12 months – a lifetime or no time at all..?

September 28, 2012 Written by Nikki Peters

By Laura Oliphant

Yesterday I sent my 10Q questions to the vault for another year.  Anyone who hasn’t come across this idea should really take a look.  It was developed for Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah and the idea is that over 10 days you answer a series of questions about your reflections on the past year, and your goals and predictions for the future – on a world and personal level.  You can focus on what you’d like to change, what you would like to do more of, or just an experience that got you thinking.  Once you’ve answered your questions you send them to a secret online vault and a year later – ta- da, they come back to you.

I was introduced to 10Qs three or four years ago by an ex colleague (twitter Adam Clyne) and each time I am sent the previous year’s answers I am surprised.  Firstly because I’d forgotten all about them and definitely what I thought a year ago, but also because it seems life can change so little but yet so much in 12 months.

On one level, life is just the same.  I (and probably many others) promise to make more time for me, not to shout at your children’s delay tactics for going to bed and do something exciting every week (that was definitely going to fail).  Give or take a bit of tweaking, I’m saying pretty much the same this year.  But then on another level, life can change significantly.  It can ‘turn on a penny’ as the saying goes.

In terms of what has changed for me in 12 months, and I guess the reason I am writing this blog, is Stand Agency.  12 months ago, I had taken another role and had stopped thinking about whether I should start my own business.  Then ‘life turned on a penny’ and in May this year, Stand Agency was born.  I couldn’t be happier but I definitely didn’t plan it.  I guess that says to me that opportunities arise and the skill is in spotting, and making the most of them.

The changes in the last 12 months definitely encouraged me to more ambitious with my predictions and goals I sent to the 10Q vault.  I set myself some serious challenges because you can achieve an awful lot, even if you’ve not been planning it for months.

10Q is an opportunity to Reflect. React. Renew.  But maybe that is something we should do throughout the course of everyday life, not just when we get our responses back from the vault?