It’s that time once again, y’all. Time to reflect on 2023. Evaluate what went well, what didn’t go well, what can be improved. Decide what you actually want. Come up with actionable strategies that you can implement to move towards what you want to achieve in 2024.
I did Mel Robbin’s “Make 2024 Your Best Year” Workbook to do this exercise this year and wow. I feel like her version did force me to dive a little deeper and highlighted a little bit more clarity for me than normal. I also felt like I took a little more action right away because she makes you reflect, evaluate, plan, and take a 5 minute action towards what you want to achieve in the new year. I highly recommend checking it out and the podcast that goes along with it, but if you’re just wanting cliff notes and a sample evaluation by taking a peek at mine…here’s what came up for me.
Reflecting on 2023
Take a look back and realize all that’s happened in 2023. The good and the bad.
What Went Well?
What were the highlights? What can you celebrate? What did you overcome? What did you love?
What Didn’t Go Well?
What was difficult? What do you wish you could do over? What challenged you? Can you find any silver linings?
What Can Be Improved?
Or – what I learned from Mel Robbins’ Best Year workbook: What Did You Learn?
Often when we think about what can be improved it is because of what we learned so I love this variation Mel Robbins offers. When I reflected on this, I really think that I’ve learned so much this year. My first half of the year I’d say was unlearning societal norms and traditional ways of thinking. Then the middle part of my year was learning a new industry. And the last half of the year was learning to trust myself more and also learning to give myself permission to go after what I want, no excuses. I also learned a lot about what I value, what I’m looking for, what I like, what I dislike, and so much more. I digress. But after you look at the good and the bad, the next step is to extrapolate what you learned and use it to discern what you want to improve upon in the future.
Preparing for 2024
As Mel said, now with the wisdom of 2023 we have a starting point to give us our direction we want to take in 2024.
What Are We Keeping, Deleting, and Launching?
You’re likely doing things you want to stop doing and change. You likely have good things you’re doing that you may want to continue or even should continue. You likely have new things you want to start or old things you want to bring back into your life.
What are they and from there, how do those play into what you want to achieve in 2024?
Define the Details of the Goal.
So often we’ll have lofty aspirations, but they never turn into goals or resolutions because we don’t identify the action steps to take to achieve that goal no matter how small they are. Sometimes we also don’t really set a definitive deadline or outcome to know that we are making progress towards what we want to achieve. Get really clear on the small 5-15 minute daily habits you’ll put in place, how you can take action now, how you’ll know you’ve arrived, etc. I like to do this by listing the 5 W’s: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. Then make sure you have some deadlines and check in/evaluation points.
What is Your Why?
You will not always be motivated to work on your goal or take the actions you know you should to achieve your goal. Research shows that we need a strong reason that we can dig into so we’ll do the things we need to do to achieve our goals anyways.
Another Pro Tip: Have The Decision Already Made
My other pro tip is having the decision already made for you. As someone who spins in analysis paralysis and is very indecisive and often fatigued by decision making, I cannot recommend enough having certain decisions already made for future you.
For example, have the workout plan already done so you don’t have to come up with a workout, you just do what’s on the agenda for the day.
When you don’t have the motivation, show up anyway even if it’s going through the motions, and you’ll at least have made some forward momentum towards your goal by doing the actions even if it wasn’t your best effort.
My 2023 Evaluation, Epiphanies, and Execution
After completing Mel’s workbook, it surprised me that once it was all done and on virtual paper how terrified I was. I had read a Fast Company article that my CEO shared with the company this morning and came to the conclusion that I’m both a Doer and a Thinker. In times of stress I make a to-do list and just crank through it. But also when I get overwhelmed, I like to stop and give myself space to get my thoughts in order. So I think I was so terrified that once the thinking was all done and the list was made, all that’s left to do is do the actions.
It confused me because these are the actions I supposedly want to take because these are the goals I supposedly wanted to make. So why am I so afraid to go after what I claim to want? Why is it that, now that it’s all laid out, I was hit with overwhelm and terror? My best guesses are that: it’s because I’ve run out of excuses; or it could be because these are bigger goals than I’ve set for myself in a long time; or because I’m terrified of failure. For all those reasons and more, I think my only solution I’ve come up with is to do it anyway. We can take action while being scared.
I think one of my biggest lessons in 2023 was to just keep showing up and I’m bringing that into 2024 with me and hoping to yield even bigger and better results by continuing to show up. They say that magic lies at the end of your comfort zone so I’m hoping that this terror I’m feeling now that I have roadmaps in place for my 2024 goals means that I’m about to step out of my comfort zone and into my next evolution and that the best is yet to come.
All that to say, I hope you’re proud of what you accomplished in 2023, learned something, and I’m wishing you the best of luck and some 24k Magic! ✨