While the end of the year is a time we focus on the next year and new year resolutions, reflecting back is an easy opportunity to work smarter for the future. 

3 simple questions I ask myself are:

• What went well?
• What did I learn?
• What do I want next year?

Here’s why this simple exercise paves the path for smooth successes:

• Celebrate: Our brains love to minimize our wins. Take this time to remember your BIG and tiny wins. All of them. Thinking harder, and notice ALL the wins. This will help motivate us to keep going next year.
• Learn: Our brains also love to blast our mistakes onto mental billboards. Take this time to focus on the lessons. What good came out of this, what good could come out of this? This helps us be hopeful and brave to face the future and reach scary goals. Success will come with failure. The faster we fail, the faster we succeed.
• Future: Our brains are susceptible to suggestions. Consider what we want our theme to be in the next year. What would your word of the year be if you had to pick one? Writing it down helps our brain start to align our thoughts and actions with that word or theme and stay focused. It makes it easier and more smooth for us to choose to take actions consistent with that theme, and allows us to have more intention in how we talk and interact with ourselves and those around us.

Here’s a deeper dive into more specific questions that create inspiring thoughts that lead to winning actions:

• What went well? What actions did I take that were successful? What thoughts did I think to inspire those actions? Write down these thoughts.
• What did I learn? What didn’t go as well as I hoped? What could I do differently? What thought can inspire a different, improved way to do that? Write down these thoughts.
• What do I want next year? What are my priorities? What actions do I want to take? What thoughts do I want to think to motivate me to take those actions? Write down these thoughts.

Here are my top 5 year-in-review actions that went well:

• Going to Taiwan with my family, to visit family
• Taking my parents, husband, and kids to Europe for the first time – my parents would never wander there on their own, so I had to take them while everyone was still healthy and before the next pandemic or world crisis shuts everything down
• Speaking at a national pediatrics conference 
• Helping my kids grow in emotional maturity (fewer tantrums, less anxiety) which requires a lot of conversations, hugs, and research
• Keeping track of my spending and budget on google sheets and increasing awareness of my finances

Here are my top 5 year-in-review failures lessons:

• Did not declutter enough, need to spend more time on this regularly in small areas
• Could have been focused for conference talk
• Did not meet enough criteria to get promoted associate professor
• Did not write as much as I wanted to
• Did not resume podcast yet, maybe coming soon?

Here are my honest answers to those questions.

• What went well: Planning a smooth first European trip to London and Paris with my parents, husband, and kids with a few unplanned excursions and rather minimal complaining from my travel companions. Thoughts: I can be flexible and enjoy the little surprises along the way. It’s ok if not everyone enjoys every part of the trip.  
• What I learned: Didn’t get promotion to associate professor, within a rather confusing, frustrating, and nebulous process. New thoughts to change my result next time: I’m okay to keep applying and getting rejected each cycle if that helps me better understand the criteria.
• Future action: I want to teach more audiences about mental health, but my brain tells me my mental health knowledge is very limited and obvious. Inspiring thoughts: The miniscule knowledge I have about mental health is still enough to help someone and could save a life.

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How about you? How did your year go? What can you tiny and/or big wins can you celebrate? What can you give yourself grace on? What are you looking forward to next year? If you want help finding your own inspiring thoughts, let’s chat! Click >>>>here<<<<.

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See the next blog post for the year in review kid edition.