Note: This article is being republished to include some more great ideas from my friends and colleagues. Although it's already a week into the New Year, it is ALWAYS a good time to reflect and never too late.
Corporate Annual Reports; Spotify Wrapped (in the below picture); Year in Reviews at all major news outlets and publications.
What about you - do you do a lookback of the previous year, however formal or informal?
Perhaps we do this because:
We can reflect on lessons learned and gain insight into ourselves.
We can celebrate successes of the year.
We can better consolidate our memory of that year (and hopefully emphasize all the great things that happened).
And I’m here for it! Yvonne Woon also said, "Sometimes, you have to look back in order to understand the things that lie ahead." Hopefully, you lived your life the best you knew how to - so in that case, a good reflection will leave you proud, optimistic, and, at its best, inspired for another year ahead. By the way - I’ll write a follow-up post about thinking ahead (not New Year’s Resolutions!).
Some suggestions for reflections
From my Colleagues:
Paige Pulford, Citigroup HR
"I'm a total sucker for getting reflective at the end of the year. Gratitude journal prompts? Count me in. Jotting down failures and lessons learned? Check and check. Thinking that owning the perfect planner was the *only* thing between me and fixing my bad habits? Guilty.
But last year I tried something for the first time: a year-in-review video. I wasn't on social media at the time and hadn't planned to make a video until about mid-November, so the video was simply going to be an accumulation of moments I naturally wanted to capture throughout the year.
I made it for no one other than myself. I didn't design it to be shared, I designed it to be resonant. It wasn't an even time split across each month or event; I just included whatever I wanted for however much time it took up.
The finished product left me with a guttural gratitude. It was an appreciation that wasn't conjured or contrived but deeply held for the people and experiences that meant the most to me that year.
It's hard to put into words what I felt, but celebrating all that the year brought us something I plan to do for many years to come."
Ideas from a Friend and Colleague from Google, User Experience
I was lucky enough to see this friend in Puerto Vallarta, and as we sat around the dinner table with a few other friends, we answered one question I loved: "What are you letting go of from last year?"
My friend mentioned this tradition every year was shared with his Grandmother, which I thought was beautiful in the sense that you get to share reflection and wisdom across generations.
Some of our responses were about letting go of expectations of ourselves (of who we should be, or of what we should be achieving), letting go of goals that are no longer important or letting go of ways of thinking that no longer served us. We also discussed how sometimes we need to think about our lives in longer stretches of time, like 3-5 years, in which we will experience failure/hardship/stagnation at some points, while at others the euphoria of accomplishment/change/special moments. Our lives inevitably ebb and flow.
The exercise ultimately allows you to start from a (more) blank canvas than if you hadn't mentally "pruned" or "purged" baggage from the last year.
From Me
Part 1 - Progress and Studying Success
Reflection should start with understanding the goals or priorities you set for yourself at the beginning of the year. Many of us (historically myself too!) don’t take the step to formalize our goals anywhere, because we often don’t have a system of tracking these things. This in itself is an important reflection - in what ways are you limited by not having been clear about your goals?
If You Do Have Goals:
Be honest about the extent to which you met each goal
Celebrate any progress you made on your priorities or goals - progress is progress!
I can’t help but include this segment from Rita Pierson’s TED Talk at 4:20 (watch it!). She ends by saying about a student who failed a quiz: “You see, ‘-18’ [out of 20] sucks all the life out of you. ‘+2’ says, ‘I ain't all bad.’”
Analyze what led to those results - what was your winning formula? Spend more time on your victories than your setbacks. It’s more efficient and effective to emphasize what to continue doing and understand your strengths that make you successful.
For any goals you still haven’t achieved, decide if you still want to pursue them. There is no shame in stopping a goal that no longer serves you (in fact, that’s better!).
If You Don’t Have Goals:
What did you accomplish this year? What are you proud of?
Similar to the above, analyze what led to your successes, and discover your “winning formula”.
Part 2 - Highlights of the Year
Highlights can be special moments, accomplishments, new friends, etc. - I like to define each year of my life so it’s more memorable. For example in my life, 2022 is the Year of Asia and Career Change (Part 2). A particularly special moment for me this year was announcing my new business and blog :D
To add to this, think about what you’re grateful for this year - personally, in the community or the world. Hopefully, you end up seeing all that is going well in your life. (more on gratitude in my prior blog post).
Below was the highlight of the year - a wedding and post-wedding celebration in the Philippines, which I was lucky to see so many amazing colleagues from Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand.
Part 3 - Growth and Learning
Jiddu Krishnamurti, a famous Indian philosopher, once said, “There is no end to education…The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” Malala Yousafzai said “Education is education. We should learn everything and then choose which path to follow. Education is…human.”
We’d all agree that lifelong learning is important. But I’d argue that sometimes we make the same mistakes, we forget what we learned, or perhaps we didn’t know how to apply something from our past to the future. The more we catalog our learning and make connections in our brains, the better we will continue to expand what we know. There is research that shows writing particularly, is better for processing and memory.
I’ll suggest 3 categories to think about. What did you learn about / where did you grow in terms of your:
Life?
Yourself?
Your Relationships?
For example, here are 3 reflections I’ve had this year (picture below me "reflecting" haha):
1. Life: 2022 has been a year of process. When I felt stagnant and stuck in my former job, I
focused on building better habits. Now that I’m building a business, I’m more focused on growing my identity as a coach and business owner than results (views, comments, etc.). By emphasizing process, I’ve both removed the stress of meeting arbitrary goals and also gotten better at avoiding comparisons to my peers and family, who have different goals and are in different places in their lives.
2. Myself: I’ve learned that contrary to my long-held assumptions, I actually enjoy putting myself out there, such as this whole process of publishing a website, writing, sharing my ambitions. I love creating things (my friends will know I also love to write parody songs, stupid friend poems, and choreograph dances). I know what is authentic to me, and I want to share that with the world, unattached to the outcome. And yes, I do want and I will absolutely take your money for my work, thank you :)
3. My Relationships: I’ve learned that it’s important to discuss openly with my friends about how our relationships are going. It can be pretty uncomfortable, but getting through awkwardness of sharing feedback or sharing difficult moments is incredibly powerful. I had these conversations with multiple people in my life this year and intend on doing this much more in 2023.
Part 4 - Consolidate and Share Your 2022 Conclusions
Hopefully you’ve written this stuff down instead of swirling the thoughts in your head. From personal experience, I tried - it’s never as good as writing it down. See if you can summarize your year in a few sentences - successes, lessons learned, and great moments from 2022.
Then share it! Building shared reflections, shared successes and shared memories only furthers the goal of consolidating the gains of the past year. It’s special when you can say how far you’ve come TOGETHER, and express intent to continue momentum with them.
Wrapping Up
Remember that your annual lookback should leave you proud, optimistic and inspired (acknowledging the privilege of our circumstances that we could feel this way) - if not, consider that you haven't looked hard enough at your successes, strengths, and areas for gratitude.
For anyone who has read this far…I would really love to hear your reflections, commenting on the blog post or even sharing with me personally. I’m hear to listen!
For Learning and With Love,
Chris
PS...and that's a wrap on 2022!
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