Yearly Reviews

I’ll be attending a Yearly Review group session tomorrow. My first time doing one was last year. It was 4 sessions over a weekend. I actually didn’t do all the prompts. I got distracted. I was planning to work on it more on my own time. But I never did. These kinds of life reviews are hard for me. First, I need focus. Second, it takes courage. Courage to face fears and negative self-talk like I wasn’t very productive in the past year. Or feeling sad about good memories that will never be had again. I’ve always been more of the type of person who lives in the moment, and not in the good way. The instant gratification kind of way. How do I feel good now? Not putting enough priority on long-term or big-picture views.

My plan for tomorrow is to review and record the main highlights of the year: courses I took, people I met, and events that occurred. I started keeping a “lifelog” which could serve as an outline of an autobiography. Or a journal of major (and some minor) life events that I could tell as stories to future generations. Really, I just need a system to do this more regularly, so it’s not such a heavy lift at the end of the year. I haven’t been good with monthly reviews either. I get paid to host weekly review sessions, but I don’t even use those hours for their intended purpose that often.

I suppose doing these kinds of reviews better will be one of my new year goals.