Over the last couple of years, I’ve honed my approach to starting the new year feeling calm, focused, and ready to tackle new goals.
As I’ve improved my process each year, I’ve realized that there’s a step BEFORE the planning many of us do in January. And that is using December to take stock of the year, reflect on lessons learned, wins, and missed opportunities, to prepare myself to get clear on want I want in the next year so I feel successful professionally and personally. This process helps me build on what I’ve learned and create a throughline from year to year.
Here are 10 of my strategies to end the year feeling strong and balanced, and to set yourself up for a fulfilling 2024.
#1: Take stock of how you feel about your life right now
Get clear on where you’re satisfied with your life, and where there are opportunities for improvement.
The Wheel of Life is a great visual tool to help you do this.
Wheels of Life can have a range of categories — I like this one from positivepsychology.com. But you can also grab a blank template and customize it with the areas that feel important to you.
Simply rate each area of your life, on a scale of 1 – 10, with 1 being “Highly Unsatisfied”, and 10 being “Highly Satisfied”. This will help you identify two important things:
A: The parts of your life you’re feeling good about. These are places where you want to maintain your current habits and approaches.
B: Opportunities for meaningful changes. These areas can begin to inform some of your priorities for 2024, as you work towards feeling successful both professionally and personally.
#2: Reflect on wins and lessons learned in the past year.
As you think about the past year:
A. What were your big wins?
At work?
Personally?
B. Where were there missed opportunities?
At work?
Personally?
C. What were some key lessons you learned?
At work?
Personally?
Understanding where you’ve been is a great way to begin to identify how you’d like to see your life evolve next year.
#3: Look ahead professionally and personally
Once you’ve reflected on where you’ve been, envision the future. But in a low-pressure, brainstorming kind of way. Next month I’ll share my approach to setting meaningful annual goals, but for now, simply identify 3 key things you’d like to pull into your life or increase in 2024. These can be both professional and personal — spanning your whole self.
One fascinating thing I learned this year is that the brain is like a light switch. Once we’ve gotten crystal clear on the problem we’re solving for, and then we stop thinking about it (and instead do things like open gifts and eat cookies and relax), our brains will continue to ping pong these ideas around outside of our conscious awareness. Our brains will still work on answering our open questions even as we’re doing something else entirely.
This means that by assessing our satisfaction about our lives now, doing some reflecting, and then simply pausing to rest, we will have a head start on feeling clarity on January 1 with minimal effort. A win-win!
#4: Double down on self-care
The end of the year is a very busy time. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been tired this month. There’s wrapping everything up at work and striving to hit certain targets before year-end, and it is also a busy time personally. Between holiday parties, gift buying, and making special family recipes, this is one of the busiest months of the year at work and at home.
Making time for sleep and exercise sets us up to actually enjoy the festivities and quality time with the people we care about, rather than making each of these celebratory steps feel like a slog. It can be easy to focus on our tasks and deprioritize ourselves. But actually, we will be much more efficient at our tasks if we show up rested and energized rather than depleted. So invest in yourself.
#5: Plan ahead on the holiday prep side as much as you can
For me, I have realized that if I get the shopping done early, it takes a lot off of my mental plate. Same for the cooking and the baking. I enjoy all of these activities, but I don’t enjoy feeling rushed or like I have constant deadlines ahead of me.
To make things feel easier, I make cookie dough throughout the month and freeze it so no effort is needed for freshly baked cookies other than scooping the finished dough onto a baking sheet. And while I make dinner the night of for Hannukah and Christmas Eve, a few years ago I switched over to lasagna for Christmas day. I can do it ahead of time, and on the big day all that’s left to do is make a salad or some sides.
Planning ahead allows me to enjoy the time with loved ones and savor the process of gift buying, cooking, and baking, which are some of my favorite activities this time of year. It shifts things from feeling like a never-ending To Do list, to taking care of business early and then allowing myself to slow down and enjoy the season.
#6: Share the load
Women often bear the brunt of the holiday load. A colleague told me years ago that divorce filings are highest in January because after all of the domestic work in December – people are pissed and DONE. I don’t know if that stat is true or not, but the take-away stayed with me.
Sometimes when I talk to my female peers, I’m amazed to hear that They. Do. Everything. ALL of it. For me, that’s too much! And this is a great place where professional skills and personal skills align: it is all about the art of delegation.
In my house, I like to do the planning, but I also go to bed early. It’s easy for me to have bought all of the gifts by early December, but the wrapping still remains. My husband however, loves staying up late, and will happily wrap a pile of gifts, which means…drum roll…I don’t have to do that!
We’re sharing the load. I’ve planned. He’s wrapping. I’m sleeping. Victory.
#7: Focus on gratitude
When we’re very busy and stretched thin, it can be easy to feel meh, or disconnected from the meaning of what we’re doing.
I know for me, I have been more tired this December than I remember being in the past (although I just saw a mom at the playground and she said her husband reminded her that “she’s always this tired in December,” so perhaps I’m deluding myself).
The other day I was feeling especially tired, and also looking at a long To Do list for work and for family. I was feeling depleted. I love this time of year, and want to feel excited, relaxed, and joyful.
I had to remind myself to lean into gratitude. Focusing on what we’re grateful for makes us feel happier, because we’re focused on what we have, rather than what we don’t have. And it’s quick and easy to do – just pausing for a couple of minutes and identifying what we’re grateful for can shift our perspective and turn a bad mood around.
#8: Block off some time for yourself over the holidays
Escape everyone and everything. Your family, your beloved children, and your To Do list. Whether it’s watching holiday movies, taking time for journaling and hiking, or seeing your closest friends – burrow deep into the coziness of this season.
I loved the Danish concept of hygge the first time I heard it. It means taking pleasure in everyday life and being comfy and content. The image it evokes is snuggling by a fireplace.
Take time for hygge. And have some hygge alone. You’ve more than earned it.
#9: Connect with loved ones
When I set goals for the year, I do it across four dimensions: career, personal, key relationships, and parenting. It helps me to be intentional in all of the most important areas of my life.
A couple of years ago, I set a goal to talk to three of my closest friends twice a month, for an hour. I do it on my daily walk, so it allows me to double up on tasks without adding anymore time to my day.
I can’t tell you how much joy it’s brought into my life to be so connected, and so current, with these three women.
Time with loved ones is fundamental to our happiness, and I see it as a part of self-care. And it is the opposite of the loneliness epidemic we’re experiencing right now as a society, which is harming both our mental and our physical health.
So take some time to connect with people you care about, who get you, and make you laugh.
#10: Have a new experience
For the last few years, we’ve started a holiday tradition of having a special experience as a family each December. We live outside of NYC, so to take advantage of that we’ve headed into the city to do something spectacular like see the circus or a Broadway show, and have a delicious meal.
(Although maybe don’t follow our lead on going into the city for the last two years during SantaCon. Unless of course you want the opportunities I’ve had to explain concepts like “Drunk Santa”, and “Sexy Mrs. Clause” to my 7 and 11 year olds :)
Public drunkenness aside, these trips break up the To Do list feel of December for me, and they bring novelty into my life, which I appreciate during a time of the year so flanked by responsibility and schedules.
Novel experiences activate our dopamine system. And while a long To Do list can make us feel overwhelmed, stressed, or even sluggish, dopamine improves our mood, our motivation, and it helps us be more creative in managing our stress. Novelty can help is improve our mental health – which is key for ending 2023 feeling relaxed, and starting 2024 ready and focused.
I hope the end-of-the-year, and the holiday season, despite its busyness, ultimately leads you to a place of reflection, calm, and comfort. Take care of yourself – you deserve it and it’s one of the best investments you can make!