A Simple Year in Review: 12 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Set Goals

It is tempting to jump straight to new goals in January. But goals set without looking back tend to repeat the same patterns. A short year in review takes one quiet evening and gives your goals something solid to stand on.

How to do it

Pick an evening with no deadline. Get a pen, a drink, and your calendar and photos from the past year, because they remember things you will not. Write short answers. You are not writing a report. These are notes for yourself.

Twelve questions

1. What are three things I am glad happened this year?
2. What was the hardest part of the year, and what got me through it?
3. What did I learn that I did not know twelve months ago?
4. Which month felt best, and what made it that way?
5. Who did I spend time with, and who do I want to spend more time with?
6. What did I finish that I am proud of?
7. What did I start and not finish, and do I still want to?
8. Where did my time and money actually go?
9. What did I say yes to that I wish I had said no to?
10. What did I want to do but put off?
11. Which parts of my life feel in balance, and which feel neglected?
12. If I could keep only one habit from this year, which would it be?

Turn answers into a short list

When you are done, read through your notes and sort them into three lists. Keep: things that worked and that you want to continue. Stop: things that drained you or did not matter. Start: things you want to try. Three to five items in each list is plenty.

Then choose a few goals

With your lists in front of you, pick a small number of goals. Three is a good number to begin with. For each one, write why it matters to you, the first small step you can take this week, and what could get in the way. A goal with a first step is much easier to begin than one that is only an idea.

Finally, put your goals on a calendar. Spreading them across the twelve months keeps you from trying to start everything on January 1.

Do it on paper if you like paper

Our Year in Review and New Year Goals Workbook has pages for all of this: year in numbers, highlights, lessons, month by month, life areas, keep-stop-start, five goal worksheets, a 12-month roadmap, habits and a note to your future self. You can try three pages first with the free Year in Review sample pages.

A year in review is a personal reflection tool. There is no right way to do it, and nothing here is a promise about results.

You can also browse every free sample on the Free Printables page, or see all digital downloads.