Thinking about conducting a personal end-of-year review? End-of-year reviews aren’t just for businesses and getting into the habit of doing an annual review will help ensure you are keeping in touch with the reality of your life, as well as putting you in a great place when you start setting goals and planning for the year ahead. Keep on reading to see the steps you should follow to conduct your very own end-of-year review.
STEP 1: LOOK BACK AND ASSESS WHETHER YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS
Look back over the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Hopefully, you set SMART goals so it is very clear if you achieved them or not. Go through your list and for every goal listed ask yourself “Did I achieve this goal this year?”
- YES – Congratulations on achieving your goal. If you didn’t already celebrate now is the time to do so.
- NO – If you didn’t achieve your goal make a decision about whether it is something you still want to achieve. If so, add it to next year’s goal list. However, if you decide the reason you didn’t achieve the goal is because it is no longer important to you let it go. There is no shame is changing your mind about your goals.
STEP 2: WHAT DID YOU ACHIEVE OUTSIDE OF YOUR GOALS?
It is likely that your biggest achievement of the year will relate to the goals you set. However, not everything can be planned for in advance. You might have had an opportunity present itself during the year that you couldn’t have even imagined back in January. This is your opportunity to acknowledge anything else you achieved that was noteworthy this year.
STEP 3: WHAT WERE YOUR HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR?
There is more to life than just achieving. It is meant to be lived and filled with experiences that brings you joy and happiness. This is your opportunity to go back through the year and think about all of the things you’ve done. Look back through your diary or scroll through your photographs. You might have a few for the whole year or something for every month. Don’t limit yourself on the number of highlights you write down.
STEP 4: WHAT WENT WRONG THIS YEAR AND WHAT LESSONS CAN YOU LEARN FROM THOSE EXPERIENCES?
It is likely in the last year that some things have gone wrong and you might have failed in multiple ways. Failure is a natural part of life so don’t forget about all the things that have gone wrong. Instead, spend some time reflecting on what has gone wrong and why. Then use the why element to identify some lessons that you can follow in the future to help you to not repeat that mistake.
STEP 5: COMPLETE A WHEEL OF LIFE
A wheel of life is a great tool for quickly capturing your happiness or satisfaction across numerous areas of your life. If you have never heard of the Wheel of Life before you can find out more about the tool by clicking here. Not only will completing a wheel a of life now help you to identify the areas of your life you should be focusing on in the next year, but by adding this into your annual review it will means in years to come you’ll be able to quickly look back and see your changing feeling (hopefully your score will be improving over the years).
