It’s that wonderful, yet sometimes confusing time of year… When Christmas is over, there’s an abundance of leftover food in the fridge and you’re left feeling in “limbo” because it’s hard to keep track of what day of the week it is let alone the actual date!
I love to spend these few days in between spending time with family and friends to firstly really reflect on the past 12 months. Following this, I start to put those thoughts / wishes / goals I’ve been thinking about recently for the future into a real plan for the year ahead.
As we’re now into the first few days of 2018, I want to share with you how I have been reflecting on the last year and have planned the next year too.
There are many people out there who have already spent a week or so reflecting on the last year and have had 2019 planned out weeks in advance… However, life gets in the way sometimes and you know what? That’s okay!
Even by spending a couple of hours over the next few days – or even a week – you can be confident you have reflected on 2018 and have a solid plan in place for 2019 to achieve your goals.
If you haven’t seen my post on Goal Setting for Success, then I’d seriously recommend you take a look at that first!
It’s now time to let go of what 2018 has been, and say Hello to a well planned 2019!
*For this post, I am using the process I used to reflect on this Blog for the previous year and plan the next.
Reflection
Firstly, we need to let go of what did and didn’t happen in 2018.
This can sometimes be a difficult thing to do, particularly if there have been a few challenging or even heartbreaking moments.
To start reflecting, think back to as many pinnacle points and achievements you made over the year. Make a list of these achievements and everything involved in getting there.
For example, I am most proud of launching this blog, giving it all my effort during my free time and seeing it become a success over the 9 months it has been live…
I then went on to establish what made it such a success, like which posts were getting the most traffic and comments. I looked at where this traffic was coming from, whether it was Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram etc and from which countries. Collating this information into a Notebook or Word document is the building blocks for looking ahead to the following year.
It is equally important to evaluate what didn’t work so well. For example, which posts haven’t quite worked out as hoped and try to understand why. Was it because they hadn’t been promoted enough on social media platforms? And was there a direct correlation between the successful posts and the amount it was promoted? Perhaps it’s because it’s the less popular posts are part of a lesser interesting topic for your readers…
That being said, my most popular posts were from the “4 Principles for Creating…” series, about key design trends, budgeting and improving certain rooms to enhance their overall ambiance.
Interestingly, the least popular ones are linked to Mindset and Personal Development. Which may actually lead to me creating a completely different blog entirely devoted to that subject as I am just as passionate about that as I am Interior Design! Who knows, it could even be made into its own Brand…
Planning
Following some deep reflection on what went well and what didn’t go so well, it’s time to really start planning your goals into the year ahead.
So, what are you working towards?
What, above everything else, would you die trying to achieve? (Not literally obviously!)
It’s important at this point that you take a moment to think through your goals for not only the next 12 months but beyond that as well. What do you really want to achieve? How do you see yourself living? How do you want to live? What is your dream lifestyle? And how are you planning on getting there?
These are just a few question to help you get going with questioning why you’re looking to work towards your big goals…
If you’re struggling to set goals, head over to my post on Goal Setting for Success, to help you set clear goals!
Once you have outlined your big goals (1 year, 3 years, 5 years and even 10 years if you can), you should start to break these down. These should be broken down into smaller chunks; smaller goals and targets that you can start working towards, today.
Start by looking at each goal and question yourself, “what is needed / what steps do I need to take in order to work towards this?”. Write those steps down!
Once you have lots of small targets and goals, start plotting them into your calendar. By the end of which month or quarter do you want to have made some serious headway on your big goal this year? I always find that by having a visible deadline for these goals it makes me more motivated to block in some time to work on them on the lead up.
Work backwards from the main deadline and block out your time in your diary – even just 30 minutes a day to start with – where you can dedicate that to taking the steps necessary to achieve your goals in the long run.
This is the exact method I have used to reflect on 2018 and plan my 2019 so it will be the most successful year yet! I hope you have found this post to be useful for looking to the year ahead too… Start dreaming! And get planning.
We would love to hear how you like to reflect on the previous 12 months and start planning the next! Share it with us in the comments below.
Take Care,
Jessica, xo
References:
Intro, ArchDaily – https://www.archdaily.com/784308/casa-sebbah-pepe-gascon?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ArchDaily+(ArchDaily)
Reflecting, HomeWings – https://homewings.co.uk/magazine/the-modest-elegance-of-modern-design/
Planning, Unknown
