More About You!
It’s a fact: 2021 has been challenging, especially for young people, the elderly, and caregivers. The diminished (and in some cases total) absence of in-person social interaction has weakened our sense of connectedness and belonging. The constant reassessment of what’s safe to do and what’s not has been exhausting. And tragically, too many have lost family members, friends, and colleagues.
Many of us feel like we’re drifting, buffeted by uncertain winds. Learning to navigate in these times is hard. But psychologists agree that a few things can help:
Practicing meditation to learn how to diminish the impact of external stressors, especially persistent stressors like the virus.
Setting clear goals for yourself so you have a sense of direction and keep yourself engaged with challenges that you control.
Improving your ability to enter into the flow state so you develop your ability to step out of the pressures of the moment and lose yourself in work that’s engaging and refreshing.
We can’t control the virus, but we can control our response, our attention, and our schedule.
The Personal Annual Review Journey
The personal “year in review” exercise strengthens your ability to navigate uncertain times. It’s an annual ritual that reconnects you with your values and goals, highlights your recent successes, and sharpens your focus on your goals for the year ahead. The review process helps you put your past year in perspective and turn toward the year to come. It’s not magic—it won’t erase or even diminish the pains of the past year—but it will help you lay the stepping stones for a better year to come.
As Glen Lubbert of Stamina Lab and I collaborated on this update of our annual review workbook, we focused on enhancing two areas of the review and planning process that strongly affect your sense of well-being: goal setting and the weekly review. Goals give you a sense of direction; regular reviews help you determine whether you’re on track. If you’re not on a path to success, regular reviews give you the information you need to correct your course while there’s still time for those corrections to impact the outcome.
Our updated workbook, now titled More About You: A Workbook for Your Personal Annual Review and Plan for the Year Ahead, begins with an exploration of your values. We help you revisit your core values and beliefs, reconnect with your vision for your life, update your personal story, and describe your perfect day. We start with these things because we believe your core values illuminate every aspect of the review process, from what constitutes success to what makes your perfect day “perfect.”
Next, we move to your vision: your personal narrative, your aspirations, and the key areas of your life that are the focus of most of your time and energy. This exercise in personal storytelling helps you articulate your narrative for the year ahead and position yourself for growth.
The third section of the review focuses on capturing the most influential moments of the past year. Our review process primarily focuses on your successes. Yes, you can learn from your failures, but there’s a time and place for everything... We believe your annual review is a way to use your successes—the things you’ve accomplished and are most proud of—to help you build a year ahead that’s about more: more of the same positive energy, more growth, and more successes that align with your values and vision.
Once you’ve completed the first three sections of the workbook, you’ll be ready to look at the year ahead. The last section of the workbook focuses on capturing, clarifying, and achieving your goals. It begins with dreaming. Every goal is attached to a dream: without an associated dream, a goal has no emotional power. We then move to the goal stack and show you how your daily tasks, when properly clarified and aligned with your goals, drive you toward your long-term aspirations. We close with the most important tool in your productivity system: reviews. Weekly and monthly reviews are essential to keeping you on track, especially during times of uncertainty.
Your Investment Is Up to You
How much time you invest in your annual review is up to you. You can complete our annual review and planning process in a few hours or take a few days to complete it. No matter how much time you choose to invest, reflecting on the things that went well for you in the past year and setting even a few modest goals for yourself for the year ahead will pay off. Unfortunately, the winds of uncertainty aren’t going to settle down anytime soon. Having clear goals, even a few modest ones, will help you re-orient yourself when you’ve been blown off course—as we all are from time to time these days.
Get Your Free Copy of the Workbook
We’re sharing the workbook as a Microsoft Word document so you can type your responses directly into your copy of the workbook, and as a printable PDF so you can write your answers out in longhand if you prefer.
The best way to get the workbook is to have it delivered to your Inbox. Use this form to submit your email. You’ll then receive a message with links to both versions of the workbook. You'll also receive updates of the workbook as well as information on related workshops and tools.
You can also download the workbook in both formats using the links below:
Download the Microsoft Word Version of the More About You workbook
Download the PDF version of More About You workbook
Please contact me if you have any questions about the workbook or the annual review and planning process.