The end of the year is the ideal opportunity to reflect on all that happened this year and prepare for the year to come. Self-reflection is vital if you want to grow and live a purpose driven life.
Some years are great and the year-end reflection is a time to ponder over all the beautiful memories and find ways to expand on them. Other years seem to come with challenge after challenge.
The purpose of a personal and professional year-end review is to reflect on the past year, to learn whatever lessons you can, and move forward successfully into the new year.
Just as it is good practise to review each day, week, and month, at the end of each year you may wish set aside some time to mindfully review the year and reflect on it.
Reflecting on your year, even the bad ones, is a way to take inventory of all that happened. It allows you to see the areas of your life that are strong, and which ones you’d like to improve. This can inform you what you should focus on for the coming year.
It’s an opportunity to look at the goals you set for yourself this year. Did you reach them? If not, this is the perfect opportunity to re-evaluate. Is this goal still important? If it is, consider what stood between you and your goal, and ask yourself what you could do differently.
If you did reach your goals, take this time to celebrate and be proud of yourself for what you’ve accomplished. Look inside - how does it make you feel?
Some of the questions you may wish to ask yourself include
- What are the best things that happened this year?
- What challenges did I face and how did I handle them?
- What did I accomplish this year?
- In what ways have I grown since last year?
- Are there one or more areas of my life that I’m happy with?
- What are my spoken or unspoken stories, and how may I change them going forward?
Consider ways to improve
- Did you meet your goals this year? If not, what went wrong? How far did you get?
- What did you complain about the most? Is this something you can change?
- Is there anything you wish you would have done differently?
- How can you seek out more moments of lightness and pleasure in your life?
- Are there one or more areas of your life that you wish were better at? How could you improve them? One way of thinking about success or accomplishment is to develop the capacity to take new and different actions.
Next year’s focus
- What would you like your life to look like one year from now?
- What is the biggest change you would like to see happen next year?
- What areas of your life would you like to focus on next year?
If you need some support with deep reflection, or achieving your plans and vision, consider enrolling for a few coaching sessions. Coaching can support you in exploring more effective, thoughtful, and sustainable behaviour, leading you to success and improved sense of wellbeing.
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