I’ve always admired people with a daily journaling practice. It takes real dedication, some imagination and this openness to allow whatever will arise to arise. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to pick it up…again and again.

And there are real benefits to journaling. Building self-awareness. Processing your thoughts. Reflection is also directly linked to adult learning. As adults…we can’t learn without it! Even with all of these benefits, I still can’t sustain the habit in any meaningful way.

So a few years ago, I started experimenting with something else. A more targeted reflection, at specific points in time, about specific things. It actually started as an experiment with my clients, using three questions from the Scrum Retrospective model, a framework normally used in software teams to reflect on a work sprint:

My clients told me how much value they got from those weekly reflections and since then, it's evolved into something much bigger. I now run this same reflection weekly, monthly, and quarterly, and use it to check in against my actual goals, not just my week.

But these three questions are still where I'd tell anyone to start.

Here's why they work. Starting with what went well matters more than it sounds like it should. It's so easy to let the hard stuff outweigh everything else in your memory, even when a lot of good actually happened that week. You just forgot about it. It was a blink and you moved on. So it forces you to think about it and remember. “Oh yeah and this happened…and this!”

Then you sit with what didn't go so well. Not to fix it right away. Just to actually be with it for a minute instead of rushing past. It’s about being honest with yourself. Allowing you to see reality. See your real, raw human bits.

And then the one thing you'd do differently next week. Not ten things. One. That's the part that turns reflection into action.

For anyone leading a team, running a business, or building something of your own, that kind of intentionality isn’t optional. You need a way to actually take stock of what's happening and what isn't. And to make small changes over time. Those small changes add up to big change over time.

Try the five minute weekly reflection this week.
Three questions, one sitting. What went well, what didn't, and one thing you'd do differently next week to bullet points.

Want to challenge yourself?
Keep it going for the whole month of July and watch for the patterns. Share how it’s going for you in the comments, I’d love to hear it.

If you’re reading this via email, just click “Read Online” in the top right corner to view (and comment on) the web version.

Quick question before I go: what's something you'd like to experiment with? I'm personalizing things a bit around here and your answer will actually shape what lands in your inbox.

With love and gratitude,
Jenn

P.S. This weekly reflection practice was the catalyst for me to build The Growth Space App, so we can leverage technology and AI to help us be consistent and track the data too. It’s currently in a closed development phase for 2026 while we build it and figure out how it will be used.