Today we're going to talk about doing year-end reviews.
A lot has happened over the last 365 days and we don't want to just move forward without getting some of that knowledge and wisdom and bringing it with us into the new year.
We answer what is a year-end review and the effect it has on our mindset.
It doesn't matter if you crushed 2023 or if is was a rough year, you'll learn why a year-end review will propel you into positive change for 2024.
Today we're going to talk about doing year-end reviews.
A lot has happened over the last 365 days and we don't want to just move forward without getting some of that knowledge and wisdom and bringing it with us into the new year.
We answer what is a year-end review and the effect it has on our mindset.
It doesn't matter if you crushed 2023 or if is was a rough year, you'll learn why a year-end review will propel you into positive change for 2024.
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, durable Dad, episode number 41.
Speaker 1:
It has been gorgeous in Northwest Ohio this early winter. I know it's not going to stay this way forever, but it's been beautiful out. Yesterday I was out returning a favor to a buddy who helped me cut a bunch of firewood. He actually brought his splitter over to my house a month ago and I went over to his house yesterday and the weather was gorgeous, so we just split and cut wood all afternoon, had some good convos, and now I'm here recording this podcast.
Speaker 1:
So today we're going to talk about doing year-end reviews. What is a year-end review? It is basically a look back over the past 365 days and we're going to look at what happened, the highlights, the lowlights, our achievements, what we want more of, what we want less of, because we've gained a lot of wisdom. A lot has happened over the last 365 days and we don't want to just move forward without getting some of that knowledge and wisdom and bringing it with us into the new year. If you haven't heard of year-end reviews before, I think the first place our mind goes to are corporate reviews. Corporate year-end reviews can leave a bad taste in your mouth for some people. I know a buddy that he just wants to work and keep working. He knows what his job is and he just wants to do it. Year-end reviews are a waste of time. I'm kind of the opposite. When I was in the corporate world, I looked forward to my year-end reviews. I was like give me the feedback, let me know where I'm messing up, where I can step it up, where I'm doing well, where you need me. I didn't always love what the feedback was, felt uncomfortable, felt some resistance, but I did like the feedback to just a benchmark where I'm at right now and gave me the opportunity to see what I wanted to change. That's what we do with a personal year-end review. You might hear me talking about spending time reflecting and be like I don't have time for that. It's not worth it. I'll never do that, not for me. If you're telling yourself that, I want you to just listen to this podcast, because I've been doing these for five years and I really believe that it's the secret to having a better year If you've set goals in the past, set New Year's resolutions in the past and they've gone well, but then putter it out. The year-end review is the way to make sure that doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:
What is it about a year-end review that's so impactful? When you go through the process, you create a new belief and a new energy that you bring into the new year. Belief and energy is very important when we're trying to achieve things and have a really successful life. If we just look at the New Year's resolution to meditate or get organized in life or stop stressing and try to enjoy the little moments more, if we're just focused on the goal or the habit, we're only looking at the action. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, I talk about the thinking cycle a lot, but the premise is that our thoughts and our emotions create the actions that we take. If we want to get healthier or we want to stop stressing and enjoy the little moments a little more and be more present, if those are the actions we want to take, we have to focus on the thoughts and emotions that are going to create it. That's what a year-end review does.
Speaker 1:
When you go through the process, you change your thoughts, you change your emotions. I'll give you an example. Let's say you want to get healthier in 2024. If you just set that goal I want to be healthier and then let the chips fall where they lie. You're not going upstream and looking at your thoughts and emotions. You're probably setting that health goal from a place of shame or guilt or disgust. We don't like the way we look in the mirror. We think we're fat. We've been beating ourselves up about this and now the new year is the time to change. When we bring that kind of energy, we're gonna do well for a couple weeks, maybe a month or two, and then we're gonna putter out because we're doing it from a place of shame and guilt and that can fuel us for a little, but it wears out and I know, because I've done it before, it doesn't feel good when you're going after a goal. It feels more like white knuckling, pushing through, trying to really restrict yourself. And we want to hit goals, but we want to do it with more ease and more passion and more excitement. So the flip side to shame and guilting yourself into a healthier lifestyle is doing a year-end review.
Speaker 1:
So when I did my year-end review, I saw this picture of myself. It was taken when we were on vacation this past summer and Brenda said, hey, look at this picture of you Not bad for a 40-year-old. And I was like, yeah, it's pretty cool. I was in really good shape, I had just run a Spartan race and if you took that same picture right now, I'd probably be a little more round, not as trim, and I could be thinking, oh, I'm fatter now. I wish I was in better shape, but that's not what's fueling me for 2024.
Speaker 1:
Another picture that I saw when I was doing my year-end review was the pictures from the Spartan race that I ran, and it was a race that I had pushed myself harder in this race than any other race. And when I looked at the pictures, I thought about crossing the finish line and the whole ups and downs of the race and sitting there afterwards with my shoes off and my shirt off and just soaking it all in. And what came back to me while I was looking at the pictures was that I want to do that again. When I was sitting there after the race and it was all over, my brain was like that was awesome, I want to do it again and that's what's powering me to get stronger this next year. I can feel a different energy between those two. I need to get in better shape, because I look like shit right now and the mindset of I can't wait to do this again. I can't wait to run another Spartan race.
Speaker 1:
So you do your year-end review and then you set your goals because you're going to be coming with a different energy. So I want to shed a little light on what this process could look like For me this year. The first thing I do is I set aside time. I set aside time that I'm going to do it and then, when that time gets here, I sit down with a cup of tea, make this yerba mate latte thing that Brenda concocted one day, and now I drink them a lot. It used to be coffee, but I'm trying to steer away from coffee a little bit. So sit down, cup of tea. I turned on Spotify the last couple of years. Spotify does that cool recap of your top songs from the past year. So I set that up and just kind of set a nice little environment for myself to do this year in review.
Speaker 1:
I just did it at my desk. Sometimes I've gone to a coffee shop, but I just wanted to knock this one out. I didn't have much time to do it and that's a point to consider. We're short on time. Who has the time to sit down and do a year in review? It's so worth it and it doesn't have to take very long. The process I did takes three hours. You could do it in an hour. Some is better than none, so sat down.
Speaker 1:
My process looks like this there's a reflection part and there's a looking ahead part. During the reflection you look at events, you look at photos, you ask some questions and journal about those questions and then you move into the year coming up and you think about what you want more of and you ask yourself questions about the priorities and what you want to start doing and what you want to leave behind. After the process is over, you'll notice a different feeling, a different pep in your step. At least I do Every year. I wrap up at the end of this year. When I was done, kind of came out into the house. I did it really early in the morning and when I was done the girls were still getting ready for school and I came out and I just popped on some music and we were dancing around a little bit, got the whole room feeling good, and that momentum isn't going to be with me the whole year, but it's a pretty good feeling to wrap up 2023 in a happy way, because a lot of shit went down in 2023 also. It was a big year for us.
Speaker 1:
Running a business is not easy and that actually came up in my year-end review. One of the questions is who were the most influential people in your year? I had a few. One of them was my business coach, dave Moreno. I was just reflecting on the impact he had. Some of the conversations we had, and not only were we running a business, but we also adopted our new daughter. My business coach really was there for me and helped kind of bring some clarity to things that we're doing and just evening me out Not just in business, and life too and that's the thing with this experience on the world is it's not just these areas of life business, dad, husband, they're not siloed, they all overlap. He was one of my most influential people, a business coach that doesn't really coach on just business, and it supported me in all areas of life. That was a little bit of a tangent, but I'm just going to keep rolling with it, because I want to share a few other things that I pulled from my year-end review the insight that I'm going to use moving forward. That might help paint a picture of what a year-end review can do if you've never done one before and you're considering it.
Speaker 1:
Going through the recap and what I did the past year, relationships came up as something that were just top priority, something that I gave a lot of time to and I want to keep doing. This wasn't a big surprise for me. I think the first couple of years I did a year-end review, relationships really stuck out and I wasn't aware of how important times with my parents are. Times with Brenda's family are as far as filling me up and making me feel connected and good. So 2024, just want to get more of that. One of the things was I want to spend a little more time with my mom. I think I got a lot of dad time in last year. Not that I don't want more time with my dad, but that was one of the things that stuck out to me. It was like I don't spend that much one-on-one time with my mom. I think we get together and she's all about the grandkids and we kind of miss out on connecting and we don't live very close. So maybe next time we're together in Chicago or they're here we take a walk together without the little ones. But my year-end review allowed me to pull that wisdom out for the next year, all right.
Speaker 1:
Another piece of insight I kind of grabbed when I was reflecting on the past year was the times that I Did things for myself when I ran a Spartan race, when I went mountain biking and took the day off on my birthday, when I went camping by myself. Those times Coincided with positive times in my business, with fun things that were going on with my family, and kind of the moods at those times of the year were I was more lifted up, I wasn't as stressed and this is kind of what I preach right, take care of yourself. But there were also times of the year where I wasn't doing Things for me and business was actually down during those times and if I really think about it which I'm kind of just thinking about it now I was more stressed in those times when I wasn't doing things for myself and that's something I want more of. So my goal for 2024 is taking one day off a month to Do something fun for myself take a hike, whatever, something simple, but a day off just for me. And Doing that once a month, I can hear my brain saying that's a lot of time. You don't have time for that. You need to be spending time on business and be with your family when you're not working. Okay, that's what a brain does whenever we set a new goal. But I also have this wisdom from the past year. Looking at my calendar, they're like no, tommy, if you Take time for yourself, you're better for everyone else. And Then the last one I'll mention. So there's a question I ask when looking at the year ahead, and it's what do my kids need? And this was a interesting one to think about, and I'll just.
Speaker 1:
My biggest insight was for Marlowe, our eight month old, and what she needs is just Me on the ground hanging out. When I saw that question, I was just thinking about what my time is like with her right now. And she's been Tiny, right, she's only eight months old. I think when they're that little, it's a it's more mom time and dad's there to help. But she's crawling now, she's laughing, and even over the last couple months I think I've been in this place where I just keep her happy and I'm trying to Run around, do stuff in the kitchen Maybe I'm texting on my phone and she makes a noise and I move her to make her happy and Then I go back and do my thing. What she needs for me, what I think she needs for me, is more laying on the ground, crawling around, laughing, goofing around just full presence. That's what she needs for me. So that was another insight that I took.
Speaker 1:
Now I'm telling you all this about a year-end review kind of Told you what I did this year, just high level. I almost didn't put this podcast out because there is an annual review. You can go to our website and buy, and I didn't want this to feel super salesy and marketing. So what I'm really saying and what I'm really trying to communicate is that A year on review is gonna make your next year better, and you don't have to get the one on our website. Tim Ferriss has an awesome framework to do a year on review if you Google his blog or anyone else's framework or make up your own.
Speaker 1:
But spend an hour, spend a couple hours reflecting on what happened this past year so you can create wisdom, so you can gather insights. You can create some appreciation and excitement for the coming year. And even if you had a shitty year you got a divorce, you lost your job, you had some problems in relationships doing a year on review, you're gonna look back and be like, holy shit, I survived a lot. I went through some really hard things and I'm still here and maybe, instead of moving on to the next year like I'm glad all that's over, this is gonna be fresh and I'm starting a new or maybe you have some pessimism about a new stage in life you're gonna take after something hard that happened. If you reflect on the year, maybe your new motivation can become I can do hard things. I've survived this. I can survive more.
Speaker 1:
So, even if you've had a shitty year, do a year on review. It's gonna be healing to look back and process some of the stuff that you went through. So, as you wrap up 2023, consider a year on review. Reflecting is one of our superpowers as a human being and having a human brain like we do no other animal does. We're able to reflect and learn and gather that information to thrive, evolve, moving forward. Do a year on review. Prime your brain, prime your energy to have a better 2024. All right, hope you have an awesome Christmas week and enjoy some time off time with the family and talk to you next week.