This time of year naturally brings on a time of reflection and looking into the year ahead.
I absolutely love this time of year to reflect on what went well last year, what didn’t and what lessons I learned this past year that can help me grow this upcoming year.
It is really easy to get caught up in doing life and the years just fly by.
If you don’t take the time to shut out all the noise and distractions and just sit quietly with your thoughts once in a while and make a game plan for your day, your day will run you, you won’t run it. And all those days end up as your year and those years end up as your life. In order to make a day plan, we need to know overall what we are trying to achieve in this life and who we want to be. That is a big undertaking, so breaking it down by a year at a time can add up to great results.
What kind of business owner do I want to be? What kind of impact do I want to make? What kind of partner do I want to be? What body do I want to live in? How do I want to feel mentally? What is really important to me?
I don’t know about you, but my life moves incredibly fast and next thing I know, I’m wondering how the 80’s were over 40 years ago lol. Your car can go really fast, but if it’s going in the wrong direction, you won’t end up where you want to go.
One of the biggest lessons I learned this past year is that if you want to reach a goal, you need to focus on the process and not the outcome. This is why I don’t love the end goal being the focus, but rather, who do you want to be, how you want to feel.
The cool thing is, you can start that right now, you can start to feel it right now. The goal or outcome will come, but it takes time, so focus on the process; fall in love with the process and being this person. The outcome will happen over time and instead of it being a fleeting goal achieved, it will stick because you will already be the person who has what you want.
Weight loss is a common one, so I’ll use that as an example.
If you want to lose 20lbs this year, shift your focus to being the person who maintains a healthy weight year round rather than the outcome of losing the 20lbs. What does that person do? What behaviours do they have? What boundaries do they have? What sacrifices do they make? What energy do they have? What do you do that doesn’t serve that goal?
Rather than focusing on the scale, focus on the being that person every day. If the scale isn’t going down you will feel like quitting, but if your focus is on doing the things that that person would do daily because you enjoy it (fake it til you make it if you need to), it makes you feel good, and is getting you closer to being that person you want to be, you are much more likely to keep going. There will always be times that you will lose motivation and want to give up, we all feel this at some point, but you have to keep going. It’s so important to focus on the process here and not the outcome. Look how far you have come, and not how far you have to go. Focus. On. The. Process.
What things are you doing right now that are not serving you?
What do you wish was different?
How would you feel going into 2024 already having this?
What do you not want to go into 2024 with?
It starts now. We don’t procrastinate.
If you would like some prompts to help you reflect and look forward feel free to do the following exercise:
Looking back:
- Wisest decision I made:
- 3 Lessons I learned:
- The biggest risk I took:
- The most important thing I did:
- The biggest thing I completed:
- The thing I am most proud of:
- Who influenced you the most?
- Who did you influence the most?
- What were you not able to accomplish?
- What was the biggest thing you discovered about yourself?
- What were your biggest accomplishments
- What were your biggest challenges?
Time to forgive:
Is there anything that happened this year that you need to forgive yourself or others for.? This is necessary in moving forward. It helps to understand what happened and why. If you aren’t sure, write it down and see if the answers come to you.
The year ahead:
What does it look like? Why will it be great? In an ideal world, what do you see? How do you feel?? Feeling is the most important part of this.
Where do you want your focus to be? What is most important to you right now? (personal developments, relationships, finances, health, fitness, friends, family, personal space, mental health, etc)
Pick any of these that resonate with you and fill them out:
- I want to achieve these 3 things the most
- I am ready to let go of these 3 things
- I will do these 3 things every day
- These 3 people will be my support in tough times
- I will have the power to say no to these 3 things
- I will make my environment and surroundings supportive with these 3 things
- I will spend time in these places
Your Word:
Pick a word that resonates with you for what you want this year to be. Keep it somewhere you can see it often to remind you of your vision that lights you up and excites you. It’s silly, but it’s so easy to forget what we want when we get into the hustle and bustle of life. This word is your north star.
Walk tall into a bright new year once you have taken a look back
Cheers to a New Year and a fresh slate!