For me 2024 has not been an easy year. It required me to deepen my patience time and again. The events of this year required me to trust the flow of my life to an even deeper level and it challenged me to rely on my intuition when the facts seemed stacked against me.
Today I noticed a tendency to clear out cupboards and clutter—reminding me of a mini spring cleaning to get ready for the new year. In order to make room for 2025 in your mind as well, I highly recommend taking a moment to reflect on this past year—if you haven’t already done so.
I’ve crafted 5 questions that will help you get clear on what 2024 has brought you, what you want to take with you into the new year and what you’d want to do differently moving forward.
Tips to get started
Don’t peek at the questions before you’re ready to answer them so you can go with the answer that bubbles up rather than overthink it. You can always go back later and add more. 😉
I suggest setting aside an hour to go through these questions undisturbed. If that’s not realistic, then try to set aside 10 minutes per question and work your way through one question at a time.
If possible, sit somewhere that’s relaxing and quiet. Perhaps even outside if the temperature and weather allow it. (Which is certainly not the case here in The Netherlands.)
Writing the answers out by hand is generally more powerful than typing it out. It helps you get into more of a stream of consciousness flow than typing. There’s power to the hand-brain connection when it comes to comprehension, memory and retention of new information. All useful elements in this process.
If your head feels full or if you have difficulty focusing, then I recommend you take a moment to ground first.
Once you’re settled, I recommend going through the questions in order. Don’t start on the next question until you feel you’ve written out everything that was triggered by this question. It’s not about getting this done quickly but about unearthing valuable insights that will benefit you in the years to come. Enjoy!
The Questions
1. What is your biggest achievement or accomplishment in 2024?
What are you most proud of? And why?
How did you celebrate this? If you haven’t yet taken the time to mark this accomplishment, I highly recommend you think of something to honor what you did. We’re often more focused on things that go wrong rather than celebrate things we did well. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It’s about the acknowledgement more than anything else.
2. What has been your biggest disappointment?
How has this impacted you?
3. What has this disappointment taught you?
If applicable: how will you do things differently moving forward?
4. What are you most grateful for?
And who are you most grateful for? (If you haven’t had a chance to thank them, this is a good reminder to tell them what their support means to you.)
“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.” — William Arthur Ward (American motivational writer)
5. What is the most powerful change you made in 2024 that you want to make (or keep as) your new normal?
For example, I deepened my understanding of circadian rhythms and the impact sunlight and artificial light have on our well-being. As a result, I’ve eliminated all sources of blue and white light after dinner. Resulting in more energy and better sleep. (I’ll share more about that in the new year.) Which change has brought you the most?
Bonus question: who do you need to forgive, and for what? (This might be yourself!)
Of course, you can make your year in review as elaborate as you want by simply listing all your mistakes, accomplishments etc. rather than the biggest or most important one. And you can even go a level deeper by going back and answering each question for the following categories:
- Health & well-being
- Love & relationships
- Work, career & business
- Finance & wealth
- Self-care & time-off
- Home
Bonus activity:
If you want to take things a step further, I recommend this guided visualization that I recorded to help you release what no longer serves you. So that you can create more space for new things to come in the New Year, You can listen to it for free here on Insight Timer (The world’s largest free meditation app where I am teacher.)
Thank you for travelling with me this past year. I look forward to continue to serve you in 2025! I can’t wait to share some exciting news that I’ve been working on! ✨
Love,
