How to Do a Personal Year-End Review | My Full Process Step-By-Step
This year, I discovered a love for personal reflection. I’ve always been reflective, writing Instagram captions that regularly hit the word limit, but last year I took time every Sunday to reflect on how my week went.
Most people set new years resolutions without ever looking back. The resolutions end up being created from a place of disappointment, almost like a punishment for what went wrong. This kind of negative motivation is draining and it’s no wonder that people quit before the year is up.
But there is great value in actually setting up rules and systems for yourself to follow in the coming year! I learned this from my tomato plants:
There is power in setting up a grid. Like the tomato plants I planted in the garden, the ones with a wireframe casing grew taller because they were more supported.
Here is my personal process for reflecting on the year and setting clear, soul-anchored goals for the next year. This is adapted from a process that I learned from Peta Kelly. I’ve added in things that work for me, and I encourage you to work through all the steps, and then adapt as needed for you!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Time: This process will take you about an hour. I like to give myself two to three hours to savour each step since I consider it a self-care/soul-care practice.
Energy: If you are feeling really tired from Christmas parties and the year-end hustle, I recommend giving yourself a few days of rest before you do this year-end review. It’s better to come to this with a full tank so that you are sure that you’re setting aligned goals.
Journal or a digital note app: You’ll need somewhere to track your answers. It’s fine to do this in a paper journal. I prefer to start in my journal. I’m less prone to distraction. Later, you can transfer your goals to a digital version so that you can track it through the year.
Solitude: Ideally, you' would do this when you know that you can be alone for a time. It’s a sacred practice, and it helps you to tune in when you’re not being constantly interrupted.
Step 1: Write down what you think your goals are
Start with your gut instinct This is clears the space for you to come up with new, more aligned goals, or realize that your gut was right. At the end of this process, my goals may be the same, or I might realize that there are other things even more important to me. This is a way to create white space in your mind so that you can put these thoughts on hold. Let’s see if something new bubbles up in through this process that you hadn’t thought of yet.
Step 2: Mine The Gold From The Year
There is gold that happened this year! Let’s dig it up and collect it so that we can see just how abundant and blessed we are. This is a sacred opportunity to reflect on went well this year.
What were the good things you planned for that happened?
What were the good things you didn’t plan for that happened?
What is the gold from the year? List everything positive or meaningful that happens to you.
This includes little things that bring you joy, like when you brought pastries to the office, the time you spoke up for yourself and the ways you took care of yourself or others.
Step 3: Consider What You’d Like To Change For Next Year
What would you like to do more of this year? Where do you want to feel more freedom and purpose in your life?
What would you like to do less of? Where do you want to feel more freedom and purpose in your life?
Take time to answer these questions in depth. Consider all areas of your life, including social, family, work, physical health, mental health, finances and your spiritual life.
Step 3: Rank your Desired Changes
It’s overwhelming when we try to change everything at once. But we can change our lives, one habit at a time. Out of everything that you discovered in Step 3, put them in order from most important to least important, so that you know exactly what you’d like to change first.
(This is where doing this reflection on an electronic device is helpful. You can simple drag and drop the items. If you did this on paper, just circle the items that stand out - and write out a new list. The process of simply rewriting the desired changes will help you to feel what’s most important.)
Step 4: Tune into higher wisdom
I also like to call this process, ask God. Check-in with your gut, your soul, your intuition. Ask yourself, is this what I want to be focussing on this year? Ask Spirit, is this what I’m supposed to be focusing on this year?
You will feel a divine nod of approval, a sense of spiritual reassurance if this is so.
By November, I had already start received hunches for what I want to focus on and change in the coming year. This is without any particular deliberate reflection. I take it that these are messages from a higher wisdom that knows what I’m here on earth to do and is helping one. It’s as though we each have a divine map for living our our destiny and this is an opportunity to check in with it.
A more analytical approach to this step is to ask yourself, on December 31, 2020, will I feel successful about accomplishing these things?
If you don’t feel settled about the way you selected your top 3 Desired Changes, go back and re-rank your list until you are feel complete.
Personally, there are several new practices I want to install in my life, so I prefer to have three clear yearly goals, that I will work towards at different times or in different ways.
I set a personal goal, a professional/creative goal and a spiritual/philosophical goal. I’ve already told my work that I am changing my work remotely day.
Step 5: Decide what you will not do or stop doing
Every yes means we say no to something. Based on what you discovered in Step 2, decide on what you will stop doing or do less of. By consciously deciding to say no, you create mental and physical space for your new changes to flourish. There is no shame in saying no. Sometimes a particular project, hobby or habit has run its course. Appreciate and acknowledge that it has contributed to your life and for the year ahead, it is no longer needed.
What will I not do this year? Write it down and declare it.
Step 6: Break down your Desired Changes into smaller goals.
In 2019, I experienced the power of celebrating progress and giving myself regular rewards. Ever since we were children, we are wired to behave in certain ways to earn a reward or avoid pain.
Setting a goal to go to the gym three times per week is not intrinsically motivating. Or for me, setting a goal to publish two videos per week sounds like a lot of work. How can I break it down and make it exciting for me to me maintain?
Based on experience, I know that:
I want to celebrate my creative progress every week!
I need to schedule weeks off. Maybe I’ll take the last week of every month off as a creative reset.
How will you reward yourself? How will you celebrate your progress?
This year, I’m considering even buying gold stars from the dollar star so that I can visually track one of my goals on my calendar. It sounds childish, but I’ve heard that it works! The simplicity and childishness is part of what makes it fun!
I also like to set upper limit goals. It’s possible that publishing two videos per week could become easy. What would it be like to publish three videos per week? What kinds of creative systems and habits need to be in my life for this to happen? I enjoy pushing my limits, so being aware of an upper limit goal gives me something to work towards. It also makes my current goal sound much easier.
Break down your new direction into bite sized steps that you can implement and install into your life. Make a huge list of things I could do to support this larger goal.
Step 7: Put it in your calendar!
This is when it all becomes part of your life! :)
We make goals so that we can live differently. Block time in your calendar when you will commit to your new goal. Even if its only 10 minutes, put it in your calendar. You can even use the custom settings in your calendar to set your goal to repeat daily, weekly or on specific days of the week. Do not skip this step, thinking that you’ll do it later! Put it in your calendar now. You don’t have to schedule out your entire January, (though you are welcome to do that too!) just put some placeholders in your calendar that you you remember to make this goal real.
Step 8: Start priming your life to make implementing these changes easier.
Get a new gym bag, if it will make you more excited to go to the gym. For me, it’s cleaning up my hard drive, finishing up any last videos from 2019 and polishing up my remaining 2019 blogs so that they can be published so that I can start 2020 with a new creative slate. This process also creates anticipation and studies have shown can make us even happier than the big event itself.
Start telling the people who need to know that you are making these changes in your life. Especially if they are close to you, they can help cheer you on and celebrate progress. (In some cases, you don’t want to tell anyone as it could be a distraction. Wait until you have anchored the change in your life first, so that you aren’t affected by other’s doubt.)
There it is! My full process for setting soul-aligned year-end goals and celebrating your wins from the year! Feel free to save this post and revisit every year.
Enjoy and happy reflecting!
