ABL #5: a New Year reflection ritual
(yes, this was sent on the correct day)
As this hits your inbox, I’m in a coffee shop or library somewhere in South Jersey with an overpriced latte in one hand, yellow highlighter in the other, and all my journals and notebooks from the past year spread out in front of me. It’s my birthday today, which means two things: 1) the latte was actually on Starbucks’s dime, and 2) it’s the first day of Reflection Season.
Several years ago now, I compiled a list of questions for myself that I’ve faithfully answered every December since. At first, I used the list as a warmup exercise to help with the annual goals I set instead of New Year’s resolutions. I won’t pretend it was an even remotely original idea.
This questionnaire — along with my expanding bank of answers to it — is the journaling equivalent of a year-in-review post, condensing time into key moments and framing its lessons in a broader context. By zooming out this way, not only can I see what to adjust going into the new year, but I can also better recognize and appreciate my progress year to year. It’s an exercise in both mindfulness and intention.
But over time I noticed that saving this deep thinking for the hectic holiday season meant I never had enough space or energy for it. Even without the added work of parenting, The Holidays still mean houseguests to host and social commitments to keep and all the mental and physical work that goes into making holiday magic. By that no-man’s-land last week of December, I’m too wound up, overstimulated, and drained to reflect intentionally or mindfully. I can only react.
New Year’s Day is a natural inflection point in the year, a clear marker to look back toward and review. But so are birthdays, which I consider to be single-serve new years, like the holiday equivalent of a personal-pan pizza. Even non-milestone birthdays offer a chance to be intentional about the coming year. That’s the whole point of birthday wishes.
So a few years ago I combined them. The whole reflection process now starts roughly six weeks earlier (today!) with my own personal new year, and goes something like this:
On my birthday, I read all my journal entries since my last birthday, review my answers from the previous year, and start thinking about how I might answer this year. And I give myself permission to go ahead and start filling in the blanks for this year if I feel like it.
The reflections start to take shape around Thanksgiving. One of my questions asks, “Who invested in you this year?” and encourages sending a thank-you card to those who come to mind. It’s about as close to a gratitude practice as I have, and although I don’t get them mailed every year, this is usually the first nudge to get me to start putting this year’s answers into written words.
The bulk of the questionnaire still gets filled out in the first half of December, but by then, I’ve already had the space to think deeply about how this year went and what I’d like from the next one. My goal is to have this done by Christmas because there’s a final stage of this process to squeeze in before the new year.
Because I share my life and home with another person, I also go over my answers with my husband, Josh. This usually happens in that aforementioned week between Christmas and New Year’s Day and has become the jumping-off point for our joint planning and goal-setting session (itself another wintertime ritual). And because of this, when we set those goals we both know we’re deliberately choosing what matters to us and not just picking random things to start on January 1 because we feel we “should.”
Since starting this process earlier, I’ve gotten so much more out of it than when I saved it for the very end of the year. I get to assess my progress while there’s still time left in the year, remind myself that SO MUCH can still happen in six weeks, and jettison anything that’s just not as important as it was a year ago. I give myself both the chance to finish strong without carrying a year’s worth of “should”s and “still didn’t”s, and grace for the things I put down.
Starting my reflection now also means I can approach the end of the year from a place of calm instead of stress. Around this time, my regular journaling and reflection habits get spotty. Well-intentioned entries become overstuffed to-do lists instead of rambling explorations of my feelings, and I review the next week in my planner far more often than last month’s observations.
But these reflection questions carry more weight than a standard journal entry. Filling out my questionnaire has evolved into an annual ritual, a touchstone that keeps me grounded through the madness of the holiday season. It’s not a habit, it’s a tradition that ranks right alongside my family’s legendary fudge recipe on my list of holiday non-negotiables. I can’t relegate this checkbox to the end of a to-do list because my year hinges on it. Without it, there is no transition from past to future; no closing of one chapter and beginning of the next. There is only being swept along by the current.
And that’s what rituals are for, after all: intentionally recognizing and honoring a moment of transition.
Birthdays are moments of transition too, and as a Scorpio, I feel this keenly. Scorpio season is a time of shadow, and stripping things back to their foundations, and not just death but rebirth and regeneration. This week we’re still in the shadow of Monday’s new moon in Scorpio — a time for planting and setting intentions, but behind the scenes or in secret — and Friday’s upcoming Mars cazimi offers a supportive moment for stepping into our power and agency in radical new ways.
Even my dreams this week have centered around this. Sunday night, during the Scorpio new moon, I dreamt I was freshening a flower arrangement, adding a few wispy new blooms to a porcelain vase printed with beetles, discarding the old, decaying stems, and leaving the ones that still had life. A Google attempt at dream analysis left me with even more questions to reflect on: What am I getting rid of, what am I taking with me, and what am I still guarding — fiercely, instinctually, reflexively, stubbornly — under my exoskeleton?
Scorpio or not, I encourage you to start your reflections earlier, while also reminding you that so very little is truly urgent. In a few weeks is the winter solstice, the shortest and darkest day of the year and another moment that’s traditionally associated with rebirth and renewal. It’s a good time to go inside. Drop your leaves, like the trees, and send your energy to your roots.
New Year Reflection Questions
If this year were a movie, what happened?
What were you most proud of this year?
What were you most ashamed of this year?
Where did you spend your time and energy?
Is everything that you focused on this year getting you closer to your BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal)?
What was challenging or disappointing this year?
Where did you fail?
What lessons did you learn? What breakthroughs did you experience?
How did you grow this year?
Looking back overall, how would you rate your happiness on a scale of 1-10 at the beginning of the year? In the middle of the year? At the end of the year?
Who invested in you this year? (This is the perfect time to write them a thank you note!)
What are you going to do differently next year than you did this year?
Where is an area where you will exercise courage to stretch, grow, and learn next year?
What are you still afraid of?
If you had an extra $1,000 to invest in yourself, what would you do with it?
If time or money didn’t matter, what would you love to do next year?
For next year to be a success, what needs to be your focus? What will be the best use of your talents/resources?
A Reflection Ritual for the New Year
These reflection questions are meant ot bring mindfulness and intention to your year, so be intentional about your timing and setting when working through them.
Make space. Choose an uninterrupted chunk of time when you can focus on only this task. Expect to spend 1-4 hours on this, although you can break this up into multiple sessions. Remember that deeper reflection brings greater clarity.
Assemble materials. Gather your journals, Photo Library, Smile File, and anything else that will jog your memories of the year’s events.
Get comfortable. Comfy clothes, comfy seat or workspace, comfy drink or blanket, or other comfort items. I brew a hot and slightly sweet beverage, put on cushy socks, and light a candle called “cozy comfort” or “snuggly sweater.”
Prepare your mind. Meditate, pray, run through your affirmations, or whatever else you need to do to approach this task gently, and from a place of grace and compassion for both yourself and your learning and growth process.
(source) Reflect. Fill out the questionnaire above. Add your own questions, or take out the ones that don’t appeal to you. Take your time with this, including time away to ponder in the background if needed. Last year, I broke mine out into 3 separate sessions.
Reflect more! If you’ve done similar exercises in previous years, review them now and compare to this year’s responses. Over the years, these questionnaires have become data I can reliably use to spot larger trends in my life. What trajectories can you see in your own responses? What story emerges the more data you compile?
Create your own ritual
This reflection ritual provides an excellent foundation for any other year-end or new-year reflection, planning, or goal-setting rituals you may practice. Here are some ideas you might try:
Choose your Word of the Year. I’ve chosen a word of the year for even longer than I’ve used my questionnaire, and usually have a gut sense of what word to choose by the time I’ve finished my responses. Other years, choosing the right word has taken a bit more reflection and reading. The word(s) you choose sets the intention and tone for your year. What word embodies how you want to feel? The impact you want to have? The transformation you want to experience?
Have a Dreaming Date with yourself and/or with your partner. My husband will be the first to tell you he’s not good at planning. He’s wrong, of course; the reality is that he just doesn't like it. But I’m a planner to the core, and plans tend to go better when they’re communicated — who knew?! So last winter, I got creative. “Let’s have a fun, relaxed, romantic date night at home,” I told him, “but also, dream about all the things we want to do in the new year.” We put on soft music, cooked something simple and delicious together while chatting about the past year, left our phones in the other room, and before we knew it, we were a bottle of cabernet deep and had our year all mapped out in Notion. Some of our goals were scarily ambitious, but wouldn’t you know it? We accomplished just about every one of them.
Make it your own: Choose a quiet, atmospheric restaurant, or better yet, stay in. Order in from one of your favorite spots, or choose a comforting recipe that feels indulgent but doesn’t require much attention or focus. While it’s cooking, chat with your partner about the year you’ve come through together (you can use your questionnaire responses as inspiration). Wear something that makes you feel powerful and dazzling, but won’t squish or pinch to distract from your dreams. Write down everything, decide what you’ll prioritize together, and remember to follow the SMART goals format: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound.
Narrow your focus. My best friend,
, pens an annual year-in-review titled “The Ten Best Days of the Year.” Next month, I’m sharing “Every Book I Read in 2023.” Make your own year-in-review listicle of the best soups you ate this year (impossible to choose!), the cutest outfits you wore, the funniest tweets you read, or the fluffiest cats you petted. There are no wrong answers.Create a vision board. I haven’t done this, but every New Year’s Day my in-laws all get together for a Lucky Meal, and I think it would be so fun to show up with poster boards, markers, glue sticks, scissors, and a bunch of old magazines. It would be fascinating to see everyone’s choices, and you could have so many deep, affirming conversations while you make them together. You could even take turns presenting your vision boards and asking for specific support — wouldn’t this be such a beautiful way to build accountability as you work toward your goals? Or if that’s too much like homework, gamify it. Divide the group to create your vision boards, then take turns guessing whose is whose. The person with the most correct guesses wins: a gift card, their drink freshened for them, or simple bragging rights.
I’ll leave you with the affirmation I’m repeating today:
Each year I grow more into the person I am meant to become. I am progressing at the pace that is right for me.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a very happy Chloe’s birthday!
Talk soon,
💜 Chloe