need more goals to stretch yourself?
Do you need less goals to stop over stretching yourself?
Are there goals that no longer serve you?
What are your priority goals for the next quarter/6 months?
What are your non priority goals for the next quarter/6 months?
What will you do to continue progress in successful areas of your business?
What will you do to learn from and turn around unsuccessful areas of your business?
How will you measure progress of your goals in the next quarter/6 months?
What metrics will you update, add, remove?
How often will you update these metrics?
Where will you document your goals, metrics, progress?
How will you communicate your plans to your team?

Step 5 – Document and share your strategy, goals, metrics & progress

It’s really important to capture your goals, metrics & progress on your goals somewhere.

It doesn’t really matter what you use from once you write your goals down and track progress daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly that will, at the end of the year, result in your Annual Review.

Whether you prefer physically putting pen to paper or to use something electronic there are so many options. The science behind why writing things down to enable success is outlined in the amazing book ‘Write It Down, Make It Happen’.

My favourite tools for documenting are,

Physical – I love Moleskine journals for tracking progress of goals & journalling. Moleskine journals are colourful, hard wearing, long lasting journals of the highest quality.

Online – My tools of choice online are Google Docs & Google Sheets and Google Slides. These are almost identical to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint.

I use Asana for Project Management and absolutely love it. Asana has an app which is super simple to use and keeps everything in the one place and all super organised.

These tools are all ABSOLUTELY FREE, are very easy to use and are all you need to set and track progress in your business.

When you have completed your Business Mid Year Review it’s critical that you share the outcome of your review and your plans for the next quarter/6 months with your team.

There is no greater way to show respect to your people than sharing the progress they have made and the plans you have for them in the future.

Step 6 – Learn more about Lean Business Strategy

The longer I work in Lean Business Strategy the more I learn.

There is always another level of Lean Business Strategy to move into and learn about.

If you are looking for a book on Lean Business Strategy, I highly recommend ‘Getting The Right Things Done’ by Pascal Dennis and really any other books by Pascal Dennis.

Getting The Right Things Done is an incredible book that can be visited again and again as you move deeper & deeper into the world of Lean Business Strategy and success.

This is my bible in terms of Lean Business Strategy and Pascal Dennis is one of my favourite Lean mentors.

The best place to learn about your business is from your people. Ensuring your people are your primary source of learning will not only sky rocket your business but will also deliver a Lean culture where people are deeply respected.

Take the time to listen to your team and prioritise their development. There is no end to what your talented people can teach you if you give the time to listen and learn!

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the last 6 months and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 6 months.

If you liked this post, you might like like my post on the

‘A Guide to Your Personal Mid Year Review’

Want to read more about Positive Change in life & business?

Download your free e-book ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ and sign up to my Weekly Newsletter below.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x

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A Guide To Your Mid Year Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

It’s time for your Mid Year Review 😊

The first 6 months of the year have gone so fast!

How has the first 6 months of 2023 been for you?

Below are the 4 Steps to your Mid Year Review that will help you answer that question.

As you answer the questions in each step, refer to your Wheel of Life that contain the key areas of your life. If you haven’t created a Wheel of Life, you can use mine below.

The areas of my Wheel of Life are Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution.

It’s important that you document your review somewhere so you can refer to it and hold yourself accountable to the actions that come out of your review.

Step 1 is all about what went well over the past 6 months

i. What worked well for you in the past 6 months?

What did you do that you enjoyed?

What worked out exactly how you wanted or better than you wanted?

There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day, sometimes it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find them.

You may see that life goes your way more than you may realise.

Using a daily gratitude journal can really help answering this question.

If you don’t have a daily gratitude journal maybe it’s something you could start for the next 12 weeks. Even just one gratitude a day over 12 weeks is about 90 things to be grateful for over 12 weeks, wouldn’t that be something really lovely to look back and reflect on?

ii. What did you do that supported this success?

How did you bring success into your life?

How did you contribute to the things that worked well for you?

Did you work hard at something and then reap the rewards?

Did you make sacrifices to improve your life?

When we reflect on how we are successful in areas of our life, we underestimate the part we played in that success.

YOU are successful and YOU are the creator of that success. YOU have brought all of your happiness, joy and success into your life.

Knowing how you contribute to your own success means you can build on this to bring so much more success into your life.

iii. What brought you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

When were you at your happiest over the past 6 months?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you?

Knowing what brings us happiness allows us to create more time to bring more happiness and joy into our lives.

Knowing who brings you happiness means you can create more time to spend with these very special people.

You want to be spending as much time as possible with those who bring out the best in you. The more you bring out the best in yourself, the more you can bring out the best in others.

iv. Are you happy with where you spent your time over the past 6 months?

Time goes by so fast and as we get older I think time seems to speed up that little bit more.

Time is so precious – we all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year but nobody knows how many years we have. This realisation always makes me so determined to live life to the fullest every single day and that means spending my time where I am happy spending it.

Where did your precious time go over the past 6 months?

Are you happy with where your time was spent over the past 6 months?

Are you fully enjoying every minute of your days, weeks, months?

Step 2 of your Mid Year Review is all about what didn’t work well for you in the past 6 months.

i. What didn’t go well over the past 6 months

What didn’t go your way in the past 6 months?

What happened that you didn’t enjoy?

What didn’t go to according to plan?

What is holding you back from living your best life?

Challenges, obstacles and plans not working out are a normal part of life.

No matter how much we plan, no matter how much we try to control our plans there are times when things just don’t go our way. Acknowledgment and acceptance of this fact is the first step to turning challenges & obstacles into opportunities.

In his new book ‘Green Lights’, Matthew Mc Connaughey talks about the fact that if we only had green lights in life, if there were no amber or red lights, then life would be very boring and we would never grow and evolve. Such truth and wisdom in that.

How can you acknowledge and accept what doesn’t work out for you and understand this is all part of your path?

ii. What obstacles got in your way?

Looking back at the past 6 months, were there obstacles that got in your way?

Obstacles & challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.

The question to ask here is what can you do to eliminate these obstacles & challenges and if you can’t eliminate them how can you think about them differently?

We all have compete control over our thoughts and just reframing things in our mind can turn obstacles & challenges into opportunities for success.

Dr Wayne Dyer’s book ‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life’ teaches us that all we have to do to change what is not going well in our lives is to think differently about it. A most profound book, I highly recommend it.

iii. What didn’t bring you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand. No human life is devoid of unhappiness just like no human life is devoid of happiness. Acceptance of this goes a long way to find out what exactly makes us unhappy.

When were you at your unhappiest over the past 6 months?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you?

Knowing what makes us unhappy allows us to think deeper about the role certain people, situations, interactions and places play in our levels of happiness.

There is no such thing as the perfect life that is happy all the time, however there is a level of contentment and inner peace that can be reached by understanding what takes our happiness & joy away and working to avoid, eliminate or understand more about this.

iv. Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months

We all know time is precious.

Think about all of the key areas of your life from your Wheel of Life.

Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months?

Did you spend too much time in some areas and not enough in others?

What areas would you have liked to have spent more time in?

How balanced is your life in terms of where you spend your time?

Step 3 of your Mid Year Review is all about what you learned in each of the key areas of your life over the past 6 months.

The only way we grow and evolve as humans is by learning more and by turning these learnings into action that propels us forward.

Going through each of the areas of your Wheel of Life (or using mine below) reflect on the questions below to understand what you learned over the past 6 months in all of the key areas of your life.

Sense of Self – What did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Have you dedicated time to personal development? What did you learn about your relationship with yourself, has your relationship with yourself improved?

Relationships – What did you learn about your relationship with others, has your relationship with others improved? Are there relationships you want but don’t have? Are there relationships you have but don’t want?

Health – What did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health? Did your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health improve?

Work – What did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Has your work moved forward and improved?

Finance – What did you learn about personal finance? Did your personal finance improve?

Recreation – What did you learn about socialising and recreation? How can you bring more fun into your life?

Environment – What did you learn about your environment? Did your environment improve? For me environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.

Contribution – What did you learn about contribution? Did you make the world a better place by giving your time, money or skills? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.

Step 4 of your Mid Year Review is about creating actions that will support you to live your best life every day and move you closer and closer to your goals

i. What can you build on in terms of your success?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 1.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the successes of the past 6 months?

ii. What can you build on in terms of the challenges you experienced?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 2.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the challenges from the past 6 months?

iii. What can you build on in terms of what you learned over the past 6 months?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 3.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on and take advantage of the learnings from the past 6 months?

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the past 6 months and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 6 months.

Happy reflection 😊

Siobhain

x x

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21 Lessons Learned in 2021

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I love looking back, reflecting on and learning from what has gone by, then using these learnings to create positive change in my life. 2021 was a year of many lessons learned, some harder than previous years but all very valuable.

When you start to treat both wins & challenges as lessons learned, life’s ups and downs become wondrous and exciting and even the challenging times seem to have a sparkly silver lining!

Here is 21 of my favourite lessons learned from 2021,

Time with loved ones is the most precious gift
Our most important relationship is with ourselves
The only person who defines our value & our worth is ourselves
People are amazing, that includes YOU!
Health is wealth
Money cannot buy health but health is required to make money (read that again)
Abundance is not just about money – it is about love, health, time, freedom and everything else important that money can’t buy
You need a vision to give you direction in life & business – no vision, no direction, no progress
Where & with who we spend our time & energy directly impacts our mental, physical, emotional & spiritual health
Everyone needs support and everyone deserves to be supported
Loving who you are and loving what you do is the key to inner happiness & contentment
Burnout and boreout are very real & very damaging
To create a new version of ourselves, we need to let go of the old version
For introverts, solitude is just as important as oxygen
We are the authors of our own story – no-one else holds the pen
How we spend our energy is just as important as how we spend our time
No growth occurs in the comfort of our comfort zones
Everyone has challenges that most people know nothing about
Acceptance of challenging times goes a long way to overcoming them
Everything is on time and in perfect time
Florence & The Machine were spot on – ‘It’s always darkest before the dawn’!

What lessons did you learn in 2021?

How will these learnings support you in 2022?

I’d love to know what you learned in 2021, comment below or share with me on social.

I hope that whatever 2021 brought you, you can build on & learn from it to make 2022 your best year ever.

May 2022 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness, peace & prosperity.

Thanks for reading, stay safe,

Siobhain

x x

Below is a list of blog posts designed to support you with your Annual Review, you can download your ‘Annual Review Workbook’ below also.

5 Steps To Your Annual Review

Get SERIOUS about your Intentions and Goals for 2022

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3 Steps To Your Annual Review

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Another year has whizzed by and it’s time for your Annual Review – how fast did that year go?

That’s the thing with time, it literally flies by which is why it’s so important to live and love every single minute you have.

How do you make the most out of every single minute?

You plan for it which you can do by setting intentions & goals.

What else can you do?

You can look back and review your progress to learn what works for you & what doesn’t work for you and change your direction accordingly.

It is through PERSONAL REFLECTION that we LEARN THE MOST.

We are our OWN GREATEST TEACHERS and so reflecting on our experiences brings us so much wisdom.

The ‘3 Steps to Your Annual Review’ is easy to follow – no jargon, no fancy words and will take as much time as you want to dedicate to it.

Here’s a few tips on preparing for your Annual Review.

Print your Annual Review Workbook (you can download it at the end of this blog post) – you can also use a journal/notebook or an online document. I document my Annual Review in Moleskine journals and use Google Suite tools for online documentation throughout the year.

Schedule time in your busy calendar – I usually take about 3 days to do this. That may sound like a lot of time but it is time well spent when you think of the amount you will learn. No matter how long this takes you, the most important thing is that you schedule and take this time for yourself.

Refer to your Wheel of Life as you answer each question – keep in mind the key areas of your life in your Wheel of Life. If you haven’t created a Wheel of Life, you can use mine below. The areas of my Wheel of Life are Sense of Self, Health, Relationships, Work, Finance, Social Life, Environment & Contribution.

Step 1 is reflection on what went well in 2024

1: What worked well for you in 2024?

What did you enjoy?

Did your plans work out how you wanted or better?

There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day.

If you focus on the small stuff first you may see that life goes your way more than you may realise – the small stuff really is the big stuff!

2: What did you do that supported this success?

How did you bring success into your life?

There are so many things in our lives that we cannot control and so it’s best to just focus on what you can control.

The only person who has control over your life is YOU and the only life you can control is YOUR OWN.

Did you work hard at something and then reap the rewards?

3. What brought you joy and happiness in 2024?

When were you at your happiest in 2024?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you? Knowing what brings us happiness allows us to bring more happiness and joy into our lives.

You want to be spending as much time as possible with those who bring out the best in you. The more you bring out the best in yourself, the more you can bring out the best in others.

4. Are you happy with where you spent your time in 2024?

Time is so precious – we all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year but nobody knows how many years we have!

This realisation always makes me so determined to live life to the fullest every single day and that means spending my time where I am happy spending it.

Where did your precious time go in 2024?

Are you happy with where your time was spent in 2024?

Did you fully enjoy every minute of every day?

That’s Step 1 of your Annual Review done!

Step 2 is reflection on what didn’t go well in 2024

1. What didn’t go well in 2024?

When did your plans not work out in 2024?

What happened that you didn’t enjoy?

No matter how much we plan, no matter how much we try to control our plans there are times when things just don’t go our way.

In his book ‘Green Lights’, Matthew Mc Conaughey talks about the fact that if we only had green lights in life, if there were no amber or red lights, then life would be very boring and we would never grow and evolve.

Such truth and wisdom in that.

2. What challenges got in your way?

Were there challenges that got in your way in 2024?

Challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.

What can you do to eliminate these challenges?

If you can’t eliminate the challenges, how can you think about them differently?

We all have compete control over our thoughts and just reframing things in our mind can turn challenges into opportunities for success.

3. What didn’t bring you joy and happiness in 2024?

Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand – no human life is devoid of unhappiness.

Acceptance of this goes a long way to find out what exactly makes us unhappy.

When were you at your unhappiest in 2024?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you?

Knowing what makes us unhappy allows us to think deeper about the role certain people, situations, interactions and places play in our levels of happiness.

What did you do to understand and alleviate your unhappiness?

4. Where would you have liked to have spent more time in 2024?

As mentioned above, we all know time is precious – we all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year but nobody knows how many years we have.

Where would you have liked to have spent more time in 2024?

Think about all of the key areas of your life from your Wheel of Life – did you spend too much time in some areas and not enough in others?

What areas would you have liked to have spent more time in?

How balanced is your life in terms of where you spend your time?

That’s Step 2 of your Annual Review done!

Step 3 is reflection on learnings in all areas of your life in 2024

The only way we grow and evolve as humans is by learning more and by turning these learnings into action that propels us forward.

Work through the categories of your life in your Wheel of life and ask yourself the following questions,

Sense of Self – what did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Did you dedicate enough time to personal development?

Relationships – what did you learn about your relationship with yourself? Has your relationship with yourself improved? What did you learn about your relationship with others? Has your relationship with others improved?

Health – what did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health? Did your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health improve or decline?

Work – what did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Does your work improve your life? Does your work disimprove your life?

Finance – what did you learn about finance? Did your financial situation improve? Did your financial situation disimprove?

Social Life/Recreation – what did you learn about socialising and recreation? Did you have enough fun & recreation?

Environment – what did you learn about your environment ? Did your environment improve or disimprove? For me, environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.

Contribution – what did you learn about contribution? Did you give more to the world in terms of your time, money or skills? Did you make the world a better place by giving more? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.

That’s your Annual Review done!

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the year gone by and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the year ahead.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x

If you want to carry out your own annual review, download your Annual Review Workbook below 😊

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5 Reasons to Prioritise Your 12 Week Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

When you start doing 12 week reviews you start to realise just how fast 3 months go by.

The end of each quarter is a super time to look back and reflect on how things went in the past quarter and plan for the quarter ahead.

Having a personal strategy is all about creating an amazing, fulfilled, purposeful and meaningful life. Your personal strategy is only as good as the reviews you do and the changes you make as a result of these reviews.

When personal strategy and the goals you have set, the quarterly review can be the most important. It certainly is my favourite review because it’s a deep dive into progress of goals and there is way more progress quarterly than can be seen daily, weekly and monthly which is always motivating.

As humans we are wired to perform better when we are making progress which is why reflection & reviews are so important. You may not think you are making progress in your life & work but you are probably making way more progress than you think!

On reflection, this will become very clear!

BUT FIRST – WHY!

WHY should you carry out a 12 Week Review?

Simon Sinek is famous for his brilliant TED Talk ‘How great leaders inspire action’ with over 13 million views on YouTube. In this video, Simon talks about the importance of knowing your ‘WHY’ in terms of everything you do.

When it comes to everything in your life, your WHY is the first step to success!

Here are 5 reasons WHY I think your 12 Week Review deserves to be your priority,

1. It slows you down and gives you time & space to think

We live in an extremely fast paced world and we seem to be so busy all the time.

Reflection of any kind allows us to stop moving forward, to be still in the present moment and to give the necessary time and space required to learn from the past.

Not to dwell on or judge the past, but to take the learnings from it to move forward with more knowledge, focus, intention, purpose, motivation & understanding of what our priorities are.

When was the last time you took a few hours to look back and reflect on your life & work?

Do you give yourself the gift of sufficient time & space to reflect regularly and learn from reflection?

2. It allows you to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate your successes

Do you celebrate all your wins & successes or do you move through life at the speed of light, not acknowledging, appreciating and celebrating your success?

We make progress in our lives & work all day EVERY SINGLE DAY yet we are sometimes so busy & focused on getting things done that we don’t see all of these wins and successes.

Carrying out your 12 Week Review gives you the time and space to acknowledge, appreciate and celebrate the progress you have made in the past 12 weeks.

This in turn will get you thinking about all of the amazing wins and successes you have EVERY SINGLE DAY of which we all have so many.

3. It allows you to understand what contributes to your success and take action to create more

There are many reasons why we are successful at some things and not so successful at others.

Have you ever sat down and reflected on your successes and really thought about how they happened.

Was it something you did?

Was it something you got support with?

Was it something that happened quickly or something that took a long time?

Was it a bit of pot luck or did you plan meticulously for it?

When we understand what contributes to our success, we can replicate & build on this to bring us more success.

Success has a different meaning for everyone as we all live different lives, are at different stages and have different priorities.

Reflecting on success supports you to learn more about exactly what success means to you so you can create an action plan that will build on the success you already enjoy!

4. It allows you to acknowledge challenges that got in the way of your success

Things don’t always work out how we plan or how we want them to.

Even the best plans don’t work out, this is a normal part of life and work.

Acknowledging your challenges/obstacles is the first step to learning about them and overcoming them.

This in turn ensures you don’t come up against them again and if you do, you are better prepared.

Sometimes we don’t want to face our challenges/obstacles let alone reflect on and review them, however it is from our challenges/obstacles that we can learn so much and grow and evolve as human beings!

5. It allows you to understand what contributed to these challenges and turn these into successes

Challenges and obstacles are a normal part of life and work, it is how we deal with them that determines our ability to overcome them.

Understanding what caused the challenges and obstacles goes a long way to dealing with and overcoming them in a healthy way.

Challenges/obstacles are a constant companion on the road to your goals and are your stepping stones to success. Llearning from them makes stepping over those stones that bit easier!

Taking action from what you learn will turn challenges/obstacles into opportunities!

What can you learn from the challenges you experienced over the past 12 weeks?

What action can you take to turn your challenges into successes?

That’s it, the 5 Reasons to Prioritise Your 12 Week Review.

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the past 12 weeks and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 12 weeks 😊

Do you want to bring more positive & effective change into your life?

Linked below are 26 ways you can start creating (and embracing) positive & effective change in your life and business today 😊

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x

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Meeting Art and Understanding Lean

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Oprah calls it an ‘Aha’ moment – the moment when something falls into place, when the penny drops, when a lightbulb goes off in your brain and you understand something with an immense clarity that you previously didn’t have.

I experienced this ‘Aha’ moment over 6 years ago when Art Byrne delivered his keynote speech at the 2013 Lean Enterprise Academy Summit. As well as a great guy, Art is a powerhouse of Lean knowledge having lived Lean with it’s highs and lows for many decades. I have read Art’s wonderful book ‘The Lean Turnaround’ many times and knew I was in for something special as Art took to the stage.

My ‘Aha’ moment came in as short a time as 4 minutes into Art’s talk. I had always known that Lean enabled a better, more efficient, more inclusive way of working however after listening to and understanding Art’s simple explanation of Lean, the power of this methodology was finally clear to me. Key elements from these short 4 minutes of Art’s talk that helped me understand the power of Lean are as follows

Lean is not a bunch of tools
Lean is not a collection of projects or belts (Art in his fabulous honesty makes it clear that in running a business you are not running a karate class!!!)
Lean is ‘the biggest strategic business weapon you can ever have’ – a business being ‘a collection of people and processes trying to deliver value to a set of customers and always the best team wins’.
Lean is a growth strategy not a cost cutting strategy.

Art continued by explaining the key elements required to be successful at Lean which are having Lean and Operational Excellence are your core strategy, that Lean is led from the top and that people are transformed. Without these elements, Art explains very honestly, failure will be the outcome!

As Art spoke about transforming people, he explained that people are the only asset you have that appreciates and you want them to keep appreciating, that you also need to respect your people because the best improvement ideas come from the people doing the work. To do this you need to create a learning environment where people are learning every day and are excited to come to work. This then becomes your culture, the way things are done around here – this is Lean.

Art summed up all of the above by simply saying – Lean is a people thing!

[tweetthis]’Lean is a people thing’ Art Byrne[/tweetthis]

I met Art at one of the break out sessions. He was gracious, humble and generous with his time. I spoke with him around challenges I was having in implementing Lean in my role as I did not have the influence of a CEO for Lean to ‘come from the top’. He smiled and gave me some of the best advice I have ever received. He said ‘be the CEO in your area’, excellent advice for anyone trying to make things better when it’s not coming from the top!

Art signed my copy of his book ‘The Lean Turnaround’ by using a popular phrase synonymous with Guinness – it was Art’s way of saying how much he loved Ireland and how much he respects Kaizen. And yes, I totally agree with him, Kaizen is good for you!!!!

I left the 2103 Lean Enterprise Academy Summit energetic, enthused and looking forward to the next steps on my Lean journey.

Over 6 years later my Lean journey continues to experience highs and lows, I’m happy to say more highs than lows these days and always, always learning lessons which is at the core of what Lean is about – continuous learning!

Thanks for reading,

Keeping it Simple,

Siobhain

x x x

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