There’s a technique in agile software development called “Start, Stop, Continue”. It’s used in retrospective meetings that are held after a development iteration (Sprint).
There’s a lot to learn from it, for our daily life. Every human needs a “retrospective” every once in a while.
During the retrospective, one is forced to reflect on what happened in the “iteration” and identify actions for improvement going forward.
Start, Stop, Continue is an action-oriented technique. It makes you focus on creating a list of concrete actions by looking back at the last sprint (stop & continue) while also looking forward to the next sprint (start doing).
Learning from agile development, we need to run periodic retrospectives of ourselves and our lives, do a cleanup, reorganize and optimize. We need to look back, reassess our life and make decisions to:
Stop – what makes us unhappy and adds stress (commitments, routines, jobs, relationships);
Continue – what is truly important, what strengthens our integrity, what makes us better humans;
Start – new things that make us happier, more complete, that help us move forward and progress.
Some people implement this with the help of New Year’s resolutions. My Sprints, however, always tend to start and end in summer, which probably takes its roots from the school year pattern, which dictated the date my new life started (May 28, 2004 at Tom Bradley International Terminal) and set the tone for all future “sprints”.
People who travel a lot have an advantage of more frequent retrospectives. But most get buried in their daily routines, get stuck in commitments and responsibilities that are no longer enjoyable, adopting themselves to their lifestyle instead of trying to adopt and reorganize their lives. Reason being: as humans, we’re afraid of change, of the unknown. We’re also afraid of being judged.
In reality, however, most changes happen for the best and make us better and stronger.
Don’t be afraid of changes.
Judgement is bullshit.
Progress is life.