Because my birthday is in December, my friend Karen Hirschfeld never forgets to send me her sentence completion exercises to help recap the old year and get ready for the new one. This year, thanks to the power of social media, I can share this great year-end tool with all my cherished readers.
WHAT are Sentence Completions and HOW do they work?
Most sentence completion stems begin with ‘One of…' to encourage open thinking and to separate each response. Users are encouraged to provide 4 to 6 different endings to these “sentence stems”.
WHY does the sentence completion approach work?
1. Most of us know a great deal more than we think we do. In identifying our thoughts and feelings we typically can consider many more options.
2. They help us illuminate potential opportunities and pitfalls thereby allowing us to see and act on what we have discovered.
3. They generate spontaneous understanding and integration. Increased awareness tends to help understanding and performance.
4. We tend to grow and prosper when we listen to ourselves and act on what we know. The technique is specifically geared to translating ideas and discoveries into ACTION.
5. No prior training is required to benefit.
How to best work with the results of sentence completion work
1. Print your completions out. Printing your work enables anytime, anywhere notation. Capture further insight and reflection easily or share them (where appropriate) with your team
2. Read your completions. The simple act of reading your completions can be useful. The act itself says, “My thoughts are important. It's a good investment of my time to listen to them.”
3. Note High Impact Completions. Note which completions seem to resonate most deeply with you with a simple mark like an asterisk or a bullet.
Note: These are all ‘I' questions – for those of you with direct reports, naturally you may want to do the same exercise substituting ‘I' for ‘we.' And remember: There is no need to do this all in one go – you will no doubt have several responses to each question. I suggest you do the exercise, put it aside, and return to it (possibly several times).
2009 Completions
- One of the good things that happened in 2009 was…
- One of the things I won't be sorry to say goodbye to is…
- One of the things I feel I learned in 2009 was…
- One of the blessings of 2009 was…
- One of my accomplishments that I'm proudest of in 2009 is…
- As I say goodbye to 2009, I feel…
2010 Thoughts and Preparation
- One of the things I'm hoping for in 2010…
- 2010 will likely be the year I…
- One of the ways I'll measure success in 2010 is…
- One of the things I wish myself is…
- One of the ways I can support my efforts is by…
- One of the first steps I need to take in the new year is…