The end of the year brings about many rituals for us all. Beyond the traditional rituals that the holiday season brings, the ritual of “mindful reflection” is a critical one to observe. No matter who you are, the exercise of reflecting allows you to celebrate successes, learn from disappointments, and help determine your direction for the new year.
The term reflection comes from the Latin word, ‘reflectere’ — meaning “to bend back.” This idea of ‘bending back’ to see what we have done this year will help bridge the gap between our experiences and the lessons we need to learn from them. These lessons from the past can only make us better if we choose to apply them in the future.
The steps below will guide you through a year-end reflective process.
Step 1: List all of the roles you play in your life. Examples could be student, friend, son/daughter, employee, volunteer, citizen, parent, co-worker, parishioner, etc.
Step 2: After identifying each role, rate how effectively you fulfilled them. Score yourself between 1(low) to 10 (high).
Step 3: After you rate each of the identified roles, begin to identify what made you score them the way you did. What accomplishments did you have in that role over the last year? What disappointments did you encounter? This step is critical, because it forces you to think about the way you think about your life.
Step 4: When you have interpreted your reason(s), begin to identify the lessons you learned this year within each role. These lessons can become your guidelines for the new year. Write down at least three lessons that you’d like to take into the next year.
Now that you have written lessons for the next year, begin to identify how these lessons will influence your life in a positive way. This exercise helps to illustrate how our past can influence our future through mindful reflection. Good luck!