The past couple of days here at Hanifl have been filled with many activities, laughter, learning, and fun, but there have also been many challenges. One especially challenging for myself, the solo reflection time. During the last couple of days we have had two opportunities to go off on our own for a short period of time to reflect. We sit with ourselves, often in the outdoor setting, that is some where of our choosing and can journal or just think to ourselves about whatever we have done that day or a certain concept we choose to reflect on. Back home, this is an unusual concept to me. I am an achiever and constantly surround myself with things to do, tasks to accomplish, or just activities to keep me busy. I don’t usually have time to just sit with my brain, so the solo reflection was challenging for me. It forced me to take a deep dive with my thoughts, centering in on why I do things the way I do or how I see myself. Sometimes these thoughts aren’t always the easiest things to think about, but that is what reflection is all about. Being mindful and aware of things that you may not always notice in your daily life.
This past Thursday, the solo reflection was centered around our own personal goals and expectations of our experience on this trip. Keeping in mind the leadership aspect of the trip as well as just growth in general, I sat and thought of some things that I wanted to get out of this experience. It took me quite some time to think about this but something that kept running through my mind was who am I really? What is my purpose and what impact can I make? Trying to figure out who you are consists of a lifetime of experiences and reflection. I thought more about it and decided I could create some of my goals around figuring out some of the pieces and taking steps towards growing and developing in my own way. My first concrete goal that I wrote down in my journal was to start asking for feedback. How do others observe me? And how can I take these observations and the feedback and grow and learn from them so I can become a better me. How I perceive myself is so different that how others perceive me and getting a closer glimpse at these different angles is a great way to learn more about myself. I also was thinking back to when we first discussed strength based leadership and how when I found out about some of my top strengths through an assessment, I was like “wow” this is crazy how accurate these are. One of my goals for this experience, is to work on developing and improving on the things I am already strong in. Especially my strategic strength. Being surrounded with so many different people and perspectives allowed me to think about how observation and just taking a step back sometimes to see how other people approach or solve problems can be an amazing way to work on improving my strategic strength.
During our time at Hanifl so far we have also played many leadership games. Some of them were a little bit easier, while others were very challenging. Coming into this program, I think I had a certain view of leadership especially through studying several leadership theories prior to our departure, but as we played these games and worked as a group I noticed a few things. One of the leadership games we played involved our group being split into two. We had two ropes which were each knotted to create a loop. The two groups were then each given a looped rope and blindfolds which each participant placed over their heads. The groups were told to try and create a right angle triangle with their own ropes which proved extremely difficult to do. Eventually the groups were instructed to combine their attempt at triangles to create one large rectangle. This created an even larger challenge. During the attempt I tried to voice my opinion and chime in ideas that may help the group. Following the activity, I realized something, that I also noticed in a previous activity as well. There were certain members of the group, and including myself in the precious activity that just took a step back for a second. To think and to listen to the group and eventually maybe try to voice their idea (which was well formulated after pausing for some time). This gave me a completely new perspective on leadership. Sometimes being a leader requires you to actually step back, wait, and observe before you can help the group, which in turn may lead to a fantastic outcome, one much more effective than if they took the lead immediately.
The past several days in Mussoorie have taught me a lot and I have experienced many emotions but the one thing that has really influenced me the most and taught me more about myself was the solo.
