24: What You Should Do Before the New Year Begins

What is the one thing you should do before the new year begins? And how will this one thing help you as you move into the new year? We believe the first essential step to setting goals is reflecting on the past year.

It’s easy to skip over this especially if you are future oriented and love getting started on new goals and ideas. But taking time to reflect is foundational to the goal setting process. It’s important to know where you’ve been before you can know where you’re going.

Reflecting will also:

Help you see how you’ve goal set in the past and how it’s worked for you (or not). Look at how life circumstances affected your goals. Helps you to plan for goals you can attain. Gives you confidence in your future goals. Help you to be smart moving forward. Put you in the right mindset.

You can start your reflection time by considering whether you had a word for the year. If you did, think about how that word impacted you and whether it helped you stay focused through the year.

After thinking about your word for the year, you can answer the following questions. Holly and I each chat about our answers to these questions.

Reflection Questions to Ask:

1. What worked in the past year? Holly started a business! I was able to hit my revenue goal for my business. I also transitioned my website and started the podcast with Holly! 2. Were there any surprises? Holly was surprised that she was able to start the podcast with me. This was not something she had as a goal at the start of the year. I had 3 speaking engagements during the year. 3. What didn’t work for the year? I wanted to declutter my house, but it didn’t happen. I had a goal to create more household and family routines, but this didn’t go as well as I had hoped. Holly had planned to get done her job sooner than she was able to. Holly shares that she was frustrated that she did not keep up with her weight loss progress in 2018. 4. Why didn’t I reach my goals?

It’s important to evaluate the goals that you did not reach and assess why.

Assess the emotional gravity of the goals you are picking as well as what your capacity is for achieving those goals.

5. What’s next? What are you excited about in the coming year? Holly is excited to see what happens with the podcast in the next year. Holly is looking forward to growing her business in 2019. I’m excited to be more focused, especially in my business. I am also looking forward to making more time for fun.

 

Key Quotes from episode:

God has bigger plans, and sometimes God throws something into your life that you never expected or anticipated. It’s important to reflect on why you didn’t accomplish your goals, but also not to dwell on those failures.

 

For the full show notes for this episode, visit estherlittlefield.com/episode24.

 

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