Planning for a New Year - Review, Redo, Renew

I absolutely LOVE the week between Christmas and New Years. The main fireworks (Christmas) are over and there is this wonderful quiet week-long lull before the last little firecracker (New Year's).

Frost on a window

It is also the time when my husband and I individually and collectively review the past year, re-establish what our priorities and goals are and renew our commitment to them. If you have read my post October Review & Renew you are already familiar with the format I use to record and track my progress through the year concerning various areas of my life.

Individually we review the year. I look through the journal where I have set aside one or two pages for each of the following categories: Finances, Health and Fitness, Spirituality, Marriage, Family, Creativity, Work, Home and Community Service. During the year I have been recording progress made or the lack thereof in each category.

For instance in January I have recorded anything that has contributed to the above categories which included meeting with our financial wizard to review retirement planning (Financial), having my annual check-up (Health), and making cookies for an elderly woman who is shut-in (Community Service). In May I began my blog (Creativity) and we paid off our mortgage (Financial). In August we moved my mother-in-law from Ottawa to our town and spent the rest of the year helping her to get settled, (Family). Every month has many entries both big and small. This allows me to have an honest and more complete assessment of the year. It is so easy to forget all the small achievements and gestures and to feel that nothing of any worth was accomplished.

Winter Berry

The next step is to really feel the emotions associated with the review. Do I feel sad, frustrated or excited over any lack of accomplishment or area of my life? For instance I feel a little sad that I didn't do a very good job of protecting my creative time. I left myself vulnerable to other people's wants/needs sometimes at the expense of maintaining a positive environment for creativity. I need to listen to the emotions to know where to make adjustments.

Maybe the emotion is indifference. Something that felt important in January may no longer hold my interest or circumstances may have changed so that it is no longer a factor (I had planned on working 2 - 3 days a week at the high school but by September I decided to leave the job entirely).

Next I let myself dream, what would I like to have accomplished in the next 12 months? Where do I want to be? What do I want to be doing? What can I get excited about? What established habits have I grooved that I need to maintain that allow me to function at my peak? (My spiritual, eating and exercise routines help to keep me physically, mentally and spiritually healthy and therefore able to dream about what might be next.)

When my husband and I have our reviews in place we meet to go over everything together. We look at the good, the bad and the ugly. We share our achievements and our failures. We ask "What went right? What went wrong? and Why?" This can take a while as we both like to talk and while we sometimes get off topic it often produces interesting insights.

Finally we record our dreams, desires and plans for the new year asking "How can we encourage and support one another? What can we accomplish together?"

Some people would consider this entire exercise sheer agony. I agree it sounds intense but the reality is that it works for us and when something works the rewards outweigh the effort. For example, years ago with kids at home and working, I was happy to make it to the gym twice a week. Now I see that hauling my butt out of bed and going to the gym every weekday morning has given me a level of fitness that exceeds what I had ten years ago. Yes it takes effort and requires establishing a routine and protecting the routine from being sabotaged either by myself or others. That is why going at 6:30 am works, I'm on autopilot and the rest of the world is sleeping.

It's December 28 and I'm still in the "dreaming, what could be" stage of the exercise. I'm feeling the emotions and letting them lead me to form routines that will allow me to be truer to myself and to more joyfully do the work that I'm called to do in my corner of the world. 

Thank you for stopping by My Turquoise Kettle Life today.

Wishing you a new year full of wonderful accomplishments and above all, love,

Sandra