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Happy New Year Everyone! How quick did 2023 fly past us! 2024 is upon us now and it’s time to kickstart the year for success. However before we embark on our new year’s important to look back on the previous one. This is something I have personally been doing for the past 4 years in an annual review.
This concept was something I learnt from someone I look up to immensely Ali Abdaal! He released a video talking about the most important thing he does each year back in 2020. An Annual Review!
An annual review is an exercise of self reflection that you complete each year. You reflect on everything that has happened that year in order to gain insights for the new year. Using these insights I set my goals for my new year. This is an exercise that I found extremely helpful and has helped me to really grow as a person. I’ve modified how I’ve down done my review over the years from what Ali does but there are things I’ve kept in my review each year from him. So with no further a do let me show you my 4 step review I complete each year.
I start by reflecting on my previous year. This starts off with me reflecting on the people I’m grateful for. I try to think of people I’m grateful in all areas of my life. This could be people I work with, then my family, then friends and associates. It really helps me to look back and feel real gratuity for everyone in my life. Whether I deal with people in a work capacity, social, family whichever I think of people in my life what they’ve brought into my life and feel a real sense of gratefulness for it.
I then move on to reflecting on experiences I’ve had this year. This is a real chance to think of some of the amazing things that I have done throughout the year. It helps you gain a real sense of gratuity for all the wonderful things you’ve seen and done throughout the year. Make sure to include everything whether it was going out to a restaurant with a family member, to going to watch your favourite sports team play or going to the theatre include it all. You’ll be amazed with all the great things you’ve done throughout the year.
I then reflect on the things this year that I’ve been grateful for. This could be literally anything. In my review this year I had the likes of Podcasts, my car, going to the spa amongst other things. These are all things I’m extremely grateful to have in my life. Each point I’ll add a few sentences talking about why I’m grateful for them.
Lastly on this section I reflect on the game changers I’ve discovered throughout the year. These are things that have really helped me in my life to grow as a person. An example from my review this year was Runna. Runna was an app I discovered on TikTok from an influencer called Jonny Davies. It’s completely changed my approach to running and has really made me want to run more. As a result of discovering it I got in a great routine with my running and was improving my times over various differences. If you’re into running I’d highly recommend it. This section can be really great for just thinking of all the things that have helped you on your journey so far and can continue to help you in the future.
Next I look back on the year as a whole. This is the part of the review which can take quite a bit of time. I go month by month throughout the year and go through every thing that I did in my life. This firstly helps you to reflect on everything you’ve done and see your progress throughout the year. It also gives you something great to look back on. In years to come this will be something you can look back on to think wow, I’ve done all this with my year.
The next session I go over is all the cool things I’ve discovered over the year. Each year we all discover great things that have created an impact on our lives. Whether it be a book, podcast, YouTube channel, article or something physical there will be things that have impacted you. Go through as much as you can think of, note them all down and a reason why along with it. An example of mine this year was the AirPod Pros, they’ve been a real game changer for me with my work. Previously I had normal Airpods before my car was broken into back in November. I decided to get myself a new pair after losing them and upgraded to the Airpod Pros which I certainly haven’t regretting upgrading to. The noise cancellation has really helped me zone in and focus when I’m working with background music in my ears. The effect it’s had on my productivity in the months of November and December has been amazing.
The next part of my annual review I’ve taken inspiration from Stefan at Project Life Mastery. Up until 2019 each year he used to set goals publicly and then review them each month and for the year. At the end of the year he would do a review and go through all successes, accomplishments and celebrations. This is what I have taken inspiration from to do this section of my review.
I start by creating sub headings in this section for each area of my life that is important to me:
Once I’ve got this list, I then through each sub heading and think of every little success and accomplishment I’ve had in my life to celebrate in that area. Some examples from this section for me this year are:
So now using all the 2 previous steps of my annual review, I’ll take a look at my life as a whole for the year and try to come up with and write out some of the lessons that I have learned from the year. This could be as simple as knowing you need to get to bed earlier to get more sleep and feel more energised each day. Any lesson that you can think of that you’ve learnt that year, get it down on paper. It’s important to learn lessons in life as they are what help us on the path to success.
One of the key lessons I’ve learnt from 2023 was not to overcomplicate things. There are certain things that I wanted to do each day such as journaling but I way overcomplicated my journaling and this created friction to me doing it each day. Going through these lessons will really help you to work out where you can improve and how you can stack the deck in your favour with your new years goals. So following on from the earlier example I have simplified my journal to not include loads of pointless questions, I’ve just made it simple morning pages that I’ll just write out each day off the cuff and so far this year… 3 days in I have kept to it.
The final step of my annual review is setting goals for the new year. I use all of the above, the successes, what I’ve been grateful for I’ve enjoyed and the lessons I’ve learnt to help inspire me. These goals I will set for all areas of my life as shown above in the successes section. I set a number of goals in each category. When writing them out I always do 2 things:
I will do a full post going over my goals for the new year but a couple of them are:
So there it is, that is why I believe you should complete an annual review and how you can do one too! I hope to hear from you soon that you’ve completed one too. If you’d like me to setup a Notion template where you can copy one like mine, let me know and I’ll make that happen.
As always if you enjoyed this and fancy reading more, you can check out all my recent blogs here.