Year In Review - 2020

***Disclaimer: whenever possible, utilize your library!  I do and very rarely purchase books.  They have to be reread worthy.  This has been a massive savings to my budget and the unnecessary clutter within my home. ***

I spent all of December researching, gathering questions and tools, and in general gearing up for the new decade. I'll list some of the tools I used as we go along. Here is how I handled my year in review:

1. Set Intention
2. Year End Audit
3. Best Version of Me
4. Start Today Journal Set Up Work
5. Word for 2020
6. High Performance Habits Performance Prompts
7. Atomic Habits - The Habits Cheat Sheet

Set Intention:

Creating a safe place and setting the intention for your work should be the first thing you do. It was especially important as Beardo was joining me for the first time on such intensive work.  He had some reservations about the process even though he wanted to join me.

There are lots of different ways to set intention.  If you don't currently have a preferred method, you might try prayer, journey, song, dance, or with art.

Change is inevitable.  Struggle is optional.

Year End Audit:

In The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, Maxwell recommends a year end audit in which you evaluate your calendar for the past year.  As you evaluate you place items into the following 3 categories: what worked for me, what didn't, and 5 things you want to do more of in the next year.  The last thing is plug your vacations into the new calendar before anything else.


We will be keeping a much more meticulous calendar this year so our year end audit has more power, but we both really enjoyed this audit!

Are you doing busy work or your life's work?

Best Version of Me:

This and the next item come from Rachel Hollis.  In Girl, Stop Apologizing and the Start Today journal is an important question to ask yourself before diving into goals, resolutions, or any new habits you are planning:

The best version of me is?

What does the best version of you look like, act like, react like?  What habits does the best version of you have?  What relationships do you have?

Start Today Journal Set Up Work:

You can find the full details for this in Girl, Stop Apologizing, Start Today journal, or in the RISE podcast, episode #72.  If you use Spotify, click here for that episode.

A goal is a dream with it's work boots on!

A real quick run down is what Rachel calls 10-10-1.  In 10 years, what does your best life look like.  Go crazy, go bigger, so big it scares you.  Next, list out all the goals that would make the best life a reality.  Narrow those goals down to 10 goals.  Then, choose 1 of those 10 goals that will take you the farthest down the path to that 10 year vision and work it with your everything.  

You know how you  are day dreaming and wishing and thinking of new habits, but sometimes you wonder if you are pushing yourself enough?  Are you staying too far in your comfort zone?  This practice can be life changing!  

Word for 2020:
Last year I heard a lot of New Year's resolutions denouncements and people favoring a theme word for the year.  This word then becomes the focus for you.

This is my first year trying this and we'll see how it goes.

My word for this year?

Energy

I really feel that if I am able to stabilize and increase my energy that it will have the largest pay off with any other goals I could possibly have.  

So we did a brain dump on our one words, e.g. I wrote down everything I knew about increasing energy and everything I could think of researching about energy.  I found a theme song to pump me up and a quote that I could regularly incorporate into my day.  

For me, I also have theme months I decided on to help boost energy and run some experiments for myself.  This month is all about boosting my spiritual energy as foundation work for the rest of the year..  Lots of journey time, rituals, church, and book reading.  

High Performance Habits Performance Prompts:

Full honesty, by this point in our weekend work we were hitting out limits for additional input.  Not only that, but Brendon Burchard is a BEAST.

This so far has to be the most extreme, detailed, compulsively intricate look at yourself and where you need to grow book that I have ever read.  I was also on self-improvement overload by the time I go this from the library that  I read it at a high level.

For our weekend work, we referred to Brendon's High Performance Habits Performance Prompts.


After review Brendon's planner and seeing the power in it, I ordered a hardback copy of his book to read in detail.  I believe Brendon has some powerful lessons for me.  I believe it so strongly that Beardo is using Brendon's planner and when I finish Rachel's much anticipated Priority Planner I will be switching over to it.

Atomic Habits - The Habits Cheat Sheet:

I was first introduced to James Clear on ChooseFI's podcast.  If you use Spotify, you can find the episode here otherwise it is episode #157.

I found James' interview on the ChooseFI podcast especially compelling and his ideas for crafting new habits that stick are awesome.

We used his cheat sheet found here to decide how to address the new habits we were seeking to create as well as removing habits that no longer serve us.



That was intense!  I hope maybe this will help others find a new idea as they start crafting a magical life!