How to Review the Last 12 Months: Do an End of Year Review

How were the last 12 months for you?

Well, here we are at the end of another year.

With Christmas just around the corner, now’s a great time to review the last 12 months and assess how it went.

If you regularly keep a journal, that’s a great place to start the review, because everything you need, should be right in front of you. And, if you don’t keep a journal… You’re really missing out 🙂

I talk about journals and the huge benefit they have, in other posts. But If you don’t have one, for this exercise, you can just use a notebook and a pencil.

Unfortunately, without a record to help you, you might have to put more time into remembering the things that impacted your year.

 

How to review the last 12 Months

So, let’s start with what a life review is, and how you should go about doing one for yourself.

Well really, it’s just a look back over the last 12 months.

Taking the time to see what significant things happened to you, or happened that had an effect on you. Then, by analyzing those experiences, making a plan for the next 12 months.

Next, we’ll take a look at the four things you should do during this review.

 

1. Make a note of the significant things that happened to you over the last 12 months.

   • The definition of ‘significant‘ is different for everyone, so work your way back through the last year, a month at a time. Then, as you go through, try to remember the events that either boosted you in some way, or brought you down. Then make a note of those for later.

2. What are the lessons you can take from those experiences?

   • Now you have you list of events, go through each one in turn. For each one, ask yourself what you can learn from the experience.

3. Make some decisions about what you can do in the next 12 months to improve your life a bit (or a lot 😉).

   • So, now you have a list to work with, the next step is to work out how to make use of those lessons.
   • What can you do, to improve your chances of success in the areas that were disappointing?
   • How can you use the areas of success, to repeat those results in other areas?
   • What can you stop doing, that will make better results easier to achieve?

4. Make a plan for the next 12 months

   • Finally, start to build a plan of action to make those lessons work for you during the next 12 months.

 

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

~ Abraham Lincoln

 

Provided you spend the time to do it properly, reviewing the last 12 months, before embarking on the next 12, will make all the difference.

Give it a go, then let me know how you got on. And finally, I wish you all, a happy and prosperous new year 🙂

Let me know in the comments if you’ve got any questions.