2020 Year-In-Review
The end of the year is nearing (THANK GOODNESS! ) and we’ve now reached a favorite moment of mine - Year-In-Review TIME! To me, there’s nothing quite as powerful as taking the time to reflect back on the year and not just to check off which goals you did or didn’t accomplish, but to truly look inward and bring forward the learnings and lessons that the year has brought.
2020 was HARD, it’s a freaking accomplishment just to have made it through this year, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t collected a TON of knowledge about ourselves along the way. These learnings help us go into the new year with more intention, more meaning and more know-how!
For the past 7 years, I’ve done the same year-in-review process and it’s always been one of the MOST enlightening reflection exercises I do for myself. Over the years I’ve been dedicated to sharing this process with you so we can do it TOGETHER but this year I wanted to take it a step further. I wanted to support you each step along the way as you round out 2020 and prepare for all the goodness, greatness & growth that 2021 has in store for us. That’s why over the next two weeks, I' plan on showing up in a BIG way for you, starting with TODAY!
Today, I’m sharing the step-by-step instructions on each part of my year-in-review process and on Wednesday, December 23rd at 7pm EST, I’m going LIVE on my IG account to walk you through Part II of the process in real-time.
And that’s not all…..
After we complete the year-in-review process, next week I’ll be back with more details on how-to take your 2020 learnings and turn them into your 2021 ACTION PLANS. We’ll use what we’ve learned as a roadmap for 2021 goal setting, inclusive of creating our very own vision boards, vision statements and value setting — the compass trifecta for creating a more meaningful 2021.
So let’s get started!
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WHAT YOU’LL NEED
Time and a quiet space to reflect/think (Part I typically takes 90 minutes and Part II takes 30-45 minutes).
Pencils/Pens/Markers/ or your computer or whatever your preferred method of writing/documenting.
Blank sheet of paper OR a note taking computer program for Part I (I like to use Microsoft OneNote for this so I have all my year-in-review details saved in the same place).
PDF Download for Part II. See below for the direct download!
Your calendar from this year (you’ll need to be able to go back and reference this to help jog your memory).
An amazing smelling candle and a delicious cup of coffee/tea or hot cocoa to set the scene.
PART I - MONTHLY REFLECTION
The first part of the year-in-review process is ALWAYS the hardest and typically the one that most people start to half ass (myself include!). This part is ALOT of work, but it’s the foundation of the rest of the process — making it absolutely essential.
Here’s what you do……
Pull out your calendar and flip to January (if you have a separate work + personal calendar you’ll need to have access to both of these since the goal is to look at each month holistically not in work or personal silos). Once you’re on January 2020, you’re going to look at everything you did in a given month - work projects, doctors appointments, travel (why yes we were still traveling in January of this year!), date nights, etc.
Looking at your calendar should allow you to jog your memory, bringing forward the funny, the sad and the hard moments. You’re going to take all of those memories being flooded back into your mind and you’re going to write about your January experience (handwritten or on your computer). What you remember, how you felt, things that happened (both big & small).
The key is to write it out with as MUCH detail as you possibly can. This isn’t just stating what happened, it’s stating how you felt about what happened and what didn’t happen too. All of it.
After you finish January, you’re going to do the SAME THING for all 12 months this year. I know, I know this is where I’m going to lose some of you but I swear this is the heart of this practice. You need to reflect on EVERY SINGLE MONTH FROM THIS YEAR.
Once you’ve completed each month, you’re going to read through the entire year in one fell swoop (you can do this solo or some like to share theirs with significant others or friends — it’s up to you!)
After you’ve completed this portion, you’re going to give yourself a day or two before you do Part II.
Part II - BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER
This is where the process feels a little less tedious and lot more AHA. Here is where you use your 12-month deep-dive reflection to help you answer 20+ questions that allow you to get more clarity around the connectedness of it all.
To make this easier for you this year, I’ve created a free downloadable worksheet filled with the questions I ask myself. Feel free to add a few of your own! If Part I is the meat of this process, Part II is the potatoes — really not great without the other. This part allows you to get a birds eye view on the growth you’ve had this year and how much you’ve strengthened your resiliency muscle.
Once you’ve answered all of the questions in Part II — you should feel a sense of pride in the you that you were this year. While I’m sure there are many things you wished would have gone differently, situations that you long to have felt less hard and people that you miss fiercely, know that this year you were not stagnant, you were not standing still even if it felt like it at times. You have grown, you have evolved and each day you learned more about yourself.
I hope this year-in-review process reminds you of your strength, of your tenacity and of your grace. You don’t have to do it all to be accomplished or feel pride for this year, you just had to have learned something - about yourself, about your loved ones and about the world around you. For it is in learning that we unpack more empathy, more care and more commitment to keep moving forwarded into the humans we are meant to become.
Stay tuned for details on goal/setting & vision casting for 2021! We will use everything we uncovered in this year-in-review to map our goals & action plans.