There is power in looking back at your favorite moments of the year. Here’s how to look back and create a “best of list” and celebrate your accomplishments.
What is the Best Part of Your Year?
Every year Jillian and her husband carve out some time away from the kids and ask “What was the best part of your year?”
Here’s how this normally plays out. The first five or ten ideas tumble out. Super easy. Super Obvious. We are like, ‘Yes, we loved this and this and this and this.’ But then the magic starts. It’s amazing how ideas slowly keep trickling out. What were our favorite trips? What were the favorite books that we read? What were our best weekend adventures?
As they sit and think about it, the ideas just flood in. Everything from accomplishments at work, to home improvement projects that were completed.
But Not Every Year Is Easy
The year that Jillian’s son passed away they were, understandably, hard-pressed to come up with favorite moments. There was a crushing weight of grief.
Not only had we lost our son that year, but a lot of things had been hard… We had had really difficult relationships that were important to us and had been painful. We had been in the middle of two renovations. We had moved and left all of our friends. It almost felt more fitting to write the crap list of the year.
Neither wanted to make a “best of list” that year. But they persevered. Eventually, they were able to come up with a few things they had accomplished and that had gone well. They were still able to find the little moments of joy.
At the end of the day, even if you had a hard year, this ritual kind of becomes like looking at the dark night sky. And you see there are still little specks. There are still glimmers of light. There are still stars out there, and it gives us hope.
Even if it feels like everything burned down, new things will be able to grow up from this space again.
Creating Your Own Best Of List
Some questions to ask yourself:
- Did you pay off debt?
- Did you start saving?
- Did you hit an investing milestone?
- What were the vacation you really loved?
- What friendships did you create or deepen?
- Did you finish a home projects did you finish?
- Did you have any weekends that were especially fun?
- Did you experience any personal growth?
Take time to appreciate what did go well and acknowledge that you are making progress. And once you know what your highlights were you can be mindful to carry that stuff into the year to come. Build on what works and drop what didn’t.
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