How do you reflect on the past year and set goals for 2022?

Perfect time for this question. I've been doing this personally for the last couple weeks and last night pulled in my co founder to reflect on the wins and loses of the year. I find that, and this is not to sound cliche, but the failures are really good to reflect on. here's why. You may run a long form experiment-set a goal- and go after it. then in the end it doesn't work out how you thought. The feedback you get is gold, and it helps you re-up, with vital knowledge that you can use to be better. We've realised that embracing the criticism/feedback is the best way to get to your goals. So this year with our planning we're being more deliberate with planning our sprints and defining our goals. We've also started thinking about what our daily routines are and what are the projects and processes that will help us achieve our specific goals for the coming year. I'm super pumped!

Hi, Nim! I have a method to reflect on the past year and set goals for the next:

1. I'm completely disconnected from the digital world. I turn off all notifications and remove all distractions that might interrupt me unexpectedly. For the whole day.

2. Then I take a piece of paper and in the very center I write something like, "What can I say about the past year and what do I want to do next year?"

3. I try to immerse myself in a state of strong puzzlement with this question and thus form a strong dominance in my brain. So that I can think about it all day and nothing else.

4. When my brain is puzzled, I start writing out all the facts on paper. That's how I get a big fact-map.

5. After looking carefully and studying the resulting map of facts, my brain loads all these facts into its default mode network and begins to work actively.

6. Then I let my mind wander freely, while I do nothing. I just walk around.

7. After a while, my brain starts giving out a lot of ideas and hypotheses. I write them out and get a map with ideas. That map is my fundament for setting goals and writing plans.

8. I end up setting goals and writing plans.

I hope it helps. =)

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I like to do a lot of personal finances planning, specially at the end of the year.

I try to pay everything with card and every month I write down all the expenses listed on my bank's website into an Google Sheets page with some formulas on it, and then at the end of the year I collect all that data and review how much I spent on each thing. Then, I make a budget for next year trying to adjust the topics I've spent more than intended (it's quite shocking to see that you spent 1500+€ on bars and restaurants in a single year, but this one slips out very easily). I have a template for the sheet I use that I can share if someone is interested.

But, on the personal side (goals and tracking them, professional career, personal growth, etc) I have a big lack of planning I think. I think about that often and try to accomplish small goals, but I'm starting to think I need some kind of roadmap or at least "route" on what do to.

I think I'm going to try @shashcoffe's method; taking a full day off shouldn't be too hard this holidays and might give me a huge amount of ideas and inspiration.

Hi Nim,

2021 has been quite a transitioning year for me.. I've made the decision to try and enter the tech industry, which is pretty scary for me.. it just seems that I went from knowing nothing about tech to suddenly going all in.. it's definitely a leap of faith but I do believe in myself..

2022 will hopefully see me landing my first job in tech and then I'll go from there~ I am not clear as to exactly where I will end up at the end of 2022, though.. I figure I'll do it the Agile way, experiment and adapt as I go..

And if anyone is hiring, currently I'm looking to provide pro bono services as a remote Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager~

A little bit about myself.. I come from the beautiful panda city of Chengdu, China (the home of the famous Kung Fu Pandas and indeed they are super duper adorable~). Although my background is in Education (non-tech and non-manufacturing), ever since hearing and learning about Agile, Lean, DevOps, SaaS and Value Stream Mapping/Management a few months ago, I've been totally obsessed with these subjects (even running sprints for my personal life) and have been learning so much about them very quickly. My big dream is to one day become a top-notch practitioner and leader in these subjects, diving deep into Servant Leadership, Systems Thinking, Lean Delivery, Continuous Improvement and Real-Time Value Stream Management (particularly for DevOps). I believe that with determination, perseverance, strategic prioritization, smart goal setting and hard work every one of us can achieve almost anything that we set our mind to.

Now I’m looking to provide pro bono services as a remote Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager, because after a few months of intense learning, I feel that I’m at a point now where I could grow more quickly by entering the real world and start gaining hands on experiences as opposed to simply learning theories and obtaining certifications. Please don’t get me wrong, I do think certifications are incredibly valuable and I don’t regret getting them (PSM I, PSM II, PSPO I, PSPO II, PSD I and SPS), however more and more I’m starting to realize that actual experiences are far more important and beneficial for people trying to enter the fast-evolving tech industry (or perhaps any industry that moves at a rapid, innovative pace), so my focus from here on is to seek opportunities that will challenge me to the core and force me to maximize my learning through trial by fire. I’m willing to work in any time zone that’s comfortable for your team, wear multiple hats if needed (especially if it’s a startup environment), and am an exceptionally fast learner, so if you happen to be looking for a remote Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager that can adapt to your changing circumstances and goals, I sincerely hope to have an opportunity to join your team.

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read this, and please stay safe and healthy during these challenging times..

Gratefully yours, Qing

I open all monthly reports - I write down the points that need to be improved - I write a strategy for promotion and development - based on the strategy I write a plan and goals

Hi. Summing up the results of this year, I want to cry at times. Somewhere with joy and somewhere with sadness. There were a lot of sticks that hit me in the wheels throughout the year. But on the whole I gained a huge amount of experience. And I believe in the saying that "all things work out for the best. And given that experience is a priceless coin. I'm happy to have survived the year. After all, I got smarter and succeeded in my field. I work in affiliate marketing in the field of online dating. This year has been stormy and more than once. But I want to say thank you to my affiliate program that every time they adapted and pulled me up. Than helped me make money. I would like to wish all of you in the new year 2022 to strive for your goals, not to stop for a moment, go to your dreams and despite the fatigue to do their job better than anyone else. Happy New Year, my friends.

I write and scribble nonsense things.

Stuff like "I enjoyed it, I should do more of that, I need to stop this".

The goal is not to make sense... I'm not writing for someone to understand, I'm just dumping all my emotions and all my ideas in a piece of paper that is never big enough. When I put all this mix of ideas and feelings all messed up on paper I can start having the big picture of things that I want to do more or less.

💡 Doing this while drinking your favorite beverage and without rush is highly pleasant.

Then, my next steps are to:

• Scope it down to smaller chunks of time (1 year is too big for any planning) • Remove what doesn't fit (I can't do everything that I want at the same time)

Scoping it down to smaller chunks is a killer trick. We're (at least not myself) not good at all at planning for the long-term, it gives you more opportunity to procrastinate and less to reflect. After 6 months you got the misleading feeling that "you still got 6 months", and then December comes and now it's too late.

I do reflect on the year, but I plan everything in chunks of 3 months (which pushes me to do 3 other reflections before the year ends).

Then, removing what doesn't fit is all about: "What to say no to"? It's easy to tell yourself that you're going to change your life radically by doing 100 new things right next Monday, but It's hard to keep up. So I start thinking between these 3-5 things, what I'd feel prouder or happier of accomplishing? Then I start removing what I initially wanted to do, but now I don't.

Past Learnings:

• Goals are more about "who you want to be" over "what you want to do", they're driven by emotions, so navigate wisely and you'll end up where you want. • Do not feel bad about changing the goals you initially set. You evolve and grow on a daily basis, not yearly, so it makes sense to keep updating your goals as you and your interests change.

Oh, one more thing. Life (and any goal) is too complex to be determined on how to "approach", take these ideas, make it fit your style, and do it your own way.

Every year on the 31st of December I go to a café with my best friend, and we follow the guided questions in this booklet: https://yearcompass.com/ We make our own adjustments, but it became our little new year tradition to do so. Really nice to share our thoughts about what went well, what could've been improved, and how we imagine our upcoming year.

Hey Nim!

I actually wrote a post around my goal-setting process here: https://hypercontext.com/blog/wo...

But in a nutshell, this is my process for setting quarterly goals: 1. Review the last quarter (what went well, didn't, what should we start, stop, keep, etc) 2. Understand the org-wide and exec team goals 3. Develop bigger-vision departmental goals 4. Gather feedback from the team and brainstorm together 5. Create goals and make them accessible to the team 6. Talk about goals every single week with the team 7. Retro that quarter and start over again.

P.s. we're actually live on product hunt today with a library we've built that includes over 360 goal examples from leaders across tech! (https://www.producthunt.com/post...)

Thanks for bringing this question up, it's great!!