As the year comes to a close, even if you’re not a regular journal writer, there are many proven benefits to reflective journaling 1 and goal setting 2. Spending time to write, reflecting on this past year and planning for the coming year can be an extremely beneficial process. A guided end-of-year journal exercise is a fantastic way to understand your past and set meaningful intentions for your future. In this article, I’m going to guide you through the three part process that I use to close out my current year and mentally prepare for the next.
You can find the template for the questions used in this exercise here3.
After you have your personal environment taken care of, it’s time to get started. Use whatever journaling medium you are comfortable with. I prefer digital, especially for this process as it will probably require some revisions.
Write down the following questions in each section, one at a time, and try to answer them to the best of your ability. They are designed to be linear but, you will inevitably find yourself jumping around as you uncover new insights. Some of them will most likely require a great deal of thought and reflection to answer honestly and completely. The goal is to answer them all but, again, this may take more than one session to process so, be patient.
In this phase, you will review your past year, reflecting on challenges, events, achievements, personal growth and habits. This is a time to be honest with yourself.
Is this section, you will reflect on the obstacles you faced over the last year and process their effect on you as well as any lessons learned.
What were some of your biggest challenges over the last year?
For each challenge, list:
How did this challenge affect you?
How did you overcome this challenge?
What did you learn from this challenge?
In this section, you will reflect on the big things that happened in your life and the big things
you have accomplished over the past year.
What were some of your major life events over the last year?
What were some of your biggest achievements over the last year?
What were some long-standing goals that you achieved over the last year?
In this section, you will reflect on the ways that you feel you have grown and evolved
over the last year.
In what ways do you feel like you let yourself down over the last year?
In what areas do you feel like you improved or grew over the last year?
Did you take on any new hobbies over the last year?
Did you learn any new skills over the last year?
In this section, you will reflect on your habits over the last year and how they affected you.
Which habits had a negative impact on you over the last year?
Which habits had a positive impact on you over the last year?
In this section you will reflect on the goals you set last year that you were unable to achieve and explore the reasons why. Think about why, were they too ambitious, did you not have the right systems in place to support them, etc.
List the goals you set last year that you did not achieve.
For each, list the reasons why you did not achieve them.
In this section, you will reflect on the things that made you happy and the things you
are grateful for over the last year.
What were some of your favorite memories from over the last year?
What are some things that you are truly grateful for that occurred during the last year?
In this phase you will set your intentions to improve your habits and skills as well as lay out your goals for the coming year.
In this section, you will reflect on your habits and how you want to intentionally improve
them for in order to build more positive and productive habits over the next year.
A word of advice, when experimenting with new habits, give them a timeframe during which you
commit to doing them consistently, then, at the end of the timeframe, evaluate their effectiveness.
Which existing habits do you want to focus on eliminating this coming year?
Which existing habits do you plan on reinforcing this coming year?
What are some new habits that you would like to experiment with or establish this coming year?
In this section, you will reflect on your skill set and how you want to intentionally improve it as well as list any new skills you would like to acquire.
Which skills would you like to improve this coming year?
Which new skills would you like to learn this coming year?
In this section, you will plan your goals in the major life areas for the coming year. Try not to overwhelm yourself by listing too many. It’s better to focus on couple of key goals in each area. Think about the habits or systems you will need to establish in order to support these goals and list them as well as they are crucial for progress.
Remember, consistent movement in a positive direction is more important than the final destination.
List your top goals for this coming year in the following categories as well as the habits and systems you will need to develop to achieve them:
Career
Financial
Health
Family/Friends
Love/Relationship
Personal Growth
Recreation
Physical Environment
Personal Appearance
** Physical environment refers to the space you live in. It could be your home, your office, your car, etc.
** Personal appearance refers to how you present yourself to the world. It could be your clothing, your grooming, etc.
After you have gone through this process and have a completed document, you will most likely feel pretty good. Don’t just put this document somewhere and forget about it. Put some time in your calendar and review it periodically throughout the year. Reflect on the mistakes you made so you can try and avoid repeating them. Remember your wins and the good things that happened, and most importantly, review your goals and keep breaking them down into actions so you can keep moving towards them.
I use this document as a starting point then review and refactor every three months.
This process will be covered it a later article.
Closing thought:
The end of the year isn’t just an end; it’s also a beginning. Use reflections and intention to craft a meaningful future.