Reflect Before You Resolve 

With only three days left of the year, many people’s minds are geared towards January 1 and all the goals they hope to accomplish in 2022. While New Year’s resolutions can be motivating, they’re a lot more meaningful when they arise from thoughtful reflection on the year you’ve just lived. 

The Year in Review: Why Look Back?

Maya Angelou concluded that, “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” And Lewis Carroll took it a step further, adding, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” The general principle is that, when looking toward the future—what you want to accomplish, where you want to make progress, and who you want to become—it’s best to start by evaluating where you’ve been. After all, how else will you know where you are now? Once you discern that, you can then determine your “next right thing,” as says author Emily P. Freeman.

The Year in Review: How to Look Back

Different people reflect in different ways. You may be a linear thinker who prefers to reflect chronologically. Try going month-by-month and recapping significant experiences and events from the past year. You may want to look back at photos (this one is especially fun to do with your family or a close friend), social media posts, or journal entries to jog your memory. You can even talk it out with someone! 

For others, it may be easier to start with emotions rather than events. Try using Sage Hill’s eight core feelings tool to make a list of the times throughout the year when you experienced sadness, loneliness, gladness, or hurt. What were the circumstances surrounding this feeling? Are these circumstances resolved or ongoing? 

Whichever approach you take (including if you take another one altogether!), resist the urge to jump too soon to brainstorming future changes. Take time to sit with your past twelve months, answering questions like:

• What were the biggest joys and disappointments of the past year?

• What risks did I take? How did they go?

• Are there any risks I wish I’d taken? What held me back?

• What did my week-to-week life look like? Did I fill my calendar with the things I value most? 

• Did I have a reasonable amount on my plate? Too much? Too little? 

• What was most stressful about this past year? Why? 

• What was most restful and refueling? 

• How was my physical and mental health and how well did I care for my body and mind? What worked? What didn’t? 

And Then Look Forward

Once you’ve taken inventory of the year you’ve just lived, you’re ready to start asking some future-oriented questions: What do I want to change—whether in myself, my calendar, or my habits? What do I want to stay the same? What do I hope to accomplish? In what areas do I want to make progress, and what’s my plan? And most important of all—who am I becoming?

Now, back to the resolutions: In light of what you’ve learned this past year, what commitments can you make to do your “next right thing” as you journey towards becoming the person you want to be?

Sources & References for The Content in this Article: Sage Hill, Emily P. Freeman

Put It Into Practice

So, once you reflect on the past year of life, how do you translate that into your resolutions, intentions, and goal-setting for the next? Here’s a case study to get your imaginative juices flowing:

After completing the “Year in Review” exercise, Maria realizes how hurried and spread thin she was this past year. She had way too much on her plate, and in the year to come, she wants to walk at a slower pace and carve out more margin in her life. Beyond that, she wants to become a person marked by patience and love, and she realizes that her packed-out schedule is shaping her into a person of irritation and anger. 

So, what does she do? What would you do?

1. Start by making a list of set-in-stone, non-negotiable responsibilities (like caring for your children, paying your bills, etc.).

2. Next, make a list of your chosen, negotiable responsibilities (like saying yes to overtime shifts, participating in social clubs, volunteering at a local non-profit).

3. From there, write out the approximate daily, weekly, and/or monthly time commitments of each one—the “negotiables” and the “non-negotiables.”

4. And then comes the hard part. What stays? What goes? What do you scale back on? What, if anything, do you ramp up? Start plotting out your commitments for the coming year, taking personal responsibility for how you choose to use your time.

The reality is that we each have the same finite amount of time. How will you intentionally spend yours, based on what you want to accomplish, where you want to make progress, and who you want to become—armed as you are with fresh insights from the year you’ve just lived?

Other Articles About Reflection & Self Awareness