Towards the end of each year, I review how to make next year even better.
Keep it simple! There are 3 main steps:
A.R.C. to make next year even better than this one!
- Acknowledging and appreciating the highlights.
- Reviewing and learning from your actions, how you were being
- Creating a packing list for what you take with you and what you leave behind to positively influence where and who you will be 12 months from now.
Arc (noun)*
- the shape of part of a circle or other curved line.
- a powerful flow of electricity that goes across a space between two points.
- a complete story or the story of one character, especially one that is part of a larger story.
*Source Cambridge Dictionary online.
Our life is made up of an overall circle of life and as we live through it we are influenced by the areas or sectors that make up our life often depicted as a circle. Our story is an arc within the larger story and in the story of our influence in the world. Finally, linking this year to next year is a gap where energy or electricity flows.
The ARC process is all about ensuring the thoughts, memories, habits and energy we take with us is what serves us best going forward to make next year even better.
So, let’s get into it….
Step 1 – Acknowledging and Appreciating the Highlights.
This step is about looking at what you achieved and what you did or who you became that made you proud in the last year.
There are several places to go to gather the information because it is easy to forget some things.
It is important to ensure you capture a real snapshot and not allow your brain to do the curation for you!
You don’t want to only focus on the bad, for example.
Take a few clean sheets in a journal and write out items that pop up as you go through the following areas.
Some places to look for clues for the highlights of the year are:
Photos
Review your photos on your phone (or wherever you store them) from each month.
You can create a new album and select 1 to 5 photos from each month that give you a flavour for each month. That way you have an album at the end of the year that gives you a quick snapshot of your year.
INSIGHT: The first year I did this, I realised I don’t take those kinds of photos and so something to carry forward into the next year was to take more meaningful photos when something important happens.
Having to pick 1 to 5 photos helps focus on the highlights.
Calendar Or Journal
You may be someone who journals; if you are, you can look for the highlights in your journal.
You may use an online calendar, a paper one or a diary, and these give so much information often much easier to review than a journal.
The sorts of things to look for are:
- who you connected with
- ways you nurtured and looked after yourself – look for clues where you worked on the 8 fundamentals.
- big events for yourself and your family – these can be personal or in business, career or vocation as well.
- places you visited or experiences you had
- travel away from home
- ways you improved yourself, such as courses, seminars and other learning opportunities
- ways you contributed or gave, such as volunteering
- new habits you created
INSIGHT: This is usually one of the longest and largest sources of intelligence in your year. Don’t rush this. It isn’t going to take days, you are looking for the highlights, and you know it’s important when you hear a little voice in your head saying, “Ooh! I forgot that happened this year!” or “Wow, I did more than I realised.”
Books Read
This can be as simple as looking at your book purchases, bookshelf, bedside table or checking your Audible, Kindle or another online book resource.
Writing out the books you read lets you know how many you are reading in a year.
Music
Maybe music is a big part of your life. It can be insightful to review your listening habits.
Thanks to Spotify’s annual round-up, that makes it easier!
Maybe you will get some surprises. Some shifts in what you listen to or if you are like me and have eclectic music listening tastes!
There are other categories you may want to choose depending on what is important to you in your life. Perhaps, you visit historical places, travel to different countries, or enjoy theatre, exhibitions, fairs or galleries. The possibilities are endless. Find what covers most of what you do in a year.
You may have other categories that aren’t captured in your photos and calendar entries.
Feel free to add any extra categories for review that make sense for you to help you make next year even better – since that is our overall aim here.
So here comes the acknowledging and appreciating part.
Acknowledging and Appreciating This Year To Make Next Year Even Better
By now, you have already been hearing voices in your head as you have gathered the highlights of your year.
Some will be positive, while others may not have been uplifting and resourceful.
Now is the time to reflect back on your list and appreciate what you have done, what you have experienced, and who you have been during the year that was.
It’s time to give yourself appreciation for everything you have done, knowing that it was the best you could do with everything you had at that point. Cut yourself some slack. In the next part, you get to review what you could have done better.
Here’s an example of how a review can save you from your own distorted memories!
Example Of Review To Make Next Year Even Better – Books I’ve Read
A voice in my head was telling me: You haven’t read enough books this year. This voice started before I had even started reviewing my books for the year!
Relying on my memory, which had not remembered all the books I had read and was only focused on what I hadn’t done. This is the way our brains are wired! And why this whole review process is really important.
My mind reminded me I had not finished a book in the last 2 months of this year. That was true. And, it was also a conscious choice to allow me to make some room for some other personal growth I was going through.
Fortunately, my review showed that I had read a solid twelve excellent books this year – equivalent to one a month. Would I like to read more? Yes! I always love reading and I set that expectation.
However, reading each of these twelve books have made an enormous impact on me and how I am as a person.
So, instead of allowing my memory to distort or delete the good, I am acknowledging the twelve books I have read and appreciating the decision I made to focus on another area of my personal growth.
Now, it’s time to look through your lists. Take time to acknowledge your decisions and appreciate all that you have done, experienced, enjoyed and become this year.
Step 2 – Reviewing and learn from your actions and how you were being.
During the review in Step 1, you would have noticed that you did some things that you wouldn’t put in the Proud Basket.
This is where we start to think about those things or areas of our lives where we weren’t living true to who we really are or who we want to become.
You might hear yourself say, “What was I thinking?“
These are likely things we won’t find in our calendars, although there may be entries or photos that remind us.
You may have journaled these things. If you have, chances are you have already worked on remedies and new ways of being to avoid these going forward. However, if you have and you are still feeling some twang in even thinking about it, it warrants more work.
This step is all about catching those things that we might not readily admit out loud, but we know they are not us living true to ourselves.
This can be an uncomfortable step – it’s vital if you want to grow and become an even better version of yourself and make next year even better.
If you have trouble thinking about specifics here – perhaps look at the areas of your life and see where you are not happy.
For example, let’s take health. Perhaps you, like me, continue striving towards more energy and better overall health and vitality. Review what it is that would make the biggest difference to this outcome. Is it exercising more? Changing eating patterns?
What can you learn from how you were in this area in the last year? Maybe you could learn from this that you know what to do… but are not committed to following through with it.
What could you focus on going forward? What could you learn or work on to make it so do follow through effortlessly?
Another example could be in your relationship. Is it how you want it to be? Are you always trying to get the other person to change? Are there arguments that keep ending up going down the same path?
What could you learn from this that would make next year even better?
Maybe you could learn that there is a pattern, and expect to control something you have no control over. (Hint: You cannot control other people’s actions.)
What can you do about this? What could you learn? Who could you role model? How could you learn to accept what you cannot change? How could you show up? How can you focus on what you can do?
As painful as it can be, when you review the areas of life where you aren’t as happy or feel like you aren’t making progress, this can be where you find real gold. Such as finding patterns of behaviour that are holding you back. Changing these could make a huge difference to your whole life.
This step is about revealing what you want to stop doing and replacing them with things you want to do more of that will help you grow and move forward.
What have you learnt from your low points in the year? What are you going to do differently in the new year?
Step 3 – Creating a Packing List For Next Year
What will you take with me? What will you leave behind? The outcome is that what you take with you and what you choose to leave behind will positively influence where and who you will be to make next year even better than this one.
So now we have reviewed and appreciated our year. It’s time to wrap it up.
Create your packing list of what goes in your bag into the next year with you and what doesn’t make the cut! This is curated from the first two parts of this process and has been percolating around your brain and are ready to flow onto the pages.
Write out these 3 things in your journal.
- Highlights of the year in review
- What did you do well? What served you?
- What didn’t serve you?
Take out a fresh page in a journal or notebook and write out your highlights of the year you just reviewed in order of importance to you.
Maybe you like to write out long-hand or make bullet points so it’s easy to read and review in the future. Most importantly, do what works for you.
These highlights will be the ones that, when you write them, make you smile.
Remember, no judgement about how they could be better etc. That’s not what this is about. Just smile and appreciate your greatness.
Next, on another fresh page, write the answers to What you did well? What served you?
These are usually the actions and ways of being that helped you achieve the highlights you just wrote.
There may be some others you just don’t think about too much that might appear here now.
And finally, it’s time for another fresh page with the answers to: What did not serve you?
Just like in the last part, these are usually actions or ways of being that didn’t serve during this last year.
These are things you want to let go of moving forward.
We aren’t judging. We aren’t criticising or beating ourselves up for doing these things. We are just acknowledging them, and in writing them out, you have already done the biggest first step.
Once you identify them, you can seek help, ask questions, find ways to let them go, stop them and find antidotes to help you move forward.
Make Next Year Even Better – It’s Over To You
And there’s the ARC!
If you haven’t already noticed… Life is a series of arcs.
The bridges between the year that has just been and the year that is just about to come. Using ARC, you can transform your life and make next year even better than the last. Imagine doing that each year and how your life can be transformed.
Discover how we can transform your ARC into a plan for the year and design the life you want. The first step is putting yourself in the driver’s seat of your life.
Thank you for reading, sharing and being a part of my year. 
Until the New Year,
LIVE, LOVE & THRIVE