Step-by-Step Guide to Your Personal Year in Review

As we navigate the year’s end, we’re often left wondering how the year passed so quickly. This season offers us an invitation to slow down, put the past into perspective and set new goals. A personal self assessment is a wonderful tool to reflect upon and celebrate this year’s achievements while igniting insight into how we want to shape the next year of our lives. 

Conducting a Year in Review deepens self-discovery and awareness by checking in with our beliefs and values, embracing strengths and weaknesses, exploring our passions and reflecting on personal and professional growth and expansion. 

The closing of the holiday season is the perfect time for this exercise. It forces us to slow down and ground ourselves, while providing an opportunity for mindfulness and conscious living. A Year in Review encourages us to embrace an attitude of gratitude while reflecting on the events, people, successes and growth that shaped our year. 

You Might Also Be Interested In:

• One Word to Start The New Year with Intention

• 10 Reflection Questions To Ask Yourself For the New Year

• The Best Planners for Women in 2026

Evaluate to Elevate

As you evaluate and reflect on the past, I encourage you to look through a lens of love, compassion and curiosity. Apply the lessons and wisdom of the past as you design the year to come.  

Instead of reflecting on the past with guilt, shame or judgment — “I shoulda, coulda, woulda” — treat yourself with honesty and compassion. A compassionate perspective allows you to consider the ways you learned, grew and were redirected, and where you can step into who you desire to be on the path to achieving your goals. Honestly assess where you’ve been living on autopilot — through thoughts, habits, feelings and actions — and focus on redirecting your daily life into one of  design versus default. 

Whether I am working on my own Year in Review or helping clients on their own path, I find it beneficial to use a holistic view, reflecting on the areas of relationships, career, purpose, faith and spirituality, finances, health and overall well-being. 

Here are some questions to get started:

1. What goals, dreams and desires did I have this past year?
2. Did I reach those goals and dreams or did they change throughout the year?
3. Did I have a shift in my perspective?
4. What circumstances supported or prevented me from achieving my goals?
5. What strategies or steps to success can I repeat?
6. What took up too much of my time or where did I not give myself enough time? 
7. What skills did I learn and where did I grow?
8. Did I develop any new habits and routines?
9. What growing pains did I experience and how did they shape me through the year? 
10. Did I take time to celebrate my wins and successes?
11. What are some highlights, simple pleasures and big blessings from this past year?

As you lean into a lens of compassion, it is beneficial to reflect on each month and pick one thing you’re celebrating, while also examining one lesson learned. This exercise will help you shift from self judgment and negativity to a perspective of growth, celebration and improvement.

Your Roadmap to Results

After you’ve reflected on each question, it’s time to utilize the lessons of the past and design your roadmap for the year ahead.

Before we get started, I want to share another tip — the art of letting go! Say goodbye to negative or limiting beliefs, expectations of others, unhealthy habits and self-sabotage.  Instead, ask yourself if your choices, actions and habits are helping you live the life you desire. 

As you craft your roadmap, consider the personal and professional goals you have for the new year. Who do you need to become in order to achieve those results? We often picture our future results within the current version of ourselves, yet our goals may require us to stretch, evolve and elevate. What will that look like? How does she show up? How does she take action? Who is in her community and where does she find support? What habits does she have? What’s her lifestyle like? Are you ready to elevate into your “next season self?”

When working with clients, I often talk about future tripping versus future memories. The first is an autopilot response “I will be happy when.” The second is a visualization practice that taps into our creativity, joy, dreams and desires. Once you have set a goal, imagine and embody how it feels to achieve that goal. Put yourself in that celebration and success.  This positive exercise gets us excited about our goals and embraces our “next season self” as opposed to the negative self-talk and lack of belief that often talks us right out of our goals. 

As you start designing your roadmap to results, think about the small steps you’ll take towards those bigger goals. What are some of those smaller goals you want to accomplish and how will you hold yourself accountable? This may be a weekly or monthly check-in, an accountability partner or system for success, like a tracking app. This may look like hiring a coach or mentor, or a personal check-in to see if you’re in alignment with your beliefs and values. Everyone is different, so I invite you to discover what works for you and adjust along the way. 

Don’t forget to celebrate!  Big or small celebrate them ALL! Here’s to your success and RISE in 2026!