A Past Year Review

When creating resolutions, I've discussed at length how I envision my future self when determining who I want to be and therefore what I want to accomplish in one year's time. I find this works really well when you already have a good idea of what change(s) you'd like to make in your life or what areas you'd like to improve.

However if you're generally satisfied with your life, it may be hard to envision yourself one year from now that's much different than your current self. (Which is also a really good feeling.) A better approach then may be to perform a Past Year Review a la Tim Ferriss, to identify small changes you'd like to make or to capitalize on what brought you the most joy.

To do this, review all 52 weeks from the prior year and think about each event, meeting, date, person, etc. that you attended or interacted with.* Then think about whether each experience triggered a positive or negative emotion. Identify what produced the most reliable or powerful positive peaks in emotion. These are experiences or people you want to incorporate into your life in the future. For example, maybe thinking about a camping trip with family or a music festival with friends brings a big smile to your face.

Then identify what the most negative experiences or events for you were and think about why. How can you avoid these events or people in the future? Tim Ferriss even recommends putting the "negative leaders" on a "NOT-TO-DO-LIST" and posting the list where you can see it daily. He goes on to say:

"These are the people and things you know make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense."

Essentially, resist the urge to people-please. If it doesn't make you happy and you're not obligated to do it i.e. it's not your job, then pledge to say "no thanks" to it in 2024.

I typically perform an informal annual review, usually by looking back through photos, but I find this more formal method appealing. I've already found myself making mental notes recently of some peak positive activities from the past year that I want to continue in 2024.

Recently I hosted a holiday party for a local women's organization. I used to host an event for them about once a month but then Summer came and I felt like I didn't have the bandwidth. But this recent event helped me remember just how much I enjoy bringing women together, helping them form a connection to their community and hopefully exposing them to outdoor activities they wouldn't normally try on their own. An all-female raft trip that I organized also comes to mind as an activity I REALLY enjoyed. And I recently realized just how much I miss reading but don't make time for it. (That also might be the Winter and short days talking.)

Either way, a formal "look back" can help you identity or re-remember what activities and people in your life bring you joy and what. . . don't.

So how does this work into creating identifiers for an Action Plan? I thought you'd never ask! 😜 Once you identify your peak positive experiences, there's a multitude of ways you could work that into your Action Plan. For example, hosting women-centered events makes me happy and if of one of my "identifiers" for 2024 is being happy, a goal or metric for continuing to do this would fall under that resolution.

Example: I am Happy. Goal = Host 6 women-centered events in 2024

Alternatively, I could use a phrase that's more specific like "I'm the type of person that organizes women-centered events." In which case, it's obvious that hosting "x" number of events could be a goal for that identifier as well. I could also use a noun like "leader" or "community organizer" to describe myself. If I want to increase my reading, maybe I could proclaim myself a reader and then one of my goals to help me identify as a reader could be to read 2 books per month, for example. Once you identify with your self-proclaimed title, whatever it is, it should become easier to accomplish goals that reinforce that title.

Whether you're looking back or looking forward for your resolutions, I hope this helps you envision who you want to be in 2024.

*This obviously requires that you keep an updated calendar, and if you don't . . . maybe make it your resolution? And if you want to get really nerdy with it, you can take time to quantify your happiness each day and keep a log of it in excel like Jim Collins does, which will prove very helpful at the end of 2024.