A Year in Review

Year in Review

Hello Friends!

One of my very favourite things is the End of Year Review!! I find it so powerful to reflect upon what happened over the year, and to take a step back and zoom out to see the big picture. What did I accomplish? What were the big wins of the year? What lessons did I learn?

I love this quote from James Clear. The answer to this question tells you a LOT.

“How much overlap is there between what you say is important to you and how you spent your attention over the last year?”

Pretty impactful, no?

REFLECTION

I return to this article year after year to guide my Year in Review reflections. The questions are timeless and really help me to see clearly where I put my energy and focus in the past year, and what I want to prioritize and learn in the coming year.  Questions like “What were the gifts of 2021?” and “What do you need to let go of to start 2022 fresh?” are great journaling prompts too.
 
It’s also fun to recapture some of the key moments of the year – are there any themes? These 15 questions are a great way to review the year.

Reviewing the year and setting intentions for the New Year is something we have done as a family for the last 10 years. Our New Year’s Day tradition is to do a review (similar to the photo above) and then to re-read what we wrote last year. It’s been fascinating to see the development of the children’s goals and it has also been a really useful motivational tool throughout the year. Kids do well with accountability too! 😉 This is the family-friendly Year in Review we use.

GRATITUDE

Every Sunday night, each family member writes down the best thing(s) that happened during that week. Then we read them aloud and celebrate each other’s wins for the week.
 
On January 1st, we go out for lunch as a family and we reread all those little pieces of paper out loud together as a family and remember all the wonderful things we had to be grateful for over the last year. 
 
This is now the 5th year we’ve done this and it has made all of us so much more aware of how much we have to be thankful for!
 
Between our Gratitude Jars and our Year in Review, our New Year’s Day lunch is one of the highlights of the holiday season for me! 💜

BEST OF 2021

I read a lot this year. On average I read about 50 books a year; this year I read 72! And there were many gems in there. These were my top reads of 2021:

I also expanded my non-fiction reading this year and covered a lot of really inspiring, interesting, and eye-opening topics. My favourite non-fiction reads were:

And no newsletter best of would be complete without some podcast recommendations! 😄 These were my favourite podcasts:

Thank you for being such an integral part of my year! I really love writing and sharing this newsletter with you!! I love how much we have interacted, discussed and shared over the past year, and I am very much looking forward to even more of that in the New Year!
 
I wish you and yours a very very happy holiday season, and a happy, healthy and fulfilled 2022!

Hugs,

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