ith the start of the New Year, many people are looking ahead to the months (and years) to come and setting goals. But before you can really look forward, it’s important to look back. As you set goals, reflecting on the past quarter, year, five years, or decade, can prove immensely beneficial as you decide what’s next. We don’t always like to sit down and reflect on the past. Many people, especially in the entrepreneurial space, have a forward-thinking mindset. They’re always looking ahead and pushing toward the future. As a result, reflecting on the past can
you embrace those things that didn’t work out and you learn from them, you can move on. And when you move on, you don’t experience that same level of regret, if any regret at all. In reality, we’re well positioned to learn from our past failures and successes. It’s a trait we can use to further our success. When you get down to it, reflection is an important and necessary part of the learning process. It serves as an analysis of where you have been, what you have accomplished, and what you didn’t. As the Harvard Business Review puts it, when you reflect, you give your brain the opportunity to completely process this information. Some of us live such fast-paced lives that we are unable to fully absorb what is really going on around us in any given moment (and if you are able to absorb it all in a fast-paced moment, you certainly have a superpower!). In reflection, you also have the opportunity to interpret events. Everything we accomplish — or don’t accomplish — provides us with information we can use as we plan for the future. After all, if you aren’t learning from your past, you cannot be as successful as you desire in the future.
be challenging. Often, people avoid reflection because they don’t want to reflect on things that didn’t work out — in other words, they want to avoid the feeling of regret. Reflection isn’t about focusing solely on failures; it’s about embracing them and moving on. When
The Importance of Reflecting ON THE PAST YEAR Prior Experience Informs Future Goals
Unlike many members of his family, Yasyf Mohamedali didn’t go to medical school. Even as a teenager, he was far more interested in technology and entrepreneurship. In fact, he launched his first business while in high school, reselling domain names for websites. While attending MIT, Mohamedali found a way to leave his mark on the medical field too. It all started with Joe Kahn, a Harvard student from South Africa, who suffered from an undiagnosed medical condition. This unnamed illness caused the young student to have bouts of high fever, diarrhea, and vomiting. Worse still, Kahn was unable to get clear answers from doctors and was often sent from one specialist to the next without so much as a follow-up appointment. Kahn’s struggles navigating the health care system, despite having access to some of the best medical facilities in the United States, made Mohamedali realize just how unique his own access to care had been. Growing up as the son of two physicians in rural Canada, Mohamedali never struggled to get medical advice at a moment’s notice. “Whenever I got sick, I just called a doctor in my family,” he explained in a 2018 interview with the MIT Alumni Association. “I want people like Joe to have that kind of relationship with their care.”
their patients, track their progress, and coordinate treatment with other care providers. Leveraging his experience in the tech field, Mohamedali designed Karuna to integrate digital medical records with patient-preferred means of communication, from SMS to WhatsApp — all without breaching the strict HIPAA privacy regulations. This way, users can make appointments, send automatic reminders for medication refills, and hear from patients at a moment’s notice. Karuna, which means “compassion” in Sanskrit, is poised to bring doctors and patients closer together and keep people from slipping through the cracks in the health care industry. According to Inc.com, the startup has already raised $1.3 million from investors. It looks like Mohamedali is well on his way to making health care more accessible for all.
So, the two university students founded Karuna Health. This online platform helps doctors keep in contact with
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