This week has been a time of reflecting on 2024 and preparing to step into 2025. In searching for a new way to review the year and create goals for the next 12 months, I searched the internet including podcast sites I’ve previously found helpful. The one that appealed to me was Mel Robbins’ “How to Make Next Year the Best Year: Ask Yourself These 7 Questions.” Mel says that she and her husband have done this as a New Years Inventory for the past twenty years. What they discover becomes a map for how to move forward in the next year.

She uses the photos on her phone to respond to Question #1, “Describe the highlights from the last year of your life.” It’s great that with our phones in hand we have an ongoing record of our journey. Mel instructs her audience to examine their expressions in the photos to see if they’re happy, tired, sad etc. Which of those photos show joy?

Looking back at my photos from 2024, the ones that make me most joyful are those of my grandkids–no big surprise 🙂 Their milestones that our family shared–birthday parties, Pre-K programs at Thanksgiving and Christmas, Kindergarten graduation, Little League Baseball and Tee ball games etc. are great reminders of our deep connection. Viewing those pictures, seeing how they’ve changed in a year, is a tender reminder of how quickly time passes and how fast they’re growing up.

There are also pictures that show highlights of another important relationship and of course there are many of my pilgrimage on the Portuguese Coastal Path of the Camino de Santiago. The Camino pictures also get at her #2 Question “What were some of the hardest parts of last year?” That fourteen days of walking 158 miles had many ‘hard parts.’ I look at some of the scenes of the villages and remember how exhausted, frustrated, or overwhelmed I felt at that part of the journey. I don’t often take pictures of the hard part of things because I don’t want to remember them; it does help to look back and see those pictures and remember the struggle that you managed to slog through, the way it made you stronger.

The #3 Question follows naturally from looking at the hardest parts of the year– What did you learn about yourself? I see this picture of that ride in the boat and remember the mis-steps of that day, getting lost multiple times, my vulnerabilities, and my farm-girl-value of not giving up, not stopping until the job is done; I did arrive at my destination.

I think back to all that filled my calendar last year and consider Question #4– What are you going to Stop doing this year? The easiest answer for me is that I’m going to stop spending so many hours walking to train for the Camino. It feels good to say that goal was accomplished and now I will continue to exercise but in a different way that won’t take so much time. There are other things I will need to consider that will help to open up space and decrease unnecessary busyness.

Question #5 of the New Years Inventory is What are you going to Continue doing? This gets at knowing what you value, what things sustain your life. I’m still working on these questions and this one I need to sit with for a while.

Questions #6 What am I going to Start doing this year? gets at New Years goals or resolutions. In Mel’s inventory she says she’s going to “bring compassion to things that didn’t happen in the previous year” instead of beating herself up for not achieving her goals. Part of that compassion is looking at those things with curiosity to figure out what obstacles, circumstances occurred that made that accomplishment difficult. I like this because I find that I tend to view these failures with judgement instead of grace.

And finally, Question #7 What can you do to take a 1st step now that you have a set of directions? Truthfully, I’m still working through these questions–but I have a couple of things that are coming through as priorities–things to focus on in the New Year. And the word that keeps coming to me is intentional.

At this point in life, I see time passing so quickly and being intentional in how I use my precious time is so important. In looking at the meaning of intentional, and considering what this is on a daily basis, I found a blog post by Mark Pettit of Lucensi Consulting–a Time Management expert who had a post “Being Intentional: 6 Ways to be Intentional Every Day” (everyone loves their lists!). I liked what he says:

“Learning to be intentional means choosing to take action on the things that are important to you.  Living with intention means you consciously choose to create the life you want, rather than having other people dictate your feelings and actions.”

I think that whatever comes to me after reviewing last year with the help of Mel Robbins, the most important thing is to carry that intention in each moment through the day. That way I live with purpose and don’t get to next January 1 and say “What happened that I didn’t spend the year the way I intended?”

My hope for you in 2025, is that you spend your hours in doing the things that bring you joy, that give your life meaning and fulfillment.

This is your one, precious, life and I wish for you the best in the days to come.

Connie