A Review of Last Year

Three Actions to Include in Your Self Review

If you are unable to give an account of what your life produced this year, then what good has your life produced? If you have no idea what your family accomplished this year, how can you make improvements to do better next year? I often hear individuals say they had a bad year. I wish I could ask them this question. How do you know? Did you perform an assessment? What’s your measurement based on and what are you comparing it to? Until you’re able to answer this, how can you say whether is was a bad year or not? What did you learn from another year’s worth of experiences? 

The Thought or Concept:
Let’s talk about what one can discover when you take a look back at the last 365 days. A review of your year helps you to discover these two things.

1. Who you were all year?
   Looking back to see what you’ve done can tell you a lot about who you are as an individual and as a family. For example, when you review where you spent your money, you can easily see what you worship or what’s your god just by seeing the largest expenditure. Ouch, I meant to warn you before I went to the left. Your calendar will reveal what means the most to you by seeing what you gave most of your time towards and show what you think the least of by the amount of time spent. It also tells why you were unable to accomplish the goals you haven’t completed. The marker we call a year is a gift to teach us about ourselves. Why not learn from it?
    
2. Who you wish to become in the new year?
   When you get real serious with yourself,  about what the review or evaluation says about yourself, then and only then are you ready to talk about what you can become. Who you can become. Just saying you had a bad year will never tell you how you can have a good year. In fact, normal people only repeat the cycle because they continue to do the same things. Without a review and reflection, you’re destined to repeat similar habits, and change is not coming. Do I have your attention yet? How can you use your year in review to help identify and fine-tune what you and your family are here for? What have you discovered about your life, your business this past year?

The Practice:
Now that I’ve given you the why, let’s discuss the how. How to perform a review or an evaluation of oneself. Here are three actions you should include when performing a review of last year.

1. Consider the timing.
   Timing is everything. You want to make sure you account for the time it takes and when to get it done. Otherwise, as fate, normal habits, will have it, you’ll not have the time or discipline to perform a meaningful evaluation. What’s the best time for you to review?
   Next, determine the time period you’d like to evaluate. I like an annual review, you might be a little more aggressive and wish to perform quarterly reviews. Decide on a time period and begin a habit of doing what ordinary people don’t, reflect. What time period are you reviewing?
2. Cover all areas of your life, your business.
   In order to make sure you get it all, you must learn how to organize. Use a template so that you never have to start from scratch. It’s good to work from the previous version of your evaluation if you have one, add to it, and even modify it. For us, we use two items: our annual family plan and our transaction’s binder. They both are arranged by departments, the departments that are active in the business called our life. We have identified the departments that make up the business of our home. They give us an idea of what areas we must manage in order to have a successful life. More importantly, it’s a tool to ensure we don’t forget or miss anything that’s important to how we do life.
3. Perform a review of your major accomplishments.
   It’s important to list, track, and celebrate your accomplishments. The reason you plan in the first place is so that you accomplish something. What good is accomplishing your goals if you have no way to recognize them, celebrate them, or highlight them. We can see many of our major life achievements using our digital photo storage, Google photos and the remainder from within our family plan. What can you begin using to track your significant accomplishments?

Have a reason for performing a review, that’s worth going through the exercise. There’s no reason to do anything unless it’s worthwhile. 

 Today is Friday!
I hope this message provides you with not only a reason why you should review your life last year, but also provide you with three actions to consider when performing this annual review of your life, your business. 

 Thanks for visiting kerryAclark.com. If you found value from this web-post, share it with your friends and family. 

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