As December rolls in, I look forward to one of my favorite traditions: the End-of-Year Review. For the past five years, this simple yet powerful practice has been a cornerstone of my personal growth journey. It’s a time to pause, reflect, and plan with intentionality.
In John Maxwell’s book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, he introduces the Law of Reflection: “You have to pause to let growth catch up to you.” This concept resonates deeply because experience alone isn’t the best teacher—it’s reflected experience that leads to true growth.
If you’ve never set aside time for a year-end review, you’re missing an incredible opportunity to learn from your life, celebrate your wins, and set a clear course for the future.
Here’s how I approach this practice, and how you can make it work for you.
Too often, we’re so focused on the next goal that we forget to acknowledge how far we’ve come. The end of the year is the perfect time to measure your progress—against your former self, not others.
Take time to reflect on the following five areas of your life:
Write down as many wins as you can. Whether it’s a major milestone or a small but meaningful habit you built, celebrate your progress.
Next, take an honest look at your habits in each area of life.
For example:
Write down the good and the not-so-good. Be honest with yourself. This step gives you clarity to move forward intentionally.
Now, it’s time to look forward. Dream about what your best self would look like in each area of life at the end of the next year. Don’t hold back—get excited about the possibilities!
Ask yourself:
This vision will give you clarity and motivation for the year ahead.
With your vision in mind, focus on the first quarter of the year. What are 1-3 key goals you can work on in the next three months to make progress toward your vision?
Remember, less is more. Trying to overhaul every area at once often leads to burnout. Instead, choose a few stretch goals and commit to consistent action.
For example:
Your goals should align with the future you’re building, setting the stage for a year of intentional progress.
Reflection isn’t just a one-time activity. It’s a rhythm of intentional living. When you take time to pause and reflect, you extract the lessons and growth hidden in your experiences.
This year, make the time. Block out a day, an evening, or even a few hours to sit down, pray, and reflect. It’s one of the best investments you can make in yourself.
And don’t wait for December to roll around again to do it! Build a rhythm of reflection into your life:
Reflection helps you live with clarity, purpose, and intentionality all year long.
One of my favorite things to do in December is an end of the year review. This is something that I have diligently done the last 5 years and it has been one of the most impactful personal development practices that I have put in place.
It’s been so impactful that I really look forward to every year. I can’t wait to get away in the mountains of Colorado for a day or two and spend some time with God and reflect on the year and get a vision for the following year.
In John Maxwell’s book the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, he gives the Law of Reflection which simply states - you have to pause to let growth catch up to you.
You have to actually take time to reflect on the different areas of your life and ask yourself good questions to truly pull all of the lessons.
People say that experience is the best teacher. But experience is only the best teacher when you reflect on that experience and turn that experience into lessons.
You can probably think of someone who has been doing the same bad habit for multiple years. You probably have one of those habits yourself! Even though we’ve experienced pain from that bad habit for years, we still don’t stop because we haven’t taken the time to pull the lessons out and course correct.
It is the same with your life. To truly get the most out of the year and to grow the most from your experiences in a year, you must take the time to reflect and pull out the lessons.
If you don’t currently have some sort of rhythm of reflection in your life, you are missing out an a great opportunity from growth. You can pull out way more lessons and ideas from reviewing your life than you can from a good book. A good book is great, but it’s not your life. It’s not your experience. So it’s not customized for you.
When you reflect, you are reflecting on circumstances, events, thoughts, and behaviors that are uniquely yours. They apply to your life more than any one else’s. There are so many different lessons that you can pull from your life when you actually take the time identify them.
Blocking off time for reflection is difficult. I know, you have a busy life. You have a ton of different responsibilities and things being thrown at you. But I truly believe it is worth the time and effort. It will take some intentionality though.
You need to block out time in your schedule for reflection or it won’t happen.
Today, I want to give you some ideas of how you can conduct an end of year review. This is by no means the only way to do it, there are a lot of great resources online about an end of year review as well. Take my ideas, take other ideas, and take your own ideas and then make time to review your year.
The most important thing is that you actually do it. And if you are watching or listening to this and it isn’t December, don’t wait until the end of the year to do it. Pausing to review your life at any point in time is a great idea.
Use this as a starting point to begin a life where you carve out time regularly to review and to dream.
I would recommend a quick nightly review, a weekly review on Sunday or Monday, a quarterly, full-life review, and then a big end of the year review.
Today, I’m going to give you some ideas for your end of year review. You could easily use these ideas for a quarterly review as well.
I like to evaluate my life in 5 main areas: Faith, Relationships, Health, Career/Finance, and Fun/Experiences
Feel free to add or subtract categories, but I usually go through each of the following steps for all 5 of these categories to get a full life review.
Again that was: Faith, Relationships, Health, Career/Finance, and Fun/Experiential
Alright the First Step, it’s important to celebrate your wins and acknowledge your progress from the previous year. Too often, we get so focused on the next big thing that we don’t stop to acknowledge all of the hard work and progress from the previous year.
Write down your wins in each one of those five categories. These could be big accomplishments or achievements, these could be habits your put in place, things you cut out of your life. I also like to look at where I started at the beginning of the year and then compare to where I am now.
For example, if you lost 15 lbs over the year, you need to celebrate that progress. If you began the year in debt, but made significant strides to become debt free, you need to celebrate that progress.
The best way to measure your progress is to measure backwards, to measure against your former self. This keeps you out of the comparison trap. You could have made a ton of progress this year that is worth celebrating, but you still aren’t the level of someone else, and you would beat yourself up by comparing yourself to that other person.
If you compare yourself to your former self, you can admire how much progress you made and appreciate all the hard work.
If you always compare yourself to others who are ahead of you without acknowledging your progress, it is always going to be a moving target and you will never feel satisfied or fulfilled.
Write down as many wins as you can for each category.
Step 2, I like to then evaluate how each one of those areas is currently going. So for Faith, Relationships, Health, Finance/Career, and Fun/Experiential, evaluate what current habits you have in those areas that are serving you, and identify which habits you have in those areas that are not serving you. Get specific with each of these categories.
For faith, reflect on how you feel in your relationship with God. What are the spiritual disciplines you currently have that you want to keep doing, and what are ways that you can enhance it in the next year.
For Relationships, take time to think about your friendships. Are they serving you? Or are they hurting you? Who do you want in your closest group? Who do you want to really invest in?
Who are the people you want to spend more time with and who are the people you want to spend less time with?
If you are married, take time to reflect on your marriage. What is going well? What isn’t going well? How can you become a better husband next year?
Ask yourself similar questions for yourself as a parent.
Make sure you are writing down the good things as well as the things you can improve on. Most likely, there are a lot of good things happening in these areas but it’s easy to only focus on the bad. Make sure you acknowledge what is going well. Oftentimes, a good place to look for improvements is how you can build on the good things you are already doing.
For health, what habits are serving you? What habits are hurting you? Take a look at your physical, mental, and emotional health. Take into account your exercise habits and your eating habits.
At this stage, you are not committing to anything specifically, you are just trying to get a full picture of what is going on in each areas.
For finances, take time to make sure you get a clear picture of where your finances are right now. How much money do you actually have? How much are you spending each month? Where is your money going?
Without identifying things, you can’t improve upon them. Get specific.
And I love including the Fun/Experiential category in this review because it is often overlooked. What were the activities you did last year that brought you joy? Did you go on trips? Did you make memories with the people you love? Did you do the activities that recharge you?
After you have identified the good and bad habits or aspects of each category, this is where you can have some fun dreaming for the next year.
Picture yourself at the end of the following year, what would your best self look like in each one of these areas. Dream big. Use your imagination. Get a vision that compels you. Get a vision that excites you.
Use what you just learned from the previous step to help you craft a 1 year plan for each of the areas. Be as specific as you can.
Craft a 1 year plan for each category.
Then the last step, set your quarter 1 goals. I have some other trainings on the exact goal setting process I use, but it is important to set your Quarter 1 goals in alignment with the 1 year vision that you just created. Any goal you set for the first quarter should lead you to the future that you want.
You don’t have to set goals for all 5 categories in Quarter 1. You can, but you must be realistic about how many changes you are going to make. Set 1-3 stretch goals and then commit to sticking to your healthy habits or slightly building on things you are already doing.
One of the reasons goals fail is because we set too many.
So that is my simple year end review plan:
Of course, there are more things you can do if you have more time, but at least doing these four steps will set you up for success in the new year.
I hope this was helpful! Please leave a comment with any other thoughts or ideas that you have for your year end review. I’d love to hear them!
Also, last thought, doing this with someone else makes the experience even more fun. If you’re married, I’d encourage you to do this with your wife. Take some time to dream together and plan together. You want to be unified going into the new year.
If you’re single, doing this with a friend can be a lot of fun. You can take time individually and then review your answers together and share your dreams and your plan for the next year. That cements it in your brain and increases your chances of success. You might also both have great ideas to bounce off each other and ways that you can help and hold each other accountable in the next year.
No matter what process you use, the key thing is that you actually do it! Whether it’s one hour or a whole weekend, be sure to schedule time for review to allow growth to catch up with you and to turn your experience into valuable insights.
Thanks for being here! Please share this if you found it helpful. I believe in you! I appreciate you being here and investing in your growth! Now go live a life your are proud of by living intentionally.
