Take time to reflect on these five questions before the end of the year
No matter if your last year was the best or worst yet, before you mentally and emotionally reset and establish goals and resolutions for the year ahead, invest thirty minutes to an hour to reflect, learn from, and celebrate the last twelve months. Below is a simple, personal reflection activity to support you in this process.
Before introducing the activity, I want to address a common challenge that often limits people’s ability to reflect on and celebrate their past accomplishments. Do you ever find that no matter how hard you work or how much you accomplish, you end up focusing on everything you didn’t do or you could have done better? Both in my research on people’s ability to give and receive recognition and my work as an executive coach for the last decade, I have found that people fall into what I refer to as “The Gap Trap”—the inclination to get so fixated on what we didn’t do that we become blind to all we did do.
Take Mark, for example, an executive coaching client who was the general manager of a restaurant group in Egypt. At the end of 2011, Mark felt down because his goal was to open three new restaurants, but he had only opened one. Hyper-focused on his gap in performance, he completely missed the fact that he had opened a new restaurant and kept the group’s existing establishments open, all while Cairo was enmeshed in a political revolution. When I sarcastically asked Mark “Did you face any challenges over the last year?” he literally laughed out loud when he recognized his and his team’s extraordinary accomplishments, given the circumstances they had faced.
It is important to focus on and learn from our performance gaps. The trap is when we only focus on the gap and fail to acknowledge what we accomplished and what it took to do so. Use the below activity to shift your focus and capture how much you have learned and grown over the last year!
“Celebrating Success Does Not Mean You Are Declaring Victory”
Take time to reflect
Year-in-Review Activity:
Between now and the end of the year, set aside thirty minutes to an hour to stop and recognize everything that happened in the last year. Grab a cup of something nice, paper, and a pen, and reflect on the following questions:
When answering the questions, keep the below at the top of your mind:
- Focus on progress, growth, and learning. Resist the instinct to focus on everything you didn’t do or what you will do next year. Instead, focus on all that you did do last year.
- This is just about you. Remember, no one else is going to read your answers. There is no need to sound impressive, justify your performance, or worry about what others will think. This is just for you!
Questions:
1. What were my most interesting moments and unique experiences over the last year?
Did you attend a conference, start a new job, or get to sit in on a meeting with the boss? Did you attend a cool concert or a friend’s wedding or pick up a new sport? What moments or experiences defined your last year and why?
2. What challenges did I face in the last year, personally and professionally? How did I grow from these?
Did you start a new position that required more responsibilities? Did you or a loved one face a health issue? Did you go through a breakup or start a new relationship? How did you deal with these challenges and what did you learn in the process?
3. What new skills did I develop/improve last year?
Did you learn how to code, give presentations, or start learning a new language? Did you improve your ability to run meetings, coach employees, or increase the speed at which you write reports?
4. What have I learned about myself, how I work, and what I need to be at my best?
Did you develop any personal routines/processes that support you in and outside of work? Did you learn anything about the types of projects or topics you enjoy working on most/least? Did you learn anything about the types of people or work environments you enjoy most/least? Did you learn about what impacts your physical or mental health the most?
5. What am I most proud of?
After answering the above questions, reflect on what you are most proud of yourself for over the last year.
After, take a minute to reread and celebrate all that happened over the last 365 days. When you are done, schedule time to brainstorm what you want to make happen in the year ahead!
Make it a Yearly Ritual
Save your notes or put your journal somewhere you will easily remember next year… Put a note in your calendar for next December or January labeled “Year-in-Review Reflection.”
