Brain Food #805: Between the past and the future
Conducting a personal end-of-year retrospective
Thoughts of the day
As we come towards the end of another year, we enter that time of being in two places at the same time, where we reflect on the past and dream of the future, maybe even daring to plan it, or predict it.
Today I would like to share with you my template for running a personal end-of-year retrospective. This exercise might also surface lessons to learn and stories to tell, the ones we are too close to, to deem worth sharing.
I look back on my own loosely defined goals, what I described as non-resolutions for 2022. Sometimes progress is not about taking a leap, but about a continuation, to see how the dots are connecting. When nothing big seems to have taken place, the small moments have the answers.
And if you need some guidance for what to ask from life in 2023, remember that one of the most well-known Christmas stories is about a man who put status and wealth above substance and relationships, until he was chased by his demons and eventually changed his mind. More often than not, we have what we need.
“If to enjoy even an enjoyable present we must have the assurance of a happy future, we are “crying for the moon.” We have no such assurance. The best predictions are still matters of probability rather than certainty, and to the best of our knowledge every one of us is going to suffer and die. If, then, we cannot live happily without an assured future, we are certainly not adapted to living in a finite world where, despite the best plans, accidents will happen, and where death comes at the end.”
— Alan Watts
For more detail on how to conduct an annual review, the Doist blog has an extensive article that dives deep into each area.
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