A New Year’s Review – Lifestyle and Goals
As a person living a nomadic life, I have already said that this turbulent way of living requires constant analysis. You need to change it as you go and even know when to stop if it comes to that. The last thing you want to do is live a life of constant change without being tuned into yourself and your emotions.
In order to do that, and not to get caught up in your own story, it’s good to stop from time to time and take stock. Leveraging New Year’s as an anchor to have a bird’s view over the last year and where you want the next one to go makes sense. It’s a symbolic breakpoint between the past and the future.
We have already discussed my first nomadic analysis holiday, Yom Kippur, with the article Yom Kippur Spirituality and Nomad Philosophy. This holiday, which conveniently arrives three months on average before New Year’s, is about breaking vows and rebuilding a story. The idea is that you can run away from your definitions in Yom Kippur and change your story and who you are. In Yom Kippur, the basic question I ask myself is: Who am I? What is my story? Who will I be next?
New Year’s is a bit different. I arrive at it knowing who I am, and what my story is. The question here is: How did I do? How can I do better?
I dedicate time and take the process of a yearly analysis seriously since it can reap great benefits. If you know where you want to go, you have greater chances of getting there. Over the years, speaking with many, people I gradually learn to understand that most of us don’t really know where we want to go. It’s a little tragic, we have a short life, and we’re constantly confused about what makes us happy and what we should do. It’s also a little bit funny.
My process is quite simple. I write the most important questions on paper and answer them in the week starting the 24th of December up to the 31st. Everyone should customize their own procedure, but you can start with mine as you’re building your process. I have one blank page for each question and just write on it freestyle. The idea is to discover, go with my intuition and get some nice insights.
And here’s The List
- What were my successes this year?
- What were my failures this year?
- What new, substantial experiences did I have?
- How is my health and physical situation?
- This relates to the nomadic life and the ability to pick up and leave at any time – attachments to a location, being able to disconnect without repercussions and not being constantly busy.
- How is my social life? Am I interacting enough and are those people good for me?
- How am I doing with my businesses and my financial freedom?
- Am I actually doing what I like, and am I enthusiastic about it?
- How am I doing with my leisure time and my routines?
- What new skills did I learn this year, what knowledge did I acquire?
- Make a bucket list of experiences for next year.
- My goals for next year.
- My goals for the next five years.
While answering these questions, I also like going through the quick and easy “wheel of life” exercise (Google it). This basically allows you to rank your success in major life aspects (like in some of the questions above) and get a nice drawing of a shape, which shows how your miserable life is in a sketch connecting dots.
Now that you have all the answers, what should you do next? Creating accountability to the changes you make will boost the value you’ll get out of it. You can either read your answers every month or even better, write the goals you have for the next year on excel and track their status during the year. If you need accountability to reach your goals like me, you should probably consider joining a mastermind group or forming one (more about the mastermind concept here)
In conclusion, a yearly analysis of how you’re doing is a pretty cool concept, recommended to everyone. I think the path is more important than getting to a destination or a goal, but I really want to stay on the right path while going nowhere.
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