How to Finish 2020 Strong
By: Annie Huang
Tags: Inspiration, Goals, Self Care, Self Improvement, 2020

“Don’t come out of hell empty-handed.” — Steve Leder

I hosted a Meetup last week, the first in-person one since March and the final one of the year. We had a good turnout, 16 in total. Everyone — myself included — were excited to be meeting in person rather than on another Zoom call.

When I announced to the group that we would be doing an “Annual Review” exercise, some of the members were skeptical about the value of looking back on a “bad” year like 2020. They couldn’t wait to write this year off and move on to 2021 as quickly as possible.

What’s the Point?

Indeed, what’s the point?

As someone who’s future-oriented and goal-driven, looking back wasn’t something that comes naturally to me. Yes, I have a reflective side that comes with being an introvert, but I used to find future planning so much more exciting than reflecting on the past.

However, I came to see the many benefits of annual reviews and I’ve been a convert ever since, putting aside time at the end of every year for the last few years to complete the exercise.

Here are seven reasons you might want to consider doing it, if you haven’t tried it before:

1. Making Lemonade

2020 has been particularly difficult for many. Oh, who am I kidding? It’s been a shitty year. But the thing is, we often learn more from our shitty experiences than from our positive ones.

Why? It’s easy to just “go with the flow” and enjoy ourselves when things are going well, but when things are tough, we’re forced to dig deep to get through them. And that’s when we find out how strong and resourceful we really are.

2. Connecting the Dots

Even without the shit storm that was 2020, we all lead busy and fast lives, and it’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of everyday life and lose sight of the big picture. It’s important to step back and see the overall view, connect the dots and find the common thread.

As Steve Jobs famously said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.”

3. Structured Reflection

“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” — Joan Didion

Most people mistake rumination for reflection. However, they are very different. When we ruminate, we go around in circles in our head. Our thinking is muddled and all over the shop, and it’s a huge waste of time and energy as nothing really gets resolved. We can ruminate about the same issues over and over again for days, weeks, or even years!

Structured reflection, which is what an Annual Review is about, allows us to think in a concrete and structured way. What’s more, there’s magic in putting pen to paper, rather than just thinking or talking. We are forced to go deeper and explore more thoroughly.

4. Avoiding Past Mistakes

“Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.” — Winston Churchill

Ok, ok, “condemned” might be too strong a word, but it’s more likely that we’d repeat past mistakes if we never take the time to figure out what went wrong and what we could do differently next time.

For example, as a life coach, I’ve worked with many women who’ve gone through a breakup or divorce. Those who are eager to move on quickly by jumping into another relationship — or busying themselves with work, parenting, or other distractions — are the ones who end up repeating the same relationship patterns and mistakes. And they wonder why they keep attracting the same unavailable or dysfunctional partners.

5. Setting Better Goals

A big part of reviewing or reflecting on your year is to see what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what bombed. And from there we can set our goals for the new year to duplicate what went well, improve what didn’t go well, and avoid what bombed.

But if you skip this process, you end up setting goals in a vacuum, without any reference to your past successes and failures. And it’s very tempting to come up with wildly unrealistic goals like “Lose 30 pounds in 30 days”, “Write a bestseller in 60 days”, and “Earn a million dollars.”

In addition, a big part of achieving our goals is knowing why we want a certain goal, instead of just what the goal is and how to achieve it. And a lot of times we don’t know why we want what we want until we look back on our past. It gives us clues to our values and desires, so we don’t end up setting goals that aren’t aligned with who we are and what we want.

6. Avoiding Rushing into the Future (and the Quitting Too Soon)

Most people fall into the trap of waiting until the new year to get started, and get swept up by all the hype of making instant, overnight changes. They rush to set new goals — in a vacuum — only to give up a few weeks into January, or January 19 to be more precise. Apparently it’s the date when most people give up on their new year’s resolutions.

Setting your goals for the new year is like going on a epic 12-month trip. Trips like that requires advanced preparation. It doesn’t make sense to start preparing for it after you’re already on the road. But that’s effectively what most people do with their new year’s resolutions.

7. Finding Your Way Home

Finally, every time we make deliberate and focused time for ourselves, it’s an act of self-care. And self-care is especially important in uncertain times like these where you might feel like you’ve lost your bearings. If that’s the case, then it’s time to pause, reflect, and find your way home.

How to Review Your Year

There are no right or wrong way to review your year, but here are two important things to keep in mind:

First, be honest but gentle with yourself. We’re all heard of the phrase “brutal honesty”, but we don’t have to brutal with ourselves in order to be honest. In particular, please don’t beat yourself up with the truth you’ve uncovered about ourselves and our progress (or lack thereof).

Second, focus on the positive. We all have a tendency to focus on how much we didn’t get done or how far we still have to go, instead of how much we’ve done and how far we’ve come. Deliberately shift your focus to the latter and you will avoid falling into this common trap.

In fact, you might be pleasantly surprised! We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day but underestimate what we can do in a year. So, we beat ourselves up when we don’t complete our daily to-dos, but we don’t celebrate all that we’ve accomplished in a year.

A. Quick Review

The quick review will take you 10 to 20 minutes to complete, depending on how thorough your answers are to the following three questions:

1. What was your biggest win of 2020? Why?

2. What was your biggest obstacle or struggle? Why?

3. What have you learned as a result of the challenges that you’ve faced with Covid-19?

B. Comprehensive Review

This is the review I go through at the end of every year before setting my new year’s resolutions, and I recommend it to all my clients. It’s structured (3 section, 12 questions) and takes about an hour to complete.

Part 1. What Happened?

1. What did you want to get done this year?

2. What did you actually get done this year?

3. What were the unexpected things that happened this year?

Part 2. Evaluation

4. Things that went well?

5. Things that didn’t go so well?

6. The 1 thing you’re blaming yourself for?

7. 3 memories you’ll treasure from this year?

8. What have you learned as a result of the challenges that we’ve all faced with COVID?

Part 3. Looking Ahead

9. What will you do differently next year?

10. What do you want to be able to say one year from now?

11. What’s the best thing that could happen next year?

12. How can you make it most likely to happen?

Bonus. What do you have to do before the end of the year in order to make that possible?

Don’t Rush into 2021

You might be tempted to write 2020 off and just start all over again in the new year. That’s totally understandable, especially if you’ve had a rough year. I mean, unless you’re a masochist, nobody likes to dwell on a painful past.

However, you’ve survived a roller coaster ride full of trials and tribulations. There’s so much to reflect on and learn from, so why not make the best of it?

After all, you don’t want to come out of hell empty-handed, do you?

By reviewing and reflecting on 2020, you’ll have more clarity about where you’ve been, are ready to set goals that build on your successes while avoiding repeating your mistakes and failures, and start the new year with a bang. And you won’t be tempted to quit by January 19!

What’s more, as some of my Meetup members discovered, you may be pleasantly surprised by what you find.