New Year Journaling Prompts

9 questions to help you design and plan for the life you desire

If we don’t create the time to step out of our lives and reflect on where we have been, and what we really want, then we’re apt to get trapped in a cycle of living reactively.

Without driving intentions, it is easy to get pulled toward the path of least resistance and find ourselves trapped in unhelpful behaviors.

In contrast, sincere reflection and future planning draw us toward our future vision, mobilizing our efforts and feeding our life-force.

This doesn’t need to be a complex process. Every year I encourage my clients to simply take some time to journal. This is a chance to recap and review the year that has been and re-envision and recommit to the future they desire.

Photo by Silas Elzenbaumer on Unsplash

The process I encourage includes 3-steps:

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Review

It starts with looking back.

If we consistently jump to what we haven’t yet achieved, we’re setting ourselves up to be both hard-task masters and miserable achievers. Any yearly planning process should start with a recap and review of the year that has just been.

A sample of possible questions include:

• What have been my personal highlights, successes, and achievements in the last 12 months?

• What am I most proud of in the last 12 months?

• How am I different than I was a year ago? How have I grown?

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Recast

The next step is to create or “recast” your vision and to connect with your future-self.

Life is noisy and chaotic and will quickly pull you away from your true desires. But without a general idea of the direction you wish to head in, you’re setting yourself up for a life of bobbing around aimlessly and being blown by the winds of life - much like a boat sitting on the ocean, but having no map to help purposefully guide it somewhere.

Vision comes before goals and tactics. So we have to zoom way out, before we can reverse engineer the process and return to the shorter-term goals. This is where you get to be audacious and dream big. Some journal prompts include:

• Take a moment to connect with your dream life in 5, 10, or 20 years (choose the time-cast that feels right for you). Journal on the following:

  • Who are you? What do you identify with?

  • In 5, 10, or 20 years time I will be . . .

  • What successes are you celebrating?

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Recommit

This is about focusing in on the actions you will take in the coming year that your future-self will thank you for. Recasting gives us the direction to sail toward, but committing or recommitting gives us the immediate instructions that help us stay focused on what matters most in the year ahead. This is about bringing dreams down into meaningful action.

I encourage my clients to focus on no more than three big goals for the year.

Some questions to journal on:

• What do I want less of? (What might be holding you back from your big dreams)

• What is a goal I need to focus on to take me closer to the future I desire? (goal)

• What actions will I take, that are within my control, to support this goal? (tactics)

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We feel most alive and fulfilled when we’re living up to our potential, and have a hope-filled connection with the future. Starting with reflection ensures that we also appreciate how far we’ve come and all that we already have.

Gratitude and hope make for a perfect mix that fuels the spirit and drives motivation, and these questions will help you lean into both.

Ready to go deeper? Download the comprehensive Personal Yearly Review PDF template. It includes the above questions + 12 more to help you connect with your vision and the life you want to create. Upgrade below for access.