Steal my end of year reflection and goal setting process
+ every question I ask myself to work out where I'm at and where I wanna go ✨
It’s around this time that I get excited.
By this time, I mean December. Honestly, I’m getting giddy by mid-November. I have to hold myself back from wishing away the days. Advent is a countdown, to the birth of Christ, and to the week I allow myself the pure joy of my ✨official✨ end of year reflections and new year planning. Ever since I was little I’ve reflected, collaged, stolen other people’s questions, used journal prompts, and basked in the highs and the lessons, utterly in awe of the sanctity of life, the preciousness of time, and the expanse of opportunity.
About two years ago, a new friend entered the chat. Her name? Notion. Notion, often billed as a ‘second brain’ became the obvious choice to house and hold my yearly reflections and so I dutifully uploaded the records of previous years onto my new ‘brain’ and set about refining and perfecting the ultimate template for this time of year. The template which I am about to share.
You may have done your reflections, you may have written in your diary. But you might not have. So please, make a matcha or a hot chocolate, open up a Word Doc, a notebook, a fresh Notion page and let’s dive into it.
Step One. Set Up.
Look back.
The first thing to do if you, like me, are an avid yearly review-er, is to check back in on December/ January’s past. Read old diary entries, find the lists of resolutions, find a Facebook status or an Instagram collage. Who were you? What did you want? How far have you come? I love to particularly think about the people in my life, the things I thought were important then, and the things that remain important now. What were my goals? Where did they come from?
Where have I come from?
This is where having some kind of consistent database, or notebook, or just knowing where you store this kind of stuff is a game changer. My Notion looks like this 👇🏻
Reset.
We are going to skip this little step because she deserves her own whole post (it’ll be the next one!!). But think of this as your spring clean. I have big checklists to digitally declutter, reset my physical space, my finances, mindset, physical and emotional health, and the rest of life! I’ll share these checklists next. Make sure you hit the subscribe button if you haven’t already.
Reflections.
Eeeek! The fun BEGINS. This is a pot of tea, cosy blanket moment.
Refresh the memory.
I take some time to get lost down the rabbit hole of my camera roll, soaking up every screenshot, dog on the tube, perfect matcha, and smiling loved ones, and then I scan through my calendar and hunt for the highs, the lessons, and everything in between. I also go back to every Monthly Review (I’ll do a separate post on how I do these hehe) and copy and paste every list of highs and lessons into an empty page - this results in over 1000 highs and almost always makes me cry. Spoiler alert: You will have done so much more than you a) remember and b) give yourself credit for. This is such a fun exercise. Enjoy it!!
Now let’s get into it.
I work through the following 10 questions, journalling the answers as I go (but you could also voice note or use the dictation button in a Word doc).
What were the high highs?
What were the big lessons?
What did I change my mind on this year?
The most successful people legitimately enjoy being wrong. Always view changing your mind as a "software update" that improves upon the old. What "software updates" did I have this year?
What created energy this year?
What drained energy this year?
Review your calendars and photos from the year. What activities, people, and projects consistently CREATED or DRAINED energy in my life? Write them down. Did I spend enough time on the energy creators or did they get neglected?
What motivated me this year? Were they the right motivations? Were those the 'prizes' I really wanted to win?
What do I wish I had spent more time doing?
I then drag three of these things into my monthly checklist and make sure I do them each at least once a month. Last year I had ‘Dancing’, ‘Creating without pressure’, and ‘Spending time with someone significantly older than me’.
What do I wish I had spent less time doing?
What is currently motivating me? (list 5 core motivations/ values)
What did the good days look like? What elements of good days can I make happen more often?
I summarise it by answering:
What felt great in 2024 and why?
What didn’t feel so great and what did I learn?
Step Two. Set Vision.
Right, so we know where we’ve come from, we’ve reviewed and reflected. Now let’s look ahead. Get ready. It’s vision board time.
The best way I’ve found to tackle this one is my thinking of three strands (thanks Grace Beverley I got this from you).
Vision board 101
Ask yourself the three questions above, and then brain dump everything that comes to mind. Write it all down as a list, somewhere, anywhere.
Use a day in the life to help with this. What would the perfect day in your life look like one year from now? Where do you wake up? What is your morning routine? Who do you spend time with? What are you doing at work and at play? What do you eat or wear? etc etc.
Collect images, quotes, phrases, either digitally or physically of as many things on that big list as possible.
Begin to curate all of that, writing and narrating it in the present tense. See how it feels, if something sounds off, maybe it isn’t your true vision.
I find all the images on Pinterest and then use Notion to create my big vision board, I also like to keep the link handy so I can go back and look at it often - for this reason lots of people make it their screensaver or print it off and tack it above a desk or on the fridge. You choose!
Now listen. This was SUPER fun right?! You know what’s even more fun? Making it happen. So I present to you the MOST IMPORTANT STEP…
Step Three. Set Goals.
It’s simple. Check in on that vision board, and for each of the pillars of health (Physical, Mental, Creative, Occupational, Financial, Spiritual, Social) do the following:
List your goals or desires (WHAT)
Note down the core motivations for those things, find the WHY.
Break down each one into actionable steps and habits (HOW) attach a form of accountability (WHO) and set deadlines (WHEN).
In other words, consider the goal as SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time bound.
Here’s what it might look like:
Physical
Run a marathon.
Motivation: To increase my discipline through training, and to challenge myself, to build confidence, and create space through the week to empty my mind and commit to doing something hard.
Steps: Sort out a training plan by the first week of January, block it into my calendar immediately,, review my runs every week and flex them to fit my schedule if needed, organise to run every few runs with a friend (text x and y), set a date to run a half marathon with Dad. Run a marathon in early April.
Habits: Morning stretches for 10 mins, running on Tues/ Thurs/ Sat, fuelling my body well with home cooked dinners. Drinking 2L of water a day.
Accountability: Book the race, and sign up with a friend.
Doing this for each pillar means that you are setting yourself up to honour balance in your life. So often goals are set which are solely focused on one area, physical health, occupational health and financial health are the most common stars of the show! But by building up and nourishing your creative, social, and spiritual health you will be able to support the others parts of your life so much better. It’s not rocket science, but sometimes we need to be reminded that it’s all connected!!
Having done two to three main goals for all seven pillars, and hopefully given them all timelines of some kind, I then begin to plot out my year. I open up my calendar, and I might even be able to plot specific dates or deadlines in already.
At the very least I assign months and quarters to each goal.
I also divide up everything into weekly and monthly checklists, which might look something like this:
Monthly checklist example
Breaking it down like this might look overwhelming but essentially you are reducing decision fatigue, you are creating a blueprint that will give you the end result that you really want, and by working out the exact daily, weekly, monthly steps necessary you can also vet whether these goals are a) realistic and b) what you even want to be spending your time working towards!
For example, you might have the goal of running a marathon but the reality of 12 runs a month/ 3 runs a week seems super unattainable given you travel every week for work and have a toddler. Maybe running once a week on a Saturday morning at Park Run when someone can look after the baby, and slowly building up to a half marathon is more realistic and still gives you some of what you were seeking, plus community and then you realise that actually community and exercise are what you really want! Use the habit breakdown and checklists to really interrogate your goals and make sure they make sense. They should feel like a stretch, they should feel exciting and make you a little nervous, they shouldn’t feel completely laughable/ terrifying/ vomit inducing.
You will never find me putting ‘wake up at 5am’ anywhere ever, unless it’s to catch a flight. So if any of my goals required me to even think about that, forget about it.
Know your healthiest boundaries. I know I need 8 hours sleep minimum.
And speaking of… healthy boundaries are telling me to wrap this up.
Please let me know in the comments how you feel about end of year shenanigans, I have a feeling people are more and more desperate to get their sh*t together - let me know why!! Why now? Why you? Was any of my über detailed stuff above helpful/ interesting/ delusional. Let’s chat.
Coming up
27/12: My new year reset checklist including my digital declutter list that I SWEAR by.
29/12 The ultimate recommendations list. TV/ movies/podcasts/ artists and books that made my 2024 better (and made me kinder/ smarter/ more thoughtful/ healthier)
31/12. Social media for artists in 2025: If you're on social media here's what you'll want to know.
02/12 How to be your most productive self: The day to day
06/12 How to be your most productive self: Weekly and Monthly Reviews
and more…
If you think someone else would enjoy the above, then do share so I know that other people are on my wavelength and we’re all a bit obsessive and bonkers and just want to be a little bit better at being us day by day.
Ok very best wishes, make the time and space to do those big old three steps to reset, reflect, and set up. You won’t regret it (she says boldly).
Love Phoebe x