End-of-the-year Reflections Paves Way For A Prosperous 2023

We’re not entirely sure how the year 2022 will end. But with a few days left, you will hear a lot over the coming weeks about setting financial and other goals. For our team at eKomi, this year has flown expeditiously, and as we write this, we are already in full-on planning mode for 2023. Today’s post is on how crucial it is to re-evaluate the current year’s objectives before setting out new goals for the nearly coming year.

Where to Start:

I doubt we will be the first or the last to inquire about your 2023 objectives. Clearly, having goals and wishing to better our lives are positive things. But by concentrating all of our attention in one place, the future (2023), we are passing up a chance. What if the procedure was reversed? What if we first go over our objectives for 2022?

Celebrate Your Wins (1st)

In life, appreciation can occasionally be downplayed, and we frequently forget to be grateful for our accomplishments and possessions. Recognising and appreciating our small victories and accomplishments can mean the difference between failure and success. It is common that developing new habits can be challenging because it takes our minds a while to get used to new routines, but recognising and appreciating small victories will help build the habits one needs to stay motivated.

Key Highlight: Understanding the value of the present moment and taking the time to appreciate small victories as they occur are the keys to developing successful habits.

Owning Up

We must be accountable and put on our no-blame hats for this exercise to be effective. Instead of criticising ourselves, we should learn what strategies worked and which ones did not. We can assess our actions and comprehend the feelings that underlie our choices.  Start by examining the objectives that were attained with little to no effort and contrasting them with those that required more effort. Are there any similarities between them? Do we notice a pattern of behaviour? Do some decisions make us feel good, while others still make us uncomfortable?

Key Highlight: By revisiting our past goals and asking questions about what worked and what did not, we can accomplish a couple of objectives.

It Helps Avoid Repeating the Same Mistakes

Maybe there is a goal that gets added to the list every year. While some objectives are worth repeating, in this case, we are referring to objectives that never seem to be completed. Looking back enables us to spot objectives that keep appearing on the list but never get accomplished. As an example, people frequently wish they could financially save a  little more each month. Still, when the month is over, there is nothing left to save. 

What happens if the order is changed? Install an automatic transfer now rather than waiting until the end of the month. Send some money from checking to savings on the first of every month. Apply the same reasoning to other objectives.

Key Highlight: What else can we automate to make good intentions into concrete actions, requiring only a single thought and commitment?

Discover what is truly important

Being aware from experience that we accomplish some goals more quickly than others. Yes, they may have been simpler, but it also has to do with how important we thought that goal was to us. If we are having trouble achieving some of our goals, we need to carefully consider why we even included them in the first place. Do we really want them on the list, or did we just add them because we felt they belonged there? 

Key Highlight: We should focus our goals on what is essential to us, not to others.

Few of us set goals just to have a list. We set goals because we want to improve who we are and how we feel about ourselves today. If we choose to ignore what happened in the past, we are only setting ourselves up to be disappointed in the future.