Our brains love clean beginnings and clean endings. As we’ve felt the fast-yet-agonizingly-slow weirdness of time passage during the pandemic, here we finally are, at the beginning of a new year universally anticipated and looked to for months– as the sweet escape from the endless craziness of 2020. While we rationally know that this week might not look or feel summarily different than yesterday or last week, and the calendar’s change to a new page isn’t going to practically solve things, it does hold a significance maybe unlike any other. While it's tempting to just forge ahead and focus forward as fast as possible, there’s an opportunity right here, actually. So before resolutions and new starts… let’s take a minute.

Of all the books on my shelf about how to view time (half a shelf), I’ve found it most useful in life to see it not as a linear (or zig-zagging meandering or stair-stepping) path, but as a spiral. Picture it– a spiral path of time that keeps corkscrew-moving forward (or up, if you’re picturing a person’s development). If we could stand on one fixed line next to that giant spiral, we can hold a vantage point to see the dimension of it; eventually it will come back around to the line we’re standing on, again and again. Fixed, consistent dates in our lives create these perspective-getting milestone points in the spiral, helpful to get our bearings, see our progress and growth, and step back from the moments to see patterns. Birthdays do that for us individually. A new year does it universally.

So, before we plow ahead, let’s for a few minutes just rewind this last year in your head, and think about it in a few different ways....

Where are you now vs. a year ago?

Where did you crush it, and where did you get challenged?

What did you learn about yourself this year?

...Now we’re getting to something much more useful and meaningful than just resolutions, which we know won’t last alone. The annual declaration of resolutions doesn’t really work for many people, because it has some structural flaws, and skips some really important pieces which cause us to end up later back in the very patterns we set out to change so enthusiastically just a few months prior. This year especially, we’ve formed new habits– many as reactions to circumstance, rather than growth choices, so let’s look and choose what to stay conscious about.

You can definitely set yourself up for different results and patterns this year, yet it has to start with that self-awareness. The clutch step most people miss in a normal year, yet especially this year (more because “I can’t even,” yet yes, you can)... Reflecting. Y'know... Reviewing. Stepping back to get perspective. Owning. Debriefing. Calling out what worked, and what didn’t, and fully seeing what’s there in order to set up what’s next in your story. Let's do that before you forge ahead.

There are so many angles to take on your past year, each showing a different, important facet, so check these out... and see what pops out, gets stirred, and speaks to you most (no need to take them all on- you’ll know the right few when you get to them).

The Most Important List

Right now, pause to really get where you are, so you can best set up where you're about to go. Imagine yourself one year ago, side by side with yourself right now, paying attention to what's occurred in, around and outside of you in that year between. From there, just finish each prompt:

• A moment from this year I’ll remember for a long, long time…

• A word that captures the year in total…

• I am proud of...

• I am not proud of...

• I want to change...

• I want to continue...

• I soared by...

• I missed the mark by...

• Challenges I rose to...

• I am no longer fazed by...

• I surpassed what I thought I could do in...

• I created...

• I have impacted...

• I have surprised myself by...

• I got in my own way by...

• Questions that have surfaced...

• An answer I found...

• A pattern through the year was…

• Realistic necessities of the year were...

• Aspirational dreams were...

• Scary to utter commitments...

• What I value, that another person did for me…

• What’s unresolved...

• What’s tough to admit, but totally true...

• Who appeared...

• Who went away...

• Who expanded me...

• What kept me small...

• What surprised me...

• What caused upset in me...

• What I lost…

• What I gained…

• What inspired me...

• What I set out to do...

• What I actually accomplished...

• What I learned about myself...

• What I want to carry forward from the year…

• I'm ready now to take on...

• I aspire to...

• If I were really going to take myself ON to get to my next level, I’d…

• It's about time I...

...and the layers under each of those.

Even reading that list stirred some reflection and thought just now, didn't it? That's the first important step, yet don't leave it there, just musing in your head. Write it all to yourself. The easiest, fastest, most effective approach is to cut and paste the list into your own doc, then just finish each sentence. Some may be just a few words, some may prompt a whole page! Doing this visually is powerful for the mind- the words on your screen or page bring a concrete reality to all that's occurred in this last year, which accelerates your ability to process and build from it. Allow yourself to go with it, answering without your inner editor, and watch your layers unfold. 

Many of those prompts are in service or relation to other people/forces in/out/around your life, and will spark a lot for your next year of growth, yet they can only take shape in reality by starting in your first-person voice from your own head. That’s where your power is, that’s where it all falls apart or takes flight, and that’s where last year has to end and a new one begin.

Timing: Do this now-ish. If not right now, make a date with yourself for time in this first week of the year to do it. It’ll be the best, most worthwhile date you’ve had in a long time. There are some great places to do this. And ways to clear space for it if you need an assist.

Savoring Version: Clear some space, some time, and some quiet in your head to do your huge, learning-filled year of 2020 justice. Take a bunch of minutes (or hours?) without talking about it to anyone else to just capture what’s there in your thinking and feeling... into writing. If you're up for a comprehensive annual personal review, I really love this one.

Quick&Dirty Version: Take even a few minutes to cut, paste, and finish those sentences with your first thoughts without mental editing. Either way, you'll surface things into your awareness which will inform the course you set for this year in a layered, powerful way. 

Then, with that clarity, watch how the resolutions (if still needed at all) will write themselves.   ;)

©SarahSinger&Co. 2021

*The original version of this post in 2016 has taken multiple versions, iterations. Interesting how even at the end of this historic year, the core questions haven’t had to change at all.