How to plan your year

This is not a post about new year’s resolutions, mostly because I’ve never been able to stick to anything I called a new year’s resolution. I’ve learned that I need a combination of strategy + support to develop new habits and create lasting transformation.

A key part of my process is my year-end review / year-to-come visioning / how to plan your year. Let’s do this together!

1) Review the highs. Slowly. Enjoy the memories and the feelings that are evoked. Savour them! Contemporary neuroscience teaches us that intentional focus on the sensations created by positive experiences (for 10-20 seconds!) helps us to go beyond ‘positive thinking’, to actually change our neural pathways.

2) Review the lows. Gently. Acknowledge your experiences, and rather than just feeling yucky, shift the focus to ask yourself: What did I learn from this?

3) How do you want to feel in the new year? Go back to the highs. Brainstorm. Use markers, coloured pencils, collage… If you don’t have those things lying around, it’s okay! Just use a ball-point pen. Whatever is easy in the moment.

4) Look at your words. Are there patterns? What themes emerge?

5) Choose ONE word. This is your focus for the year to come. Put it on a post-it note, on your desktop, on your fridge door, on your bathroom mirror.

5) Look at your focus word. What activities can you implement in the new year to feel more of this? Pull out your planner for the new year and SCHEDULE IT IN! Make regular dates for yourself. What pockets of time do you have in your day that you can use to reconnect with your focus? (What can you read on transit, listen to  in the car?)

Happy visioning!

I’d love to hear about your experience with this process! Do you have other strategies that you love to use?

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