In the same way that you can guarantee that @FlipChartRick will tell you that there are bad times ahead, that @SukhPabial will make you feel frivolous and you’ll never get to the end of one of @KateGL’s musings. You can guarantee the next few weeks will be full of blog posts on reflection and review.
And that’s all very well and good.
If you’re only interested in the past. Which I’m not.
There is a truth in the fact that our expectations are based on experience. But our goals should be based on the future, on exceeding and going further, on pushing things harder and achieving bigger and better.
It doesn’t matter which base we are working off, how one person might be further ahead than another. How one organisation might be in a different place to another. That is, in every way, irrelevant.
It doesn’t matter what bigger, or better means to you. Just that you have ambition.
The question is, how could you go further?
HR as a profession is notoriously unambitious, insipid and timid. It has developed an institutional need to seek permission. Often without asking, just waiting.
So my challenge to you is this.
What are you going to do next year to move yourself and your organisation forward? What commitments are you going to make to achieve and deliver more? How can you push the envelope that little bit further to create something that amazes and excites?
Reflect by all means, but remember that you’re only as good as your last performance. You’re judged by recent experience of you. And people are looking for you now and not then.
Because the past is exactly that. It has gone. And it isn’t a place we want to live in.
“Commitment is an act, not a word”
So what’s next?
change-effect 
I’m feeling conflicted when I read this. I agree with the challenges and the future focus,and I know too that we are made of our experiences, our stories, our successes/failures, joys, sadnesses, loves, experiences. They all make us who we are; some of it we are aware of, and some of it operates outside of our conscious awareness. Who knows – you may have learned somewhere along the way “that the past is gone”. Done.
But it never is.
In my experiences I see that much, too much, is demanded from HR people. But it seems hard to push back.
I think a future focus could be to say “no” more, “no more”, – be confident to say stop. And to be clear what the boundaries are, and to value themselves sufficiently to take time out to reflect, plan, think, learn.
Working too to understand how the past is informing and shaping decision making, planning, thinking is useful and legitimate work, that builds resilience and inner strength to be able to take up the full authority of this most influential of roles.
And of course, I am attempting to take my own counsel..