A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog post titled, “Wait, what happened last year?! Your Year in Review“ (click to read) about end-of-year reflections - and well, I followed my own directions! This post shares a bit about my experience and some advice for an even better process.
How to set yourself up for a true self-reflection
A true self-reflection on the year requires giving yourself time, space, and the right environment to reflect. Establish a process beforehand that will make sure you ask the right questions and make sure you are clear on what you want to get out of this reflection, to begin with. Schedule the reflection and make sure you put yourself in the right environment, whether that means on your couch with some candles, or at a coffee shop, however you are comfortable thinking. I highly recommend you write your reflection to help with processing, but any way of putting the thinking into physical memory (even digital) will do. Sometimes, you'll need multiple sessions to process the year in pieces or layers.
My little retreat at the Parents' :)
The End-of-Year Reflection Process I recommended in last year's post:
Part 1: Check-in on goals
To what extent did you reach your goals? Celebrating any progress made!
Take note of any goals you want to move forward into the next year
Reflect: What made you successful this year? What was your “winning formula”, meaning what were the ingredients, and how did they combine, into success?
This also means asking: what held you back?
Reflect: What do you want to STOP, START, and CONTINUE as it relates to your goal-setting practices?
Part 2: Highlights of the year
What were trips or experiences that stood out?
What were the nice moments with people you loved?
Anything else that stood out?
Part 3: Growth and Learning
What did you learn about yourself?
About your relationships and people important to you?
About life?
Part 4: Consolidate and Share
Summarize a few main points that you want to take forward into your planning for next year
Find people whom you care about to share with!
Overall, I felt the process to be a pretty good length and asked questions that are important to both celebrate and learn from the past year. I finished the reflection grateful, proud, and inspired for what’s next, with a clear set of principles to live by for next year.
As with any process, it wasn’t perfect, and I made some changes that I felt captured the full extent of what I wanted to accomplish in my end-of-year reflection process.
Some recommended additions/tweaks:
Learnings from Interventions mid-year year (this is easiest if you did some type of mid-year reflection).
What did you, and did you not, implement after your mid-year reflection? Were those interventions successful? Why or why not?
Look for patterns in what you resist. For me, something I resisted and was not able to do effectively was create routines for networking. I still have to spend some time parsing this out and figure out how I will tackle this in 2024.
Do a look back on your lifestyle.
Ask yourself plainly - did you live the life you wanted to? What made you happiest? These are not necessarily trips and experiences - this question refers more to:
Did you have a good work-life balance?
Did you get to see your family and friends? Are these relationships close, fulfilling, and serving you?
Are you living life according to your values?
I specifically scored my life against my 5 values: Love, Beauty, Wonder, Legacy and Vivacity
Do you feel you have time and space to relax, be creative, and be who you want to be?
Note: Be careful not to fall into the trap of getting caught up in asking what is enough; it’s probably more useful to ask yourself: "What can you do to continue to move closer to the life you want?"
Letter to yourself.
I am starting this idea this year. You can write letters any way you want, I am thinking of this letter as a little time capsule:
What happened that year?
What were the main themes of your life and what was important to you?
What message do you want to send your future self, and what do you hope to see by the time you write the letter again the next year?
I am storing my letters in a Google Drive folder so they’re easy to access (I’m not writing them because I’m scared of losing them!) When you look back, 5 years, 10 years, you can get a glimpse of your life and growth over time, and maintain a special relationship with the younger you.
Closing
Just remember that an end-of-year reflection should be designed around what you want to accomplish from it. If you want to feel grateful about your life, focus on your successes and beautiful moments. If you want to learn, ask yourself questions. If you want to help plan, you will want to know where you are starting from, so you know how far you have to go to reach certain goals.
I hope this was helpful, and look out for my blog post next year on setting annual goals (an update!) and longer-term goals! Don't hesitate to reach out with questions.
For Learning and With Love,
Chris
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