Create 2018’s Aspirations with 2017’s Reflections

Before driving forward, we must look into the rear view mirror.

Design your 2018 with the Reflections and Goals guide I created here:

I love the coming of a new year. It inspires the greater average of people to have an awareness of themselves and their lives that they do not normally have or practice. As taboo as New Year’s resolutions can be, I think it can truly inspire a consciousness of yourself and your life that is critical to developing and pursuing your personal and professional vision, goals, and aspirations.

In order to truly internalize and execute our New Year’s Resolutions, we should frame our resolutions as short-term and long-term goals. There is a plethora of content, best practices, books, planners, etc. on daily and yearly goal setting. You can find a concrete framework of how to set and achieve your 2018 goals almost anywhere on the internet, so that is not my intention today. My goal is to simply provide some guidance for setting goals and intentions for your life in the New Year in a broader context, providing some things I personally deem necessary before setting goals for your personal and professional self.

Reflection, reflection, reflection. Before you set your goals for the New Year, it is critical that you dedicate time reflecting on the last year of your life. One of the most substantial practices I use for reflection is journaling. Looking back on all you experienced as a person, and writing it all out before you brings a true sense of awareness of where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you want to be. It’s crucial to truly understand the current state of where you are personally, mentally, professionally, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and physically — in order to concretely and clearly layout the goals and intentions for each of these important aspects of your life for the upcoming year. Reflection of your past self is the roadmap to your future self, and your future path. Here are some questions you can ask yourself that can help you reflect and guide your future aspirations.

Professionally:

1. Is my current job/position giving me purpose, nourishing my passions, or building the stepping stones to my future career paths/possibilities?
2. Am I receiving opportunities in my current job/position to develop marketable skills as an employee in my field or craft that will advance my value for promotion or other future opportunities?
3. Do I enjoy what I do?
4. What do I enjoy? What gets me out of bed in the morning? What are my skills? How can I monetize these skills?

Emotionally:

1. What hardships/obstacles did I experience and overcome this year?
2. What obstacles am I still facing, how am I handling these situations, and what things am I currently doing in order to overcome them?
3. How did the negative things I experienced this year affect me as a person?
4. Did I grow from these experiences? How did they affect me emotionally?
5. Have I learned from these experiences? What lessons have I learned about myself, the situation, or people involved in the situation?
6. What kinds of joy and positive things did I experience this year?
7. Have I happily spent time alone?
8. Am I comfortable and ultimately happy, doing things for myself and by myself?

Personally:

1. Do I think I know myself, do I have self-knowledge that aids my self-awareness?
2. What things can I do in order to know myself more?
3. Do I love myself?

• Am I confident?
• Am I proud of the person I am?
• Am I insecure? If so, what insecurities do I have?
• Do I need validation from others?
• Can I make myself happy?
• What kind of judgments do I place on myself?
• Do I accept myself for who I am?

4. How are the relationships in my life?

5. Do I have any toxic relationships?

• Does a person give me anxiety, insecurities, or take away my energy?
• Am I giving more to a person than they give to me?

6. What relationships are the most positive in my life?

• How have I nourished these relationships?
• How do these relationships make me a better person?
• Why and how do these people make me feel good about myself?

7. Do I have any destructive or negative mental/physical habits that could be affecting my life?

8. What positive habits do I practice that are benefiting my life?

This is not an exhaustive list, by any means, nor do I think you have to go this deep into each reflection — these questions are examples (I’ve used personally) of how you can frame and facilitate self-reflection. The answers you discover in these reflections can serve as the blueprints for the short-term and long-term goals you would like to set for yourself in 2018.

For example,

Question: “Do I know myself well?”

Answer: “I don’t feel like I have a strong sense of self-awareness. I think there are things I still need to learn about myself”

Long-term goals: Increase my self-knowledge and self-awareness

(In between these two goals, you can do research for some guidance before setting daily, short-term goals. Can be as simple as searching “Ways to get to know yourself better”)

Short-term goals: begin a journal, go on walks in nature, meditate, find or speak with mentors.

After determining your short-term goals, take each goal and make them specific and measurable, set them into SMART goals!

I mentioned above several various pillars of one’s self and life that you can build your reflections and future goals around. These are the areas in my life that I’d like to improve, but everyone is different, and everyone wants to achieve different things for themselves and their lives! So it’s important to determine where exactly you’d like to direct your energy and intention to in the upcoming year, what works best for you and what you want for yourself, with no comparisons to anyone else. Do you want to be more creative? Do you want to learn something new? Do you want to discover your style? Name these aspirations. Creativity, mastery, fashion. Now place these objectives into existence, into the framework of your 2018 goals, from your reflections in these contexts of the previous year.

Reflecting on yourself in the various aspects of your life that are meaningful to you, can truly put you on a path personally and professionally that keeps you in alignment with who you are, and who you want to be, with where you are, and where you want to be. I hope the vision for yourself in 2018 is a little clearer now. :)

Click here for a Reflections and Goals guide I created for my personal use. This is a guided facilitation of reflection questions, and long-term and short-term goal setting. I filled it out today with one of my besties, and we feel reflective, refreshed, and clear on what we want for ourselves in 2018. :)