Before you jump into goal-setting for next year, you ought to first conduct a year-end review.
At this time of year, many people begin to think about setting goals for the year to come. But they miss an important step: doing a review of the year that they’re just now finishing up. Jumping right into goal-setting is like picking up a map and plotting out your course without bothering to figure out where you are NOW!
Why do a year-end review?
It has a number of positive benefits that you may have overlooked:
- If you only look back at the new year’s resolutions that you didn’t keep, it generates negative emotions that can cloud your goal planning
- It gives you an opportunity to reflect on both your accomplishments and your challenges
- It helps you discern what’s been working and where you need to make changes
- It’s an opportunity to review your values and where you’ve been investing your time
- Looking back at the obstacles you’ve overcome gives you positive momentum that can help you as you turn your attention to setting goals for the coming year
How can a mind map help?
Naturally, a mind map is a perfect tool to review the last 11-12 months of your life – the successes and failures, the lessons learned and the seeds of opportunity that you uncovered this year.
I conducted research to determine what life coaches and success authors recommend to conduct an effective year-end review. I distilled the best of their advice into a mind map of creative prompts that can help you capture and organize your thoughts about the current year – and begin to extract lessons and learnings you can incorporate into next year’s goals.
Get my new year-end review template – it’s free!
This mind map template is available as a free download here:
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