The Importance of Self-Reflection, Your Personal 2022 Year-End Review​

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

John: Welcome to another episode of the present professional. Today, we’re here to talk about coming to the end of the year and what this year and review process can look like for you, for your business, and mostly for your whole life. And we’re going to go through some processes that we use, some things that have worked for us, and some things that you can try on for yourself. And now, as we start to come to the end of the year, you’re spending your year-end budgets, you’re wrapping up that last project, You’re trying to get everything situated to be able to wind down and really enjoy spending time with family and friends during the holidays. Yet at the same time, don’t forget to take a little bit of time for yourself and recognize the importance of self-reflection. There is no way to move forward with the learnings from your past if you don’t take the time to really sit and look at them in almost a strategic way, even for your life. So now, what that time looks like, it has to start with being organized in the first place. right to have a proper year and review there has to be something to review right and if you’re like well i don’t have anything in place right now i’m i’m not sure and we’ll talk about that as well because you know sitting down and reflecting taking a little bit of time with your mind and your journal in a quiet place can be a great place to start And we want to show you some of the ways that we start to get organized and some structures that we put in place for year-end reviews. And Tony, I want to put it over to you to see if you have anything else to add to prime our listeners before we get into some of these structures to put in place for reviews.

Tony: Yeah, John, thanks for kind of setting the tone there. I’d say, you know, to add, I just doubled down on what you said about, you know, being organized in the first place. If you aren’t organized already, then it makes it harder to review where you are and what you’ve done and what you plan to do ahead. So, you know, just doubling down on that is where I probably start with. And if you’re not as organized as you want to be or wish you were, this is a great place to start. You know, as the year is ending and you are having that self-awareness time to say, hey, man, you know, I like what John and Tony are saying, but I realize that I’m not as organized as I want to be. I can’t even do a year in review. Well, now this is the time where you can go into the new year and start to set the pace and start to set yourself up for the success that you wish you had. So, you know, before we get into it, I just want to say, if you’re not where you want to be from an organized standpoint, start now so that 2023 can be a lot easier for you. And then when you go into 2024, you do have something to review before you start the year.

John: Mm-hmm. So some of these structures to put in place for your year-end review is First and foremost setting the time for it. So making sure that you have enough time to sit down I mean take a whole day take a half day take a whole week where you’re just gonna Reflect and you’re gonna take the time to look at what went well based on the visions that you set out for yourself for your business for your career for your relationships or your health and all different major focus areas that can have a huge impact on your life. And with that, I want to start with some of the things that I have in place for my life. And one of those is a legacy statement. It’s something that I was introduced to in yoga teacher training, actually, and that I have had by my side and it has evolved with me since that day. And we can do the whole, we can do a whole episode on the process of creating a legacy statement. It’s actually a really beautiful process. And yeah, I’m going to save that for another episode. But for the gist of it, it’s basically everything that I want to accept into my life from my mother and father. So you take both your parents, the best things you want to accept it, and then your own unique contribution and write it into a statement of what you want to leave behind using every single one of those words. And the way that that, the way that I look at that for me is, you know, that kind of ties into my life vision statement. Right. So what I want to leave behind now, what’s the life that I want to create to bring that into fruition? Right. So then there comes my life vision statement. And then I also have a wellness vision statement. So looking at what I want to do and where I want to be in the place for my health and wellness and what that looks like, what are the things that I want to accomplish? How do I want to be feeling? And then what’s so important about these vision statements? is you go back and say why. So you look out to say 10 years, five years, a statement of like where I want to be, the life that I want to be living, the business that I want to have, where I want to be in my career, where I want to be with my health, with my relationships, with my family. And you start detailing that whole picture out and then such a key part of that is understanding why. What is important to me about these specific aspects of my vision? What is important to me about maintaining my health and wellness? What is important to me about having my career at this place in this time? Why is it important that my business has a seven person leadership team by this date? And then just kind of looking at, because then that helps you get a little reality check where you want to go because when it comes down to where the rubber meets the road and starting to set goals and objectives for all of this you can start to see when the priority starts shaking out over the year when you’re looking backward like this on your objectives it’s like oh Was that really that important to me, yet I didn’t make time for it? But then if you’re really grounded in why it’s so important for me to be well-versed in this skill by the end of the year, why it’s important to me to complete this coaching program, why it’s important to me to have the business launched or the podcast launched or be able to run this many miles by this date, Because if you just put it on there because it’s nice to have or like you want you what you think everyone else wants to see Those are all external motivators so as you’re writing out your legacy statement your life vision statements your wellness vision statements. Don’t just put it out there for the vision. Ask why for every aspect of it. Why is this important to me? What is important about this? I want this so that I can because and fill in those gaps. And if you can fill in all of those gaps, then it’s like, okay, this is something that I really want to be a part of my life and my vision. And then you move to the goal setting. You have the vision. Now, what do I need to do within one year? What do I need to do within five years? What do I need to do within 10 years? And those scales can change based on what feels right for you, right? All of this is like, is not a prescription. These are all suggestions. and you can take them, tweak them, do with it what you will, but this structure helps me go back and review. So when I’m looking at my year in review, I look at my vision statements and then I go to the objectives or goals that one year, five year and 10 year for me. And I look. So during the year, I check in with those one-year goals. At the end of the year, I look at, okay, so this one got pushed back originally, was set in August, and it happened in December. So I’m looking at one goal right here for my coaching business actually, where it’s we have the coaching, we have the coaching framework done and in operation and on the website by August 24th. We just finished the final review of that in our meeting last week. So August 24th became November. And that’s okay. It was still an objective for that year, and it’s done. Right, okay. So I look at that, what went well? Well, the team added so much perspective and it was such a growth edge on my part because I know even just based on, you know, my personality and even my Enneagram type that, you know, I like to push ahead and get things done on my own and, you know, ignore the, you know, the inputs from the team or external inputs, like just let’s just get it done, be more efficient. And the growth edge for me is incorporating all of the other pinions, bringing them into the project, and making just a well-rounded, well-oiled machine, and really refining the diamond. And so learn to embrace that process. And yes, maybe, you know, in my type a mine, the, maybe it didn’t get done August 24th and we refined, we refined the diamond for a few more months. And I love the product so much more now than I did in August. for sure. And that’s just one example from, you know, from the business side of things. There’s so the way that I look at these objectives are divided into career or things that I want to build, whether where it’s, you know, different businesses or things that I want to do in this world. Like, what do I want to contribute to this world? And then there’s health and then there’s personal things. Right there’s you know in the personal side of things. It’s like you know I read one philosophical or you know or spiritual text per quarter and You know I fell behind on that this past year, and you know what maybe that’s okay because I had 22 books to read for a coaching program So maybe that objective in the beginning sounded great. Yet when reality hit, it’s like, oh, maybe you should have paid attention to the 22 books you had to read for the coaching program. Right. So it’s just taking what happens, looking at it and saying what worked, what didn’t, what supported me in reaching that goal. What were the challenges that I hit? along the way that pushed it back, pushed it down the priority list. It’s all about the questions that you sit and ask yourself that constitutes a year in review. Mm-hmm. I’ll stop there.

Tony: I’ve been rambling Man, I like no I like the checkpoints that you mentioned like you’re kind of saying that you know asking the question Why as you set those objectives in those goals? It really helps you kind of check yourself. It helps you kind of reflect on your Looking at yourself almost from like a 50,000 foot view because when you ask yourself why you have to be honest at least be honest with yourself. You’re the one who’s doing the goal setting you’re the one that’s doing the review and so when you look at yourself almost like student teacher almost like client coach and you’re the client at that time and the coach. You got to be honest because you’re looking at yourself as both angles and so you can clearly see well I said why because of you know, something deep or I said why to this because it was something superficial So I definitely appreciate you saying that I was gonna ask you how often do you or when at what point in the year? Do you set that legacy statement up and you know, how often do you review it? Do you review it at the end of the year or throughout the year? but I think you kind of answered that as you were you were going through and One of the things that I wanted to add is that when you’re setting up your goals, and that’s just something that I personally use when I set up my goals for the year or for the quarter, I do look at it all from a business lens, a life lens, and personal wellness as well. So just kudos to you for bringing that to the show and to the listeners so they can add the same thing for their goal setting.

John: Yeah, the way that that comes into the picture, like with the periodic reviews for me is, you know, I try to check in with a lot of my roles and commitments every week and just see every week on Monday, sit down, do the things that I have scheduled out that I’m committed to for this week. Are they adding to my, my vision, my goals? Are they adding to the things that I’ve prioritized? Right. And a lot of that has to do with even Mike. Okay. You’re going to see all in all into my structure and strategy here. Even my calendar is color coded based on what I call directing the vision. So are they associated with the things that I want to accomplish that year? So for example, I have a color for, you know, for learning and building expertise. I have a color for producing, creating like value based content, a color for health and relationships, mental and physical, spiritual, social, um, a color for coaching specifically only with clients. Like that is all client time, client reach out, client work, like anything around like specific and coaching and then another color for events. So that goal strategy even boils down into what I do day to day. And then from there, there’s even so another structure that I bring in is the year in review calendar. So I have a full year in view dry erase calendar on my bathroom wall where you can see every single day in the entire year. And I have a different color for something that I want to accomplish that year. And we’re going to get into this a little bit more when we move into, like, really planning for 2023 and, you know, how to kind of set those up. But what that looks like at the end of the year in review, when I’m looking at that full year, I can see major gaps in months. Because every day that I do something that goes according to those goals or that I want to accomplish that day, so say it’s like I want to read 30 minutes a day, I want to meditate 15 minutes a day, I want to spend an hour a day building this new venture, I want to spend 30 minutes a day writing a book. Right. And then there’s a different color for a slash mark on each for each of those. And then I can see like once you start seeing that streak on the calendar, you just don’t want it to break. And when I’m looking backward in the year at that calendar, I can see what did break. And then I’m like, oh, OK, the streak broke in that month. Let me look at my calendar. What happened there? Oh, you were out of town for three weeks. It looks like your life stops when you’re out of town. So let’s think about that. Were you choosing vacation or were you just avoiding it, avoiding the work because you were in a different environment? You know, it’s like those are the questions.

Tony: That’s where that grace comes in, man. That’s where that grace comes in, where you gotta give yourself that room for error, right? You know, don’t let me bring in sports, man. I’ll go there. It’s a must. And you think about, you know, the best quarterbacks in the NFL, for example. They don’t always throw 100%, you know? They may throw 60, 70%, but sometimes it’s just about winning the game. You know, if you’re able to win the game, win the year, you know, I look at four quarters of the year, like it’s four quarters of sports. And I’m like, every quarter I’m going to the locker room in my break period at the end of the quarter. And I’m asking myself, did we win? Are we winning? Are we winning? Are we winning? Are we winning? Some years, most years, I ain’t gonna lie, most years I win. But there’s been years where I’ve lost. And I’m like, man, this was not my best year. And I look at why and I look at what happened and how it happened. Mostly it’s huge life changes that occur where you have to adapt because something has happened that’s been major. Most of the times, if you are tracking along and you have your goals and you’re looking at your goals from a quarterly perspective, monthly, weekly, annually is good. But if you really are tracking your goals seriously, you’re looking at them way more than once a year. You don’t set your New Year’s resolution in December and roll into January and then never look back. Like that’s setting yourself up for failure. But when you are tracking along, you can look back and say, am I winning the year? Am I winning the game? And when it’s December 31st and it’s time to roll into the new year, you want to roll in fresh off of a win. It just makes it easier to go into the next year. But if you’re not perfect, every time you show up and check your goals and check yourself, take those goals and roll them into the next year or the next quarter. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a big goal and I took that goal and I did not accomplish it in quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four. Sometimes it took me the following year to accomplish the goal because it was so big, but I just broke it up and I just tried to finish it in every quarter before that, but it just wasn’t time. But I never gave up on the goal. I just said, you know what? It’s going to happen when it’s supposed to happen. So, you know don’t forget that when y’all are looking at y’all year in review because you can easily say Man, i’m i’m defeated like I did not say like you said about your books like you say, you know I had a goal to read one philosophical text Every quarter, but I had 20 books over here that I needed to read i’m running my business i’m doing this i’m doing that i’m still you know teaching yoga to many people changing lives. So you have to look at the totality of everything that you’re doing. Like if you’re just, no offense, I’m not trying to offend anybody, but if you’re sitting on your couch watching Netflix more than you are putting into your personal goals, then you can say, all right, let me compare my what I was doing over here to the books I was supposed to read over here now that’s a that’s a fair comparison and you should kind of like see where the gaps were and you got some obvious blind spots but when you’re rolling like man things just have to change and adapt so don’t forget that whenever you’re looking at your goals and you brought up such a good point about breaking it up like that’s another question to ask yourself

John: right, is as a goal rolls from quarter to quarter, it’s like, what are the goals that actually make up this goal? Can this goal be, can this, what I’m trying to accomplish, be broken down into three to five things to accomplish? That’s another test when you start looking at things that are being pushed month to month, quarter to quarter. It’s like, maybe I have the wrong goal on here. Maybe it’s actually this month I’m doing one piece of this. Maybe one piece of this project is reaching out and having the conversation. Make that the goal for the month. Reach out to an advisor and have a conversation about what steps to move forward on. Reach out, schedule something, schedule a consultation with a coach, start a short coaching engagement to start jump starting my goal on this business or something like that. It can be like, how can you add smaller steps to add in wins? And those wins add momentum to your project and momentum to the life that you’re creating. So notice that again, that’s a big part of the review. What can I break down? What can be smaller about this goal? And then again, Why is it important to me? I want to accomplish this so that I can because fill in those gaps to increase your internal motivation and then it just happens, baby.

Tony: It happens. Yeah. And you know what? Another important thing with that is to realize what season you’re in. Sometimes you’re in an off season and you don’t even realize it. Like sometimes the season is actually a season of rest, recovery, and rebuild. And you’re thinking that it’s go time. And it’s really no time, like every athlete has an off season. You don’t win a championship by going 12 months straight. All right, unless you’re LeBron James and you’re playing the Olympics, all right? That’s when it’s a huge anomaly. But most people have to take a break, like your body, your mind, your spirit, all three components of you have to take a break. Like if you never had a spiritual break needed or a mental break needed, you know, I don’t know a person that that doesn’t that doesn’t need a rest, you know, so even the most highest performers have to take a risk. So sometimes recognize what season that you’re in. I this is how I structure my my kind of 12 months, right? So first the first quarter. I’m usually feeling it out kind of like a boxer. I got my goals. I got my plan. But I’m not jumping in all crazy because I want to make it. I want to last. I want to make it to October, right? So I’m kind of coming in and I’m setting the foundation, really. It’s almost like working out. Like if you were to look at it from a workout perspective, quarter one, I’m training my legs and my core, right? Because if I’m doing that, then I’ll last, you know, so I’m not physically doing that. That sounds like a great idea, actually. But I’m getting my plans together. Like you said, I’m reaching out and making the contacts. I may be for my wife and I’s business. We usually take the first quarter and we reached what we actually do it in the end of the previous year, but we’re kind of still overlapping in a quarter one where we’re. Rewriting contracts, updating the websites, just doing all the ugly things so that when it’s quarter two, three, and four, we’re kind of just rolling. So, you know, once I get into quarter two and three, like I just mentioned, it’s fun time. Now it’s time to produce and do what you set out to do for the year. This is when you actually perform. It’s kind of like a basketball game. If you were a basketball athlete, you’d probably come out in the first quarter and just kind of set the game plan up. And then by two and three, you see what your opponents are doing. And then now by the fourth quarter, you got them. You know exactly what’s going on. And that’s what I do by quarter four, is I’m pretty much rolling. Everything I’ve built up to that point is subconsciously happening. So I always tell people that by October you are who you are for the year So it’s the 10th month of the year and you you’re done like you you can try to grow if you want to October but it’s pretty much over because you’re getting ready to shut down for the holidays unless you’re busy and Thanksgiving to Christmas That’s another thing but in that evening with that said I usually take a break during the summer and that’s what I meant by the offseason and Sometime in the summer I’m breaking my birthday is in August. My wife’s in July. My son’s is in May So that’s kind of like a time where it’s hard to be a hard performer when you are celebrating, right? So just let yourself celebrate, you know, I don’t go out and you know get fat or anything, but I definitely like I hang loose, you know, I like relax and I just kind of like have fun and I take the heavy audacious goals and I just kind of park them. I don’t throw them away, but I just park them right here. And then by the end of the year, I always do this. I’ve been doing it since I started working professionally. I take two weeks off. I take two weeks off in December, it’s two weeks straight. And, you know, that’s my time to rest and really recover and really set the foundation for where I want to go. And that’s my time to not answer the phone. That’s my time to put the out of office up. That’s my time to really just like have for me personally, so that I can have a great 12 months.

John: Yeah, so hopefully that helps someone now when you’re looking at that. How do you view that in hindsight at the end of the year?

Tony: You know, it’s like a It’s like the old adage if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. You know, it’s been working for me So what I what I do is when I’m in that 12 month that 12th month and I’m in reflection mode. I I’m looking specifically for what gives me joy or what gave me joy and what brought me pain. So one year I remember I wrote I was writing down all the things I was doing for the most part and I wrote all the things that I did on one side and it like when I was reflecting I literally no joke was smiling as I was reflecting on the things I was like Oh, man, that was so awesome. Oh, man, that was so fun. All, you know, all the things on the other side, it was like a somber journal in effect. Like I’m writing and I’m just like, man, I never want to do that again. Or man, I got to quit this, like this, this particular program or activity or project. And I did like, I went to the next year, cold turkey, whatever those things were, I’m done. Like, I’m sorry, but I don’t have capacity. I don’t have time. I can’t participate, whatever it may be. And so I kind of keep that same model, but now I’ve incorporated in a way where I’m instantly checking myself for things that don’t make me happy or don’t make me feel good in the sense of like, um, I’m not really, this isn’t where I’m supposed to be. So I kind of try to do that monthly or quarterly now so that when I don’t wait till it’s the end of the year to decide something like that. And now, like you asked in hindsight, man, I can say that everything I’m doing for the most part, not perfect, but most of the things I’m doing are exactly what I want to do. They are things that bring me peace, happiness, joy. And it benefits other people. And that’s like the goal of life is for what you do, or at least the goal for my life is that the things that I do, the things that I touch, the way that I adjust and work my schedule, and even the career that I choose helps someone else. You know, whether that’s coaching, whether that’s consulting, whether that’s diversity, whether that’s leadership development, or whether that’s workforce development, like these are kind of my proficiencies and the things that I work in. These all help other people, like every aspect of it, you know. And so I’ve taken those things and that has come from not knowing to knowing. At one point I was like doing too much and I’m like, this ain’t it, like I’m not in the right space. But as I’ve kind of gone through life, I found those things that hold on to them and I protect those things. You know, I heard a great quote from one of my favorite books, The 5 a.m. Club, and he said that I am a, I have bulletproofed my time. And that’s kind of where I operate. I have bulletproofed my time. I’m not quite bulletproof yet. I’m working on it. But man, like you have to you have to treat your time is sacred. And that’s why John and I are really harping on this goal setting piece, because you really only have so much time.

John: So, and these are the things and I’m hearing different parts of your vision come out, you know, everything that I do and want to be tied to like this value, these pillars, like these key things that, you know, bring your, bring you joy and feed your soul. And this has happened through iteration is what I’m hearing. Like this has happened through the, maybe it started as once a year looking back, Seeing what brought me joy seeing like where I’m forcing things You know where where I’m forcing myself to show up and then you start building that muscle and it was quarterly and monthly and then weekly and then you start really checking in to refining that time and Like you said bulletproofing your time and your energy. Yeah right? And it’s like, so for the listeners out there and you’re like, man, you know, I just, I set a couple of goals at the beginning of the year. I set one goal, you know, I set two goals. And that’s another thing is like when you’re starting at the beginning, like keep it simple, you know, have one One career goal one personal goal one health goal. Mm-hmm, right and it’s specific to this conversation. I want to emphasize how important it is to reflect and review Because we wouldn’t be at this point with all of the systems that we just mentioned that we have in place You know all the vision statements the goals and objectives the review periods the things that work for us that don’t We never would have gotten to this point without taking the time to reflect, review, tweak, take what works, set aside what doesn’t, and move forward. So as you look at starting this journey, make sure that you set aside time to really reflect, to really look at, I love how Tony said it, what brings you joy and what doesn’t. because they’re both incredible sources of information. But the thing is that when you find that now, what are you going to do about it? And that’s what we’ll move into more in our next episode is getting into what do we do about it? How do we set up that framework? How do we set the groundwork for moving into our next year? So as we close out this year together, know that You’re exactly where you need to be right now. There’s no looking back with regret. There’s only looking back for information. That’s it. To move forward. Anything else you want to add before we close out, Tony?

Tony: No, man, I think you close it well, you know, for those that are just continuing to go along the process. Remember, like John said, reflection is key. And if you don’t, if you are not tracking in the first place, that’s where you need to start. So don’t worry about what you’re not doing in terms of where you, if you aren’t where you want to be, if you’re not a millionaire yet, like whatever things you have on your to-do list that you want to achieve in your life, don’t worry about that part. Set up your system, make sure you’re tracking so that you can see where you’re going, but remember that starts by looking back to where you’ve been.

John: Thank you guys so much for listening. We appreciate you as listeners and for being a part of this community and it would mean so much to us if you rate us and review us anywhere that you get your podcast. Just take a moment to drop in a review there that really helps and we’d love to hear your feedback. Interact with us at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com. Let us know how your year-end review planning is going and we will see you on the next episode of The Present Professional. Take care, everyone.