How has 2014 treated you gorgeous? I do hope with all the grace and goodness you deserve. I love the energy of the Year End. It’s the perfect time to pause and reflect. I must confess I have had a thrilling year, a major highlight for me seeing my book “The Busy Woman’s Guide To High Energy Happiness” published by Penguin. A RealOnABookShelfInWhitcoullsBook! I have a real glow of satisfaction about the emails I get every day from a reader saying how much impact it’s making in their lives makes every drop of hard work worth it.
Before diving into setting goals for a new year I think it’s really important to review the past year. What has worked, and why. What didn’t and why. It’s so easy to get carried away with the shininess of new goals when the foundation for achievement of them lies in the review of what happened (or not) the previous year. What did we make time for? What just didn’t happen ‘cos life got in the way? Is this the fifth time we have vowed to “Get Fit” or “Lose Weight” but it didn’t happen? It’s imperative to look at WHY those things did or didn’t happen before setting them up as goals for 2015.
These are the questions I work through to do just that. Back in my corporate days we would always have a review of the past year’s business before setting the budgets and initiatives for the next. To do the same but with the business of our life it seems to be to be even more important to make sure you carve out a little time for that review. So, diarise an hour or too with yourself, you are the CEO of Fabulous You Inc. and do that review. It will form the best foundation for a kick-ass 2015.
10 QUESTIONS TO REVIEW YOUR YEAR:
1. What am I most proud of in (year)?
2. What is the most valuable thing I learned about myself in (year)?
3. What do I wish I had done more of in (year)?
4. What did I wish I had done less of in (year)?
5. What was the worst thing about (year)? What would I not want repeated? What did I learn from this experience?
6. What three words sum up (year) for me?
7. What did I think I would achieve in (year), but didn’t. Why not? What did I achieve that was unexpected?
8. Who have been the most important and supportive people in my life in (year)?
9. If I could change one thing about (year) what would it be?
10. The three things I am most grateful for in (year) are:
Take your time and reflect on your progress and lessons learned. And then symbolically close the year, in whatever way feels good for you. Give thanks for making it to the end of another year and learning what you have learned. Then you can save your answer paper somewhere safe to look back on one day, or you can make a little ceremony to burn it, bury it, rip it into shreds and let it float out to sea…release that energy of the year that is past.
Reviewing and closing the year will create a beautiful clean slate for the coming year. More wellbeing blog posts to come your way of course on how to make it everything you dream of. Wishing you every good thing for that big shiny New Year ahead.
