When the turkey is eaten and presents opened and the chocolate box is finally demolished, we can start to look at 2023 and the hope and promise a brand-new year brings. Making resolutions at this time is traditional and making them can bring enthusiasm and motivation.

But stop…

Before we go there, this is also a time for looking back, reflection and thinking of our achievements, events and memories made in 2022.

If I asked you to look back at the important things and events of 2022, what would you think of? What kind of year was it? Some of you will look back and think: “Thank God it’s nearly over!” Some of you will think of the things that you didn’t achieve or do.

This can actually be a useful exercise.

MAke a list

Make a list of what you had wanted to achieve or happen but didn’t and then look at why not. What is the reason that it didn’t happen? You may say, “I didn’t have the time” or “maybe it’s not meant to be” but look a little deeper. Could you have made a bigger effort to make the time, to make it happen? Did you have the resources you needed? Have these events or goals been on your resolution or to-do list before this year and they are still not done?

If so, what could you do in 2023 to make it happen? Then take another step deeper and think about why you want to do this or make it happen. Is it your dream or someone else’s? Is it or would it be a positive thing in your life?

Review the whole reason why you want to do it and re-assess if it is something you want to bring into 2023. Don’t let habit or FOMO (fear of missing out) influence your decision. Be objective and honest with yourself.

On the flip side, a more positive feeling is what you did achieve? While we can often begin this exercise by thinking that we haven’t really achieved very much. Once you start you will be amazed at all of what you have achieved during the last 12 months.

These achievements can be whatever you want them to be, what’s important to you, work, business, health, relationships, life dream goal, financial, family, anything. Go back over your diary and work through it and see what you come up with. I’ll bet you’ll be amazed at what you have forgotten you have done.

This can be an empowering exercise. One year I thought the list of what I didn’t achieve would be a mile long and the achievement list would be short. In fact, the opposite was true.

We can be programmed to focus on the negatives in our life, what didn’t happen, what we don’t have. The Law of Attraction states that what we focus on is what we attract into our lives. So, a lack mindset can result in a lack of reality. How about flipping that to a more positive and abundant mindset?

Choices

The list of what we didn’t achieve can allow us to look at the reasons why they didn’t happen and can help us make an informed choice whether we pursue them in the following year or not. The achieved list helps us to see what went right in our life and give us confidence. Look deeper and see why this is so. Are there systems and processes in place that make it so? Could we bring some of these into other areas of our lives?

Do these things happen because we make them a priority?

By looking back at the year gone and taking time to reflect we can make our goals and resolutions for the new year in a more informed way. Instead of perhaps just repeating the same resolutions, we will have a much better idea of what is important to us and what skills, processes and systems we need to use and what we need to do more of.

Something I am going to try next year is to write down every day one thing I am grateful for. Why don’t you try it? And if you have more than one thing then that’s a good day and let’s see if we can attract more positivity into our lives by doing this.

Remember: “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards”.