Annual Review and Goal Planning, Too
Here we are in 2023, which is pretty cool. I’m looking forward to it and I hope you are, too. I love starting out the new year full of hope and enthusiasm and I am one of the seven people on the planet who actually like January. It always feels so fresh and new and clean—all the Christmas decorations are down, and there’s a sense of renewal in the air. (It probably helps that some of my favorite people, including my daughter and my late father were born in the month.)
And one of my favorite things to do around this time of year is actually two things—an annual review and goal setting for the new year. I always have lovely, wafty images of the week in between Christmas and New Year’s being for relaxation and rest, with plenty of time for working on these projects. Annnnddd that didn’t happen this year. We ended up with more social events than planned on, and more work, too, neither of which I’m complaining about. Okay I might have whined a little. So I’m still working on both these projects, which disturbs mightily the good-little-girl part of my brain that wants things done right and on time. But I am way old enough now to ditch that good little girl bit so onward I go. And in case you have it in mind to review and plan, I offer some ideas. (There are many, many people on the internet pushing offering frameworks on how to do this and I subscribe to every single one of their newsletters. Haha, kidding. But it feels like it.)
Annual Review
Even if you’re not into planning, and have no interest in figuring out what you’re going to focus on in 2023, an annual review is a cool thing to do. If only to remember and celebrate the good times! Or you can go way deep and decide what you can do better, what you can learn from, etc., etc., etc. I like what Lola Wright says about doing it: “Pull out your journal, a piece of paper, or even your phone and write exhaustively for thirty minutes. Bring to your mind's eye all of the good that you experienced over the course of the year—big and small. When you and I orient ourselves to the incredible and abundant nature that pervades our lives we train our focus of attention. Be specific.” And, as I was writing this newsletter, an email from Michael Hauge, my main man for story structure, came in. Here’s a bit of the helpful advice he offers around the process.
“On New Year’s morning (or whenever), sit down by yourself with a legal pad and write everything you accomplished in the last year. Look through your calendar, go over old emails, or just close your eyes and reminisce about all the things you did that made your – or someone else’s - life better in some way. EVERYTHING qualifies – you’re going for quantity here, not just quality….Anything at all you chose to do qualifies – because the fact that you did them means in that moment you must have resolved to take those actions. So until you’ve filled at least every line of your legal pad, keep going.”
If you want to do a full-on review, pull out your planner and/or calendar from 2022 and go through it month by month. If you keep a journal, pull that out, too. I got a great tip from Cynthia Morris one year and that is to go through your photos. Visual images jog the memory. Susannah Conway offers an exhaustive workbook each year (and when I say exhaustive, I mean exhaustive but it’s way cool). You can download that here. And, finally my man Sahlil Bloom had a great selection of review questions for the year, handily gathered in template form. You can find that here.
Planning for 2023
And now the fun begins! We get to start thinking about what 2023 will look like; what we want to accomplish, the fun things we want to do, places to go, people to see, things to buy, ways of acting in the world. Again, multiple people offer frameworks for this planning, and as above, I pull out bits and pieces from all of them. But I’m pretty sure you get the gist. A simple guideline is to choose six (arbitrary number I got from Shaunta Grimes, who says this way you can work on one goal each day of the week and have a day to rest) big goals. And from there, you can break them down into actionable steps. (This is the part I have the most difficulty with, and I have to be very careful not to get so engrossed in making a Big Plan that I don’t ever do anything with it.)
I found this framework (again, from Sahlil Bloom) particularly helpful in forging a plan for the new year. I like it because you take your big goals and stop them down into manageable bits, with a way to note checkpoint goals and daily systems along the way. Those are important to me because they are where I struggle. Implementation, baby! The afore-mentioned Shaunta Grimes has a Fresh Start for 2023 class that you can enroll in for free, here.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the value of coaching in achieving your goals. I cannot count the number of years that I made Big Plans and then did nothing with them. Last year was different, in large part because I had a coach. It can make all the difference, in your writing, your career, and your personal life. Choosing a coach is a very personal thing, but if my work resonates with you, I offer both book and life coaching for writers.
So there you go—have at it, guys. And have fun while you’re doing it, too.
Here’s to a wonderful 2023!
Note: This post is excerpted from my weekly newsletter, The Abundant Writer. If you’d like to receive these missives straight to your inbox, you can subscribe here. Thanks, and happy writing!