How to: 2023 reflections

Over the last couple of weeks, after all my exams for the semester was over, I have slowly tried to work myself through a bit of 2024 prep. It’s not all finished yet, but I do feel that it is fitting to continue with the prep in January – or even if you haven’t started yet, it’s is never to late in my opinion if you want to help yourself have as good of a year as possible. If you’re feeling out of sorts, just a bit lost in yourself, or you’re generally just not happy with your own life? It’s always best to start when you’re ready, no need to wait for a new year or even a new week.

But no matter when you start, I am definitely of the opinion that reviewing and reflecting over what your life has been like over the last year (or even couple of years) is a necessary place to start.

For my own 2023 reflection, I went into prompts like these:
– What are some big purchases I made during this year, or where did my money go in general?
– What are some big positives of the year?
– What are some big negatives of the year?
– How have I changed over the last year?
– Did you make goals for the year, how did they go?
– What are some things I’ve accomplished this year that I’m proud of?
– In what areas did I make the most improvements?
– What and/or who am I leaving behind in 2023?
– I forgive myself for…

To make this list I roamed Pinterest for reflection prompts, and made a long list of the ones I found that maybe could be relevant for me and a friend I did this with, and then we sat down and chose this selection for ourself. There are definitely a lot of others that could fit your better, or maybe that should be added. But sometimes it’s nice to start small. These I feel like are specific, but still encompass a lot each, and they focus on the positive, while not neglecting the negative – as both are necessary to be reflected over and dealt with.

The point of the reflection to me is to put down a base layer to build the next year on. By doing this you can see what you liked and didn’t, what you want more or less of in the new year. Remember also that there are a lot of categories to possibly think about. What about your finances, did you spend your money how you’d like or how you needed to? Did you set some new boundaries with friends and family? Did you start a new hobby (or five like me), or read some good books? Start a new job, loose someone? Maybe you checked up on your health, or had a health scare? How was your mental health? Maybe you put spirituality higher or lower in your life, or changed the way your work out or eat? Or was your greatest achievement this year that you survived?

Your life consists of so many parts, it’s easy to forget sometimes. Especially when the focus of new years resolutions and all of that, often focus on the big things. But it’s all the little things that really make up life and how we feel about it. So do be proud of your small wins!

If you’re wanting to do your own prep to try and help yourself make 2024 the best you can, I’ll be posting more tidbits of how I’ve done this myself this year over the next couple of weeks with both a how to like this, as well as sharing some of my own thoughts on each the day after so that you also can have an example to work with. Hope this helps you get started at least, and do let me know if you have questions! And watch our for my 2023 reflections coming up tomorrow.

Q: Are you doing 2023 reflections this year?