Time to do Year End Review and Reflection

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Oh, “parting is such sweet sorrow,” but you know how unavoidable and inevitable it is.

With new year coming round the corner, and 2015 ready to bid us adieu, it is that time of the year when we should take out time to reflect, review, resolve, refocus and be ready to decide and take resolution(s) for the new year ahead.

With few more days to go, it would be great if we could reflect and review how this year has gone, could resolve the things which we think we should, refocus on what needs to be done and then take the new year resolution(s) before the new year comes.

So, planning and writing our short term and long term goals and creating our vision for the new year needs to be ready by the end of the year so that when the new year knocks, we are all ready to embark on our journey with the right mind set, “to strive, to seek, to find and never to yield,” like Ulysses. This will allow us to be on the right track, despite confronting challenges and things not going the way we planned in between, and keeping our eyes on our goals with the purpose in our mind, heart and soul.

To enjoy and execute the review process here is what we could do:

1. Be Ready with Our Question Bank. Since we want to reflect and review, therefore it is important for us to be ready with our question bank, in which some of the questions could be: What were my major accomplishments this year? What were my happiest moments? What were the things that I leant this year? How did I manage my relationships? Who were the new people with whom I met? What were the habits which helped me to achieve my goals? What new habits should I work on? Was there any event that changed my perspective towards life and people? What was that and what did I learn from it? Which was the area in my life where I focused the most, should I continue it or should I change my focus? How would I describe my year and what would be the major take away from the year?

There could be many such questions depending on the areas of our life that we want to focus. It is important that we deal with each of the 7 major areas of our life: mental, physical, emotional, family, career, financial and spiritual, and ask the relevant questions while dealing with one area at a time.

2. Set Aside a Day(s): It is important for us to set aside a day or days and mark them in our calender. Next, we should try to keep the day relatively free from any bigger commitments and tasks so that we could focus on the review and reflection process and dig ourselves deeper to find out our best answers. Calmness of mind and being relaxed will help us to be effectively engaged and absorbed in the entire process.

3. Decide a Quiet place. In order to enjoy and get the best answers, we need to select a place which is quiet and away from any disturbance. It could be our home, terrace, a bench in the park, or a room in a hotel. Whatever suits the best, we must select that.

4. Keep Our Paraphernalia of Record Ready.  Since we are trying to get the answers of lot many questions, we must ensure to note them down and save their findings so that we can use them as reference point for taking new decisions and setting new goals and new year resolutions. For this purpose, we can either use our laptop, mobile phone, pen, pencil or papers. Use the tool which gives you freedom and makes you feel comfortable. For me, paper and pen works best in such processes. To get the best answers, it is important to disconnect for a while by turning off our wi-fi or internet devise.

For remembering the things, demarcating various categories, we could use coloured markers or pens to highlight what we write. The purpose is to make the entire process interesting and engaging and not monotonous and boring.

5. Fix Appointment with People. While we set an appointment with our own-self to review our year, there may be certain areas where we would want to take feedback from our friends, colleagues, mentors and family members. In that case, we need to ask from them the questions well in advance so that they can guide us and suggest us the best way forward.

After taking their valuable inputs,  we need to collate them with our own reflections and decide the new year goals and make further plans to accomplish them.

Remember, that despite planning and setting the goals with the best of our intentions, there will be certain things and incidents which will happen unexpectedly in life, we need to accept the fact that they are inevitable and we have no control over them, but how do we respond or react in such situations, that is completely in our control and depends on our choices.

So let us decide our choices and intentions along with our goals of the year well in advance and then be happy, content and enthusiastic about what our life has to offer in the new year 2016!