This is part of a series on how I do my annual review. For the past week, I’ve written about the components of my annual year-end reflection process.
A common question that people ask is,
How do you use the results of this process in planning your year?
This question comes from a linear way of thinking, one that is stemmed in a culture of doing this thing to get to that place. Doing something to get a result, which can be used to get or do something else.
It considers the year-end reflection process as a container with inputs (your experiences and achievements) and outputs (the things you learned and the wisdom you earned). Then you take those learnings and wisdom and build the new thing — your following year.
Viewed from this angle, it’s a linear timeline: the past leads to the present, which leads to the future. Past and future extend in opposite directions from the present.
But life does not work in that linear way. Past, present, and future are all intertwined.
I previously shared how our present experiences shape the story we tell about our past. I added a component to my annual review based on current experiences, and that shaped the story I tell about last year.
On the flip side, what we choose to reflect on from the past can shape how we experience the present and the future.
Designing and doing an annual review isn’t about getting “outputs” from the process to use in planning the next year. Designing the annual review is the first step to planning your year.
Deciding what things you will examine in your reflection ritual is a form of values clarification. You are choosing the things that are important to you to measure. This puts them in your consciousness as you go through your year.
For example, deciding that I’m going to recount my “Magic Moments” from the year causes me to be on the lookout for magic moments are I go through each day. Knowing that I’m going to record my wins forces me to seek ways to log some wins on days when I can’t find any.
Herein lies the power of committing to do this type of review as a ritual — ideally more than once a year.
Take gratitude practice as an example. Gratitude is both part of my annual reflection ritual and a part of my Daily Recap ritual.
When you engage in a gratitude practice, you see how much you have. This is proven to lift your mood.
When you’ve committed up front — at the start of your day — to listing the things you’re grateful for at the end of the day, you enter your day on the lookout for things to be grateful for.
This doesn’t just lift your mood; it reshapes your mindset and your outlook.
You literally look at the world each day through a different lens. You see things you wouldn’t otherwise see. Because you’re looking for places to express gratitude, you find them.
You see what you seek.
If you’ve been resisting designing your year-end reflection ritual because you think it’s too late to reflect on last year, take heart: you don’t even need to reflect on last year for this process to serve you. (Although, it serves you better if you do the reflection). Simply designing the components of the ritual you will do next year, and committing to doing it, will shape your year.
Start with the end in mind: design the components of your reflection ritual, and let the process work for you.
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