It’s a new year, and I have to say, it feels great to turn the page! Every year I start out with ideas and a few plans, but they don’t always work out. Rather than wandering along with no sense of purpose, I’d like to start this year with a vision. So this year I did an annual review to get clarity and make plans. My main aims are to have more joy and experience progress in my faith life, how about you? I’d love to share some fun and creative methods that helped me in my reflection on the past year. You can use them to find a joyful vision for your life too.
Take Stock With the Right Mindset
Before taking stock of the past year, I decided in advance to be peaceful and gracious about it. The past is done, and there are usually regrets as well as happy reflections. Deciding to not to get bogged down about my real or perceived failures made it easier to look back. It’s a valuable chance to learn from the good and the bad. The whole point of doing a review will be lost if it becomes a destructive critique. This is a chance to celebrate what was great, and give grace for what wasn’t so great. Hopefully starting out with a positive mindset will set the tone for the new year.
Mine Your Personal Source Material
My favourite method for doing a yearly review is to use the data that surrounds me. Each year whirls by so fast. It’s not easy to remember the significant things that happened, let alone make sense of them! Happily there are some sources of material that make it easy and fun to do a personal reflection on the year that was. Just as a book keeper can easily go to spreadsheets or receipts to crunch the numbers, you will have digital and physical sources of information you can use to gain insight about your life. They’re right in front of you, even though you may never have thought of them as a resource before. The following are some of the sources I used to discover the trends of my life, and to gain insights. You can use them to form a plan for the year ahead too.
Contemplate Your Calendar
Call me old-school, but I still keep a physical calendar alongside my phone calendar! Although I’m not a person who gets a kick out of listing and scheduling, I find a paper calendar essential. It helps me plan and organise my days, weeks, months, and the year. On contemplating last year’s diary, I saw flurries of activity followed by big gaps when my planning was virtually non-existent. There were spontaneous sketches and plenty of post-it notes during times of intense activity.
The main purpose of my calendar last year was to plan my work flow and personal activities. On the plus side, I got a lot done using my calendar. I also managed to turn up for meetings on the correct day (am I the only person who has been known to turn up a week early for meetings!?) On the down side of my calendar reflection, I can see that I often failed to plan when I had too many conflicting demands…just when I most needed to plan! This is probably why I battled stress levels last year. It’s easy to see I need to do more consistent planning this year.
Get the Most from your Tracking Planner
Last year, I trialled a planner that included wellbeing prompts. I have to confess, it turned out I’m not that interested in recording how many glasses of water I drink each day! I rarely tracked my dinner plans or moods either. Others no doubt enjoy making note of exercise, meals, moods, hobbies, etc, and use their tracking to reinforce new habits. If you did that last year, you have useful data you can use to reflect on your habits, and discover how close you got to fulfilling wellbeing goals. You can use that information to reinforce good habits, and also to check if some areas of your life are more dominant than you’d like them to be.
Because I mainly use a calendar to organise my work flow, as well as meetings and events, it should be easy to keep on top of it all with a little planning. But what about my workload? This year I need to make sure I have time for the people and activities I love, not just my work. Because I work from home, it’s easy to let work invade other areas of life. After reflecting on the mess that was my calendar last year, I realise I need to calendar more down time. If I plan monthly and review my calendar on Mondays, I should be able to stay focused AND make sure I have healthy down-time.
Photographs Are a Reflection of Your Life
Another way of doing a yearly review is to look through your photographs. If you have a smart phone, your photo roll is a great source of insight about your year. When you scroll through your photographs and clips, you may notice trends around what you consistently found worthy of recording. Doing a yearly review of your photographs will give you a feel for the social and personal events that were most impacting last year. For me, it’s a joy to look back at some fun outings with my family, when I was trying out new video recording techniques. We all enjoyed looking at the videos that my phone automatically put to music. I’m looking forward to sharing photos and videos with my family, as well as in my work, this year.
Contemplating Your Playlists and Musical Choices
Surveying your musical choices is a great way to gain insight about your year. If you use a music app, you probably have a way of doing an annual review of what you listened to last year. I enjoy the way Spotify does a wrap-up of my listening habits, and tells me who my favourite artists and songs of the year were. Sometimes it’s a surprise! I learn a lot each year about what my musical head space was, and also how it correlated with my artistic and spiritual trends. This past year I listened to a lot of reflective instrumental background music. It was the right soundtrack for a busy year when I needed calm and focus. Because I mainly listened to music when creating art and driving, it was important not to get distracted.
Those listening habits are likely to continue in the new year, as I will still be doing lots of creative work. However, after a reflection on my musical choices I noticed that last year I got bored with my instrumental music playlists toward the end of the year. I had a craving for more worship music in my listening. So I was very happy when I recently stumbled upon some new worship music styles and artists that I’ll be listening to in the year ahead. I made a new playlist to make sure I can keep track and have a smooth workflow. Some of them will pop up on my Instagram reels and stories, like this one.
Take Stock of Your Books
I have the free app Goodreads on my phone, mainly because my son encouraged me to get it. I’m so glad I did. Last year I joined him in doing a reading challenge, which I JUST managed to finish by the year’s end. While I mostly read non-fiction, this year I had a good reason to read several fiction books. I started going to a monthly book club! On reflection, I realised that book-reading brought me together with family and friends last year, an outcome I hadn’t thought of. I love how that turned out so I’m intentionally including reading as a social as well as a learning priority this year.
Leaf Through Your Journals
Probably the best sources of insight for the previous year are any journals you have kept. I usually start new journals at the beginning of a year, so it’s easy to do a yearly assessment and to see a progression. Each of my annual journals have their own flavour. My activities, emotions, creative inspiration (or lack of it!) are all on display.
This past year I completed two journals. The first one was my typical faith journal with written and creative elements. The second was a landscape painting journal that was a new expression of faith for me. Both journals were a great way of spending time meditatively in God’s presence. Throughout the year I used my journals to receive revelation and process new ideas. Now, on doing an annual review, I can gain even more insight by observing trends that emerged.
Reviewing my landscape journal feels so good! I learned a new skill, something I enjoy doing. It helped me to slow down and rest in God each day I did a sketch. It also I felt the honouring of God and his creation in it. As the year went on, I discovered a new love and joy for the place where I live, and that seemed to spill over into other areas of life. Not only that, I could see joy in others as I shared the images I’d created. Because this journal blesses me, and also others, I will definitely keep on doing some form of purely creative journaling in the new year.
Reflecting On What Didn’t Go Well
By contrast, my faith journal is not as exciting this year. Because I did two journals last year, my main faith journal was more basic in style. There are plenty of gaps in the timeline. When I did make journal spreads, they were often full of questions and struggles, because I was using the journal to find a way forward. Many times writing out some scriptures and thoughts brought the clarity I needed. To be honest, that’s good enough for me. For me, journaling is not primarily about creating a beautiful end result. It’s a method of growing in faith. So it makes sense that my faith journal records my ups and downs.
This annual reflection reminds me that imperfections are normal. No one can do everything at an optimal level. I want to continue journaling in a joyful and peaceful expression of my love of God. So I will probably accept that this year I will do less journaling in some journals than others.
Choose What to Reinforce and What to Release
As I look back over the past year, I see plenty of gaps in the things I wanted to accomplish. Last year was challenging for me. Building the Gospel Women online ministry took most of the year and demanded a lot of new skills. There were times I was not very present for my family and friends, and that’s something I don’t want to continue this year.
While my work this year is likely to increase rather than decrease, I have to ask myself what will get my attention and what won’t? On reflection of the past year, I can easily see the things that I value most. In order for me to do those things, I will have to be disciplined in other areas. I decided I will limit my social media use so I still have time for the spiritual, familial, social and creative pursuits that are most important to me. I will also do more planning to make sure I maintain perspective.
Use Your Reflections to Vision a New Year
Have you got a vision for the next year? If you spend a little time contemplating your many sources from the past year, you will be able to form a plan for what lies ahead. With a little insight, you can make choices about what’s most important to you. You will be free to make time for the creative and spiritual pursuits that are most satisfying and joyful for you and those you love. Maybe this can be the year that you devote some time to faith journaling, if you haven’t already. This article on Bible journaling explains all the benefits you can gain from this amazing spiritual practice. I’d love to hear how you start your new year with direction, please share your thoughts in the comments section below!
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