Every January, for the last seven years, my wife (Bhavika Chauhan) and I go to our favourite cafe or restaurant with a notepad and pen. We take a couple of hours to reflect on the year we've just completed and plan for the year (and years) ahead.
This is a process I personally started a few years back as I love the milestone of a New Year. Seven years ago we, as a couple, started to work on these together. We found that sharing, reflecting and planning together helped keep us focused through the year, helped us hold each other accountable and now having done these for a few years, give us a real sense of achievement and pride.
For example, when we look back at plans from 5 years ago and see what wrote and saw for ourselves is 80% of what we have achieved, it reminds us how important checking-in, planning and aspiring has been for us.
We go to our favourite place because it is a great excuse to go back to some of the places we made plans in before and also makes a deliberate change from our daily environment.
When I share this process with others, they always ask me to share it with them, so I've transferred the principle into a template for you to use. Future planning for some can seem daunting but if you break it down it's pretty straightforward:
Reflect on the year just gone - what were the highlights and what were the lowlights. These could include being promoted, having a child, buying a car, going on a trip, going to a concert to losing a loved one, being made redundant, missing an opportunity, not eating healthily etc.
Score Your Key Pillars - Focusing on each pillar of your life, give it a score out of 10 for how you feel about it right now. E.g. Health - 7: I feel like I've maintained a steady rate of exercise and meditation each month to keep me physically fit and mentally stable. Last year score was a 5 (this was a focus area to improve on).
Write Your Future Goals. Against each pillar write a goal (or two). Picture yourself in one/three/five years time E.g. Finances - in 1 year I now have £5k more in my savings (breaking that down you know that means £420 a month required). In 3 years, I now have grown that to £20k in savings (I allocated some of my bonus to that saving's pot to reach the goal) etc.
Then in 6 months time (in the summer) go for a walk, coffee, beer and have a quick look at what you wrote, are you don't track, did something change, where do you need to adjust.
These are a guide, try not to make it too heavy, have fun with them. Life constantly changes and committing something to paper helps drive you in a direction. I can only show you from experience how things we wrote seven years ago have now manifested themselves, because somewhere deep down we committed to making it happen and subconsciously, and at times consciously, we chipped away in that specific direction.
This is a process we adapted from other planning we've seen, and you can make this your own too, take what works for you and evolve it. If you've got this far then something is making you feel like this is a good idea, so turn that curiosity into action and take control of your life.
I'd love to hear what worked or didn't work for you, how useful/easy this template was and any other things that you do when reflecting and planning at the beginning of the year.
Good luck and happy planning!
