New Year's Resolutions, Annual Reviews, Past Year Reviews...or none of the above?

[Jodi LeBlanc]

As we are in the last month of 2019, I am curious if you have any end of year rituals. I used to be one to make New Year's Resolutions, but over the past couple of years I have done more of an end-of-year audit and then set new intentions for the year. Here are a few options for consideration as 2020 approaches.

~~~~~~~~~~~NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS~~~~~~~~~~~

For those that love making New Year's Resolutions there are some great resources out there to draw from for inspiration:

Sam Feldman created a "New Year's Resolution" Inspiration board: 

As well here are a couple of New Year's Resolutions Trello blog posts to help you achieve your 2020 Goals:

Tips and Tricks for Achieving Your New Year's Resolution by Brian Cervino

4 Ways to Set Successful New Year's Goals in Trello by Leah Ryder

~~~~~~~~~~~ ANNUAL REVIEW~~~~~~~~~~~

James Clear author of "Atomic Habits" does an annual review, which he has done the last six years. His Annual Review consists of 3 questions:

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Here is his 2018 Annual Review to get a glimpse of how he writes about the process.

~~~~~~~~~~~PAST YEAR REVIEW~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim Ferriss, author and one of Fast Company’s “Most Innovative Business People” conducts a Past Year Review, which he has been doing for 8+ years, he said it takes between 30-60 minutes.

1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
4. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
5. Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.

~~~~~~~~~~~UNRAVEL YOUR YEAR~~~~~~~~~~

The Unravel your Year is what I have been doing the last couple of years, by Susannah Conway. It's a workbook where you evaluate the year that is ending by answering a full range of questions, and then you complete that year and start setting your intentions for the new year while responding to questions related to your goals and aspirations. You even have the option to do an Angel Card reading depicting your year. Here are a few photos from my last two years doing the workbook. 

~~~~~~~~~~~GO WITH THE FLOW~~~~~~~~~~~

For those that go with the flow and don't do anything out of the ordinary when a new year starts, and/or you are living in the present moment every day - that's a great method too and I commend you on being so mindful.

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I would love to hear what you do at the end of a year and the start of a new one. Any of the ones listed above? If not, what's missing from this list?

[Erica Moss]

@Jodi LeBlanc I'm still mulling over my goals, so this is a great inspo boost. ⚡️

[Jodi LeBlanc]

Nice! I was listening to the "Before Breakfast" podcast a few days ago and she mentioned setting quarterly goals instead of yearly. I did the "Unravel your Year 2020" and am now working to break up my goals into quarterly chunks, I am thinking this may make them more manageable/achievable :)