A year gone by is a layer on my portrait. Year after year, I add layers to build myself. I, like everybody else, am a work in progress.
People come into our lives and leave, and they carry a shade of ours in their memory. They hold that impression tight, and when they come back after years, they search for that shade. Many times they find few traces to prove their point that I am that shade, and many other times they find other unfamiliar shades and complain that I changed.
Yes, I changed, and so has everyone else. No human on this earth is the same as they were a few years ago or a few hours ago. Let’s get adjusted to this flowing river called Persona, which looks like the same river we saw many years ago, but we do not realize that every moment gallons of water are being gushed in and out of the river to refresh itself as a living and breathing river.
Same is our persona, which changes every moment with new experiences, learning, and hopes, and every moment many unlearning, failed attempts, and tiny habits change.
Now we can let the persona build as we react to the situations that arise, challenges pose, and opportunities rise, or fine-tune our approach and respond to the situations proactively.
The inspiration for this article comes from Spotify, Youtube, and other apps that send you a wrap-up of your year. It shows you where you spent time and who the individual creators were who really shaped you this year.
Similarly, let’s create a wrap-up of our year by reflecting on it. We do not need any AGI to do that for us; we do it using our mind, feelings, and time.
Here it goes:
Find a quiet place and press the pause button. What you learned and what you are most proud of this year will help you really understand, out of all the different learning and activities, what really stays with you after a year.
Remember, if you can’t recall, it never happened.
Now find out who that person or set of people is who really helped you the most. Don’t get surprised if you find the person popping up is not the one you thought was so significant.
Find the strengths of yours that helped you succeed and grow this year. After all these things, there is one thing that you wish you had done differently.
Now it’s time to play it back. This part is better done with a friend or companion. You are going to now summarize your year by describing it in three words, the most frustrating and fulfilling time or activity, the time that you consider the best part, your blocker beliefs, and useful reading or learning.
Fast forward to the next year around this time: Now comes the time to define the general guidelines for next year. One learning goal, one habit, one mentor, one whom you would support, and one mistake that you would avoid.
This is a very powerful reflection session you can do for yourself. Here is the mind map I created to help with this activity.
Create your own “Year in Review” Mind Map
This blog is based on HBR article How to create your own ‘Year in Review’.
Most of the time, people who make resolutions don’t keep them because they are based on feelings and moral principles instead of what they believed last year. The approach described above is a better way to make the most of the new year.
Please feel free to get in touch with me if you’d like help writing your “year in review.” I’d be glad to help.
Life as Sakti 