Look Back to Move Forward

25% of 2021 is gone. Done. Over. Out.

We’ve all been waiting for this year for what felt like an eternity. 2020 seemed never-ending, yet look at 2021 just flying by. It’s April already. 3 months have passed.

How are you doing?

We all want 2021 to be better, kinder, easier. Still, it seems like for the first 3 months, at least, not much has changed. I stay optimistic that it is slowly getting better, though.

Just like I do every year, I planned things for 2021. Life doesn’t stop because there is a pandemic, because we can’t travel or because we have a curfew. We have to keep living.

Move Forward

At the beginning of the year, I set some intentions and goals and I’m doing the best I can to follow through. I focus on what I can control and move forward. That’s all we can really do at any given time.

When I was volunteering in AIESEC, we would always structure our activities. Every project had a timeline and we had SMART goals for every team. Then, we would do backwards planning, to be able to track and evaluate things during and after the project. I loved it!

Having some structure brings so much clarity to everything. And that doesn’t mean things go exactly as we plan them. But having a plan does give us something to get back to when they don’t. It helps us stay on track and figure out if we’ve accomplished what we wanted in the beginning.

For the past years, I’ve been applying a lot of these methods to my life. I use spreadsheets and tools and write down my goals, intentions, hopes and aspirations.

Upon going through the Lifebook program in 2020, I have been consciously designing every area of my life. Based on the Lifebook framework, there are 12 areas* that I set goals and intentions for:

1. Health, Fitness & Wellbeing
2. Intellectual Life
3. Emotional Life
4. Spiritual Life
5. Character
6. Creativity**
7. Love Relationship
8. Social Life
9. Business & Career
10. Financial Life
11. Quality of Life
12. Life Vision

^{*most of the areas are self-explanatory, but if you don’t understand what any of them might be referring to, leave a comment or send me a message! I’d be happy to help!
**the original program has Parenting as a category, but because I don’t do parenting at the moment, I just replaced it with Creativity}

Look Back

Every once in a while, I do a quick check-in. I look at the goals and priorities I set in the beginning of the year. I check where I’m at with things and consider what I want to work on going forward.

It’s my little ritual that helps me bring more consciousness to my life and make progress in every area. My approach is fairly structured – I do 4 types of reviews: weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly.

There are tools and templates that I use for each type of review and there are specific things that I measure. But for each review, I look at every area of life and I point out my wins and challenges, I write my thoughts and feelings around what happened and what didn’t happen.

Once I write it all down, I just let go of everything. It’s released. From then on, I’m ready to move forward and do my best in the next week, month, quarter or year. It’s quite therapeutic.

Sure, it may seem like a waste of time in this go-go-go, keep-producing, keep-achieving, don’t-stop culture. Yet it is so easy to get caught up and lost in this constantly moving and doing dynamic. If we never stop, we might forget what’s important and why we’re going and doing in the first place.

Pausing and taking some time to integrate, reflect and honor what has happened and how we’re feeling can be so nourishing and powerful.

We can celebrate our accomplishments and make a game plan to do better where we fell short. And it doesn’t need to be anything big. It can take one day, half a day or even just a few hours every 3 months to check-in with ourselves.

“Reflection and review ensures that you spend your time on the right things and make course corrections whenever necessary…”

James Clear

Let’s Review!

Because we’re saying goodbye to March, it’s review and reflect time in my little Universe! These days, I am looking back at the past month, as well as the first quarter of the year.

I invite you to pause for a few hours today or this weekend and join me!

You don’t have to do it in a super structured way or have tools or spreadsheets like me. I do that because I genuinely enjoy doing it and I like having everything clear and organized. Plus, I’ve been doing it for years now, so I have developed my own methods over time, based on what works best for me.

Maybe you haven’t set clear and measurable goals that you can evaluate. I can understand that. With all the uncertainty in the world today, we might not want to go through the disappointment of having to cancel or change plans and goals.

Even so, you can absolutely think about the past 3 months and how your life has progressed. I believe there is a lot of value in simply taking the time to look back and reflect.

Here are some questions you can start with:

• What are the main events that happened this year so far?
• How am I feeling about the past 3 months of my life?
• What do I enjoy about my life?
• What would I like to change about my life?
• What emotions have I noticed coming up for me?
• What are the things that I am excited about at work/school?
• What did I spend money on?
• What did I learn in the past 3 months?
• Who are the people I truly enjoyed having around?
• What are my priorities for the next 3 months?

If you’d like to do a more structured process for every area of life, you can use my tool. Feel free to copy and modify it as you please, so it can serve your needs and fit your unique style.

Alright, let’s do it!

After you do this review and reflect exercise, please let me know how it was for you in the comments below.