My Top Tips for Creating Your Own Year-In-Review

Somehow we’ve stumbled into the last month of the year.

Judging from everyone’s social calendars, we’re all stocked full with events and obligations and doing our best to make to the finish line: the holiday season.

Though this time of year feels extra chaotic, something I’m trying to prioritize is taking time to reflect. Before I jump head first into the new year, I want to look back at the year and see how I grew, what I learned, and then take a pause.

As a culture, we focus so much on New Year’s resolutions and goals on January 1. I know I’m not alone in forgetting what those even are by mid-March. So in both my professional and personal life, I’ve moved more towards monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals to break down big dreams and visions into bite size pieces. A key component of this is taking time after to reflect, so you can assess how things really matched up your intentions.

Then you can take these insights and create reflection-informed goals for the New Year that are both achievable and aligned with your long-term vision.

Some key questions you should ask at the end of the year:

• What did I achieve?

• Where did I fall short?

• What’s something unexpected I learned?

• What’s something I want to focus in the next chapter? 

A personal year-end review is no revolutionary idea; top authors and thinkers, like Atomic Habits author James Clear and David Perell, regularly conduct a similar exercise and share them online. As James Clear explains, there is a power in making sure you’re on track for where you want to go. He encourages readers to ask “Are my choices helping me live the life I want to live?”

As this blog post explains, “In the absence of regular reflection, we move from year to year without celebrating our successes, learning from our failures, and assessing whether what we’re doing in life is what we actually want to be doing in life. Sitting down to review your life, one piece at a time, will uncover hidden lessons and important insights you can take into the next year.”

This is a key step to getting off the hedonic treadmill; instead of chasing achievements for achievement’s sake, think deeply about the direction you’re heading. “Even when we do reach our goals, we forget our wins as quickly as they come, stretching out our hands for the next achievement.” It’s essential to understand how challenges shape us and how our wins move us forward.

The hard part about reflections, though, is knowing where to start. Maybe you start to journal and by page two you’re bored or distracted. (Or is that just me?!) In an effort to guide my own reflections, I building a template of questions that I can go through to jot my memories down and reflect on the goals met (and not) and, most importantly, the lessons I learned this year.

In the coming weeks, I’m excited to finally share my first digital product, which will be available to download for free. It’s a Google Doc file, so you can download and edit right from your computer. Or if you’re old-fashioned like me, you can download and print it on real paper and edit to your heart’s delight. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, want to explore more on goal setting and reflection? Here are some of my favorite resources on the topic.

1. On Purpose with Jay Shetty🎙️ This episode of Jay Shetty’s podcast On Purpose is a great place to start if you’re looking find inspiration in the new year. Jay explains how creativity can become the driving force for career advancement, the keys to mastering growth and innovation in your professional life — and more helpful tips and insights.

2. How to Complete Your Own Personal Review ✍🏻 This blog post from todoist is by far the most comprehensive read I’ve found on the topic. It also includes a very helpful template if you’re looking to get started on your review.

3. Goal Setting: A Scientific Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals by James Clear 🎯 Don’t just take it from me; listen to the experts. In this blog post, James Clear shares everything you need to know about setting — and accomplishing — your goals.

This week’s office👩🏼‍💻

This edition of the newsletter was sent from The Hoxton Hotel in London. If you know me, you know it is one of my absolute favorite places to work when I’m on the go. If you’re ever in London and looking for a place to lounge, I highly recommend.

After a few weeks of travel, I’ve been trying to work from co-working spaces and cafes more to get back into a semblance of routine. And I must say that it feels good to feel like a more formal working person sometimes. Yes the digital nomad life, working from remote areas is great — but it’s also great to be back in a energizing environment.

It’s all about the ~balance~.

Lastly, my one big goal for the end of the year: help me grow my newsletter list 📈

In order to grow my business and hopefully monetize some new products, I need to boost my email list. I’d love to find more readers that could use this kind of information. Maybe someone in a full-time role that’s looking to monetize a side hobby, someone that’s just starting to freelance or even someone running a full business and wanting to learn more about building sustainably and creating a more full life around work.

Do you know this person? Or better yet, do you know a few people you could share this newsletter with? 

You can also use this link here and share on your social media accounts. I’d be immensely appreciative!

Want to connect or work together? Here are a few ways:

• I offer weekly office hours for new freelancers. Book a 30-minute call here.

  • P.S. here are my 5 tips for beginning freelancers

• If you want to hire me for a project, reach out here. 

• Follow me on LinkedIn for more thoughts and tips during the week

• (👷🏼‍♀️Coming soon!) Download my digital guide for the entrepreneur’s year in review.