Hiya Gorgeous!
I can’t believe 2023 is right around the corner! To be honest, I’m really excited about it. Right about now I start itching to play with my colorful BIC Gel-ocity pens (the best tools for my imagination) and get to work on my best year ever using by using my end of year reflection to guide me.
Yep, you guessed it, I’ve been a consistent and prolific journaler since I was a teenager. Mostly because it helps me get my ideas (and chaos) out, but also because journaling helps me understand myself more.
End of year journaling is as important as a national holiday to me. I’m like a kid in art class, super excited to crack out a special new year journal and draw my dreams for the coming year!
What about you? Are you starting to noodle on your new year vision? Are you ready to step into a bigger and brighter version of yourself? After all, you’re limitless.
A Closing Ceremony
With that beautiful truth in mind, let’s talk about a powerful method for achieving your most important goals by completing an end of year reflection. Essentially, this is a recap of what has happened to us over the past year to help us be successful in the future.
Life goes by fast, and more often than not, we don’t take time to celebrate our growth. Slow down, speed racer! The kid in you needs a pat on the back, so please give yourself that experience!
Plus, if you’re always focused on the next thing, you’ll miss vital lessons along the way. So, it’s time to take an honest inventory of 2022 to reflect on what worked and what you’d like to improve.
I think of this phase of journaling as a closing ceremony—a way to look back so you can spring forward!
How to Prepare for Your End of Year Reflection
Grab your special journal, and to help jog your memory, go through your entries over the past year to tease out all the milestones. To be honest, I start reviewing my year long before I even start my holiday shopping! In fact, when Brian saw our special new year journal come out at Halloween this year, he declared I’m like a Hallmark holiday, “Each year you roll out earlier and earlier!”
I can’t help it; I love this experience because I love growing and looking at both my victories and my steaming piles of shit (too graphic?). Dumping our thoughts onto paper can help reduce our stress and view our experiences objectively. Our willingness to write down and reflect on what happens in our lives sets us up for ultimate health, happiness, and success in life and business.
If you’re not a journaler yet, technology can help you remember! Check out your photo gallery, social media accounts, and your fitness tracker. Chances are you can easily piece together pretty much everything you did last year.
7 End of Year Reflection Questions
Now, spend some time reflecting and writing down the answers to the following questions:
- What’s something amazing you discovered about yourself?
- What were the most important lessons you learned this year?
- What accomplishment or experience are you the proudest of?
- What’s one perspective shift you could make that would lead to more love in your life and in the lives of others?
- What are you ready to release in 2022?
- What are you ready to experience in 2023?
- How will you challenge yourself to achieve your goals in the new year?
How To Use Your Responses
Answering these questions will help clear the field for planting new seeds for another prosperous trip around the glorious sun. Try not to judge your false starts too harshly. And if you didn’t accomplish everything you wanted to last year, remember that sometimes big goals get pushed if they seem overwhelming. Try smaller steps so you can be successful next year.
I highly recommend doing your end-of-year journaling and goal setting in one special notebook. Research suggests that writing down your goals in terms of your year end reflections will help you identify logical strategies or solutions and increase your chances of following through and achieving your goals..
Each year you can easily look back and track what worked and what didn’t. If you don’t have one already, check out my Results Journal. Perfect for keeping you organized and on track to achieve your goals.
Don’t be shy about including your significant other! My husband and I have been doing this together for about 8 years now and it’s amazing to see the patterns that start to emerge.
Before we wrap, please remember that no matter how your year shakes out, your best isn’t behind you, it’s in front of you.
Your turn: Choose one of the questions above to answer in the comments below. Mwah!
Peace and gel pens,
