This new year ritual post is the third post in a series with ideas to help you start your new year strong, and with a renewed sense of purpose and motivation besides the traditional “new year resolution.” I hope you’ll find the thing that works best for you. If you missed post No. 1 you can read it here and post No. 2 here.
A New NYR: New Year Ritual
This new year ritual is all about taking time to look back so you can move forward with more clarity, intention and strategy.
History is doomed to repeat itself if we ignore it, right?
We know how this goes; we’ve seen it play out in the news…
And we feel it ourselves, you know, when we do that thing… again…
So how do we keep from repeating our own history?
Or let me rephrase: How do we keep from repeating the bad parts and only repeat the good?…
The Secret: We have to look back before we move forward.
I want to share with you a new year ritual I’ve started doing at the end of each year (or the beginning of the next one… (even if it’s already February)… it doesn’t matter when you do it, just that you do it).
This new year ritual is all about looking back on the past year, reflecting on what you’ve accomplished, what went well, what didn’t go so well, and setting your course for the year ahead with those learnings in mind.
There are 4 key goals:
- Reflect and take inventory of 2019
- Note: what were the highlights?
- Note: what were the lessons you learned?
- Design your routine (daily, weekly, monthly) for 2020
This year a friend sent me this workbook which I liked using so I thought I’d put it here in case you want to use it too.
If you don’t like the structure, you can keep it casual.
Open a journal and start writing…
- What went well in 2019?
- What did you accomplish?
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
Hit all the areas – this goes for more than just work. I’m talking:
- Health
- Diet and food
- Relationships
- Self-care
- Home
- Community
- Family
- Finances
- Career
Go by each category and write it out: what worked and what didn’t in 2019.
Let it flow out. Be honest with yourself. Don’t judge it. There’s no right or wrong here. You have nothing to lose, only so much to gain by bringing it to the light. Because when you can see it clearly, you can change it.
When you’re done with that part, answer these questions:
- What were the highlights of 2019?
- What are the key lessons I learned in 2019?
- What am I most grateful for in 2019?
Write down everything that pops into your mind.
Now you’re going to design your 2020 routine.
Turn to a fresh sheet of paper and now for each category you just wrote about from 2019, write out what you will continue doing that worked and you will change that didn’t work.
Since you’re reading this, I’m gonna assume the area of health is particularly important to you (like me), so I encourage you to expand this one and think about:
- How do you want to feel in your body? Describe the energy, vitality, clarity you want to feel. Focus only on what you want (not what you don’t want)
- What food and diet changes do you want to make?
- What self-care can you commit to?
Now for the routine…
Once you’ve identified what you want to start doing, think about how you can start incorporating these things into your routines.
- What would you want to do daily?
- What would you do weekly and monthly?
Write these as if you are absolutely without a doubt going to do them, or better yet, write them as if you already are!
For example: “I start every morning with a cup of hot lemon water before eating or drinking anything else.” or “I run every morning before getting ready to go to work.”
Bonus points: Play your routine like a movie in your head. Research shows that visualizing something makes our unconscious mind think it’s already done, so we internalize and identify as someone who does that thing much faster.
Pretty sweet ninja mind trick.
How’d it work for you?
I’d love to know if you give this exercise or any part of it a go…. Share with us down below in the comments – tell us when you do it, what you thought of it and how you’re setting yourself up for a kick ass 2020.
When you have a plan to work from things get so much easier. And when you add support, it gets EVEN EASIER.
That’s what I’m here for.
I’m here to help you make your 2020 plan happen. Schedule a free strategy session with me here and let’s get after it. What are you waiting for?
P.S. I’m here to guide you in bringing your 2020 goals to life, and doing it in a way that fits into YOUR real life and makes it easy-peasy. None of this no pain, no gain BS. You can live your healthiest life and enjoy the heck out of it too. Schedule a free strategy session with me here so you can start creating the life of your dreams.
