Making time to follow the 8 step process to reviewing your year is really important.
Why you might be asking.
How often do you go back and reflect on what happened in your life? Sometimes it can be difficult to think back to a few months let alone at the beginning of the year?
We can get very caught up in worrying about how we appear to others. Then we worry about how others are going to perceive us in the future or if our decisions today are the right ones. With all of these self-conscious thoughts we forget to just step back a bit and really take time to reflect on what actually happened and the memories. Most people are pre-programmed to only remember the negatives in their lives, making it even more important to take time to reflect on the positive, fun, happy and exciting.
How will reviewing your year help you?
I have 10 reasons why you should make time to review your year.
- Understand what has happened during the past twelve months.
- Increase your awareness of your core values.
- Increase your levels of understanding and how your actions affected those around you.
- Celebrate your achievements however small they might be.
- Relive the wonderful events that you had forgotten.
- Reconnect yourself with old memories and the people you were with.
- Learn from the times that either didn’t go according to plan or were a real trial for you.
- Begin putting the more difficult times to bed.
- Help you establish how you want the next year to work for you.
- Start next year with a fresh approach.
With the Christmas celebrations over, this time between Christmas and New year is an ideal time to reflect on your year. You may be someone who is taking this time to relax enjoying a few days to do something different, unwind, and re-energise.
What have you heard people saying about the past year?
Over the last few weeks, you have probably heard something similar to me, people stating exasperatingly, “I’ll be so glad when this year is over. Let’s hope next year is better.” Perhaps they are struggling with a big change in their life and are finding it hard to adjust but it doesn’t mean you should write the year off as a failure.
Whether this resonates with you or not, it’s important to take a 360° look at the past year.
We all know that life doesn’t run smoothly, we all have ups and downs throughout the year. Don’t fall into the trap of being blinkered by only the negative events. They may have been a strong influencer in how you are feeling today but there will have been good times in between. After all, there are 365 days to experience happiness, fun, and great times as well as the embarrassing and the ugly. With this in mind, it can be easy to overlook the small events as insignificant but it’s often the small things that’ll build up and make your bigger picture great. However, this can also work the other way around. If you are in a negative frame of mind, it can be difficult to see the positive leading onto all the small negative experiences building up into one big bundle of emotions.
How to get started on reviewing your year.
- Trying to remember what happened at the beginning of the year can be difficult, that’s why I suggest beginning today and working backwards, looking at all areas of your life.
- Use your diary to jog your memory.
- If you take a lot of photo’s refer back to them.
- Make a list of headings to help you. Here are my suggestions;
- Happy and Fun
- New and Exciting
- Achievements
- Your Learnings
- Keeping it positive means, you are more likely to end the year on a positive note.
- Learn from the embarrassing and ugly times is vital in moving forwards, away from the negative. I’m not asking you to ignore the difficult times. They happened, they were a part of your life, and will have affected you in some way. Instead, use ‘Your Learnings’ to reflect on what you learnt from those times. Reflecting like this will support your personal growth and help you move on from them.
- Take time over this, it’s not an exercise to be rushed.
- Keep this somewhere safe to refer to when establishing the next part of reviewing your year.
Most importantly, enjoy the memories, celebrate the good times and always learn from the hard times. Give in to the embarrassing and ugly times and let them go. Allowing yourself to stay in victim mode isn’t going to help you achieve everything you dream of next year.
This process will strengthen your purpose in life, give you more focus and help you plan how you want your life to progress.
Get the New Year off to a fresh start.
Follow this 8 step process and start discovering how you want next year to work for you.
