It’s fair to say that 2021 has been one heck of a year. COVID is still around, and chaos seems to find us wherever we go. With that being said, let’s finish this year off on a positive note!
Although this year may have felt negative and overwhelming, it’s important to reflect on the positive aspects that meant a lot to you. This way you can end this year with feelings of happiness and thankfulness, as well as excitement for what’s to come in 2022.
Reflecting on Your Year
When was the last time you thought about your year and what you’ve achieved so far? As people, we grow accustomed to looking at everything through a negative light. Now is the time to shed light on all your accomplishments this year, as well as provide constructive criticism for yourself.
Find Your Process
We all practice reflection differently. When you’re reflecting, you need to find a process that works best for you. This includes the environment you’re in and how you record your reflection. There are many ways to practice self-reflection.
Express Thankfulness and Happiness
When reflecting on your year, you may get into the habit of bringing up all the negatives, but it’s important to reflect on what you’re grateful for. This makes you look back on your year with thankfulness and happiness, instead of regret and disappointment.
Ask Yourself Questions
One of the best ways to reflect on your year is by asking yourself questions. These questions cause you to actually think about your year and what you’ve achieved. When you formulate your questions, ensure that you’re reflecting on both the positives and negatives of your year. These are some questions you could use for your self-reflection:
What were my biggest achievements?
Did you learn a healthy habit?
Do I have any regrets?
What have I learned about myself and life?
What are the highlights of my year?
You should answer all these questions honestly, and take time on each one. Once you answer all of your questions, you can remember your year and how you behaved throughout it. This gives you a good idea of how 2021 really was for you!
Give Yourself Constructive Criticism
Although the aim is to end your year on a positive note, it’s also important to acknowledge your downfalls. In order to grow as an individual and succeed in all paths of life, you need to be aware of weaknesses and downfalls.
Once you’ve reflected on your year, it’s important to consider the negative elements of your year and how they could be improved. These are some tips on how to give yourself constructive criticism to help you improve:
Focus on your behavior and actions. Often when people criticize themselves, they take it too personally. Criticism isn’t a personal attack on your characteristics and attributes, but rather a commentary on your behavior and actions that could’ve been improved.
Use self-compassion. Although you’re reflecting on what you’ve done wrong, you should do it with compassion. You can be compassionate by understanding your mistakes, forgiving yourself, and understanding you’re only human. This helps you to look at criticism with a positive attitude, as it’s something that’s there to help you rather than harm you.
Consider what you could’ve done better. The whole purpose of constructive criticism is to help you to improve, so you should provide valuable advice to yourself. By giving solutions to how you could have improved or prevented your mistakes, you’re less likely to repeat them in the future.
How to Make Your New Year's Resolutions
You’ve probably made new year's resolutions at some point in your life, but they didn’t go according to plan. You stick to them for a few days, but after a month or two, those goals are thrown out the window. Why won’t those goals and plans for your new year stick?
Believe it or not, you may have been doing your new year’s resolutions wrong this whole time! These are some tips that’ll help you to make effective goals that are implemented in your new year.
How to Set Goals
The most important part of your new year’s resolution are the goals that you set. This is the foundation of this activity, so it’s important to learn how to set effective goals you can accomplish. To create the perfect goals, you should use the SMART formula.
Specific. Make your goal for the new year specific, so you feel more capable of achieving. If you make goals that are too vague and long, you’ll find that you feel less motivated to accomplish them.
Measurable. Give yourself a goal that can be measured. Being able to measure your progress as you work toward achieving it helps you to stay motivated and excited for the end goal!
Achievable. Although it’s important to shoot for the stars, you also need to ensure that your goals are something that you can realistically achieve. If you choose a goal you can’t achieve, you may end up disappointed and discouraged.
Relevant. Your goal should also be something that is relevant to a bigger goal in your life. This helps you to slowly work toward a bigger accomplishment that’s really important to you. However, it is good to have random goals at times, as this helps you to learn new things in life.
Time-bound. One of the most important parts of a goal is to make it time-bound. Giving yourself a time frame helps to keep you focused and determined, as well as prevent procrastination.
Tips to Stick to Your Resolutions
Once you’ve set your goals, it’s vital to find ways to stick to them. You need to stay committed and stick to your plans, instead of letting your goals phase out as the new year excitement fizzles out. These are some tips that will help you to stay on track:
Don’t make too many. You don’t need to make an extremely long list of goals to feel like you’ve accomplished enough. Stick to a few solid goals that are valuable to you.
Find a support system. Informing your family and friends on your new year’s resolutions is a great way for you to stay on track. They can keep you accountable and motivated.
Remember that mistakes and slip-ups aren’t failures. If you find yourself making mistakes and backtracking, this isn’t the end of the world. We’re not perfect and consistent all the time, so don’t let that ruin your momentum and motivation.
Set Goals for financial peace. At the end of the day, the goal is to always find financial peace. Ensure that you set effective financial goals that will get you one step closer toward achieving financial peace.
In Summary
While 2021 may have felt like it was not your year, you don’t have to remember it that way. When you reflect on your year, consider all the amazing things you’ve accomplished, all the bumps in the road that have made you a better person, and how much you’ve grown!
If you still feel like 2021 wasn’t great to you, guest what? A new year is coming for you to rectify yourself! Make 2022 the year you surprise yourself and accomplish all your new year’s resolutions, as well as many more accomplishments.
Written by Matthew Delaney
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