What a year! I was thinking about everything that happened in 2024 and everything I did this year, and a lot was going on. Interestingly, they were all quite different things. ‘Will be good to sit down and reflect on all that properly,’ I thought.
The time between Christmas and New Year’s sort of lends itself to this kind of reflection. If you are not too tied up with family visits and festivities, that is. Most people have some sort of break over Christmas, whether it’s Summer or Winter where you are, and the end of a calendar year is always an invitation to talk about New-Year's resolutions.
I’m often struck by how quickly we are heading into making plans and commitments for the new year, and how confidently we promise ourselves to make the changes in behaviour from 1st January. What many of us don’t do is close out the current year with a solid reflection. A reflection that might help identify what sort of things are currently working well, so you can make sure to keep them in the new year. And the kind of reflection that looks a little deeper, one that asks, ‘why’ have I not made this behaviour change yet, if I know that I want or need to?
Anyway, today’s blog is about the kind of end-of-year reflection that goes a little deeper.
Reflection is an important tool for getting to know yourself. It does increase your self-awareness. It can be confronting to be honest with yourself though (which is why quite a few people would rather not reflect, I suspect.) But, ultimately, reflection should be helpful to learn about yourself, your values, and your relationships, and to get clarity on where you want to go and how you might get there. And they are an opportunity to acknowledge some of the difficulties you have navigated and to celebrate your progress: all the small and big wins.
When I talk about end-of-year reflections with athletes or clients, I often talk about different levels of reflection. There are surface-level questions. They are questions that make you feel like you have done some reflection, but that are about as productive and useful as small talk with a stranger at a party. You give a little information about yourself, but it isn’t anything that matters to you. And it isn’t a conversation you or they will remember. You can do this within about 5 minutes.
If you want to go a little deeper than that, I would recommend that you set aside some time to reflect. Maybe an hour or two. Find a comfortable space, decide whether you want to reflect alone or with a close friend or your partner (whoever it is, make sure you are actually comfortable with that person and you’ll be able to be honest with yourself and with them.)
I’d recommend you write your reflections down, but that is up to you. Some people like recording reflections as voice notes, and others like typing them. I am more of a hand-written reflections kind of person. Find whatever works for you. Recording the reflections is useful because you can come back to them throughout the year or years later, should you want to.
Once you have decided, you can use the questions below to get you started:
(Pick and choose or use them all. Up to you.)
Here are some relative surface-level questions:
What are my TOP 5 moments of 2024?
How would I summarise the year in three words?
What were some difficult moments?
What am I most grateful for?
If you’d like to go a little deeper, try these:
What are my values? How well have I lived them this year? (You could give each value a score /10. That is still pretty much at the surface. If you want to go deeper here, talk or write about how and when you have lived each value and when you have not. For each value, comment on your specific behaviour, such as your action (or inaction) that showed that you were or were not living the value.)
Who were the key people who made a difference in my year 2024?
Where have I made progress?
Where do I feel stuck?If I could travel to the beginning of the year, what advice would I give myself?
And going a little deeper again:
What was my best mistake? (= Which mistake have I learned the most from?)
What was the best feedback I have heard this year? Why?
What was the hardest bit of feedback I have heard this year? Why?
Which situation(s) do I wish I had handled differently this year? How would I like to approach them in the future?
How have my relationships evolved this year?
In what way have I made a difference in the lives of others this year?
What am I currently taking for granted?
Which habits/routines served me well? Which ones held me back?
This last question here, about habits, is interesting because ultimately it’s our habits that shape our day-to-day life. So, the habits we practise over and over again become our life. You might have habits around exercise or connecting with friends and family regularly. You might also have habits around how and how often you access social media and streaming services and how and how frequently you let work seep into personal time. So your habits are a useful place to focus your reflection, especially because New Year’s resolutions are regularly focused on trying to establish new habits. To do that, it is useful to know explicitly what habits you currently have.
What habits a I currently practising? How are they shaping my life?
And, if you are brave, look at these … ;)
Who was I when no one was watching?
When have I worn a mask? When have I let myself be authentically me?
What question am I hoping won’t be asked here because I fear my own answer… Ask that question, then answer it.
What conversation(s) do I need to have that I have not yet dared to initiate?
And what would an end-of-year reflection be without a little future focus?
What have I learned in 2024 that I want to take into 2025?
What current habits do I want to continue into 2025?
What new habits do I want to start practising in 2025? How am I planning to implement them?
That’s me for 2024.
Thank you for joining me through the first few blog posts - I have certainly learned a lot through writing the posts, creating the illustrations, and sharing them online. And I hope that there were one or two golden nuggets in here that were useful to you too. As always I would love to hear from you. Send me a message on Instagram @mankertina. And if you know someone who might find this useful, please share it with them.
Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating & a Happy New Year.
Key points:
End-of-year reflections allow you to celebrate the small and big wins as well as acknowledge any difficulties you had to navigate.
Reflection helps build your self-awareness.
Reflections at the end of the year become a good platform for you to be deliberate with your plans and intentions for next year.
Reflection questions:
I don’t think you need any more questions…
But if you really wanted one more on the topic of this blog, here it is:
To what extent (surface or deeper level) have you used end-of-year reflections in previous years?
