A Year in Review Reflection Template

Katie Wilde
2 min readDec 10, 2018

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It’s my favourite time of year. Coziness, the smell of pine and cooking, and of course, deep conversations and thoughts about life. I’ve never been a terribly accomplished goal setter, despite my joy in achieving goals. Since realizing that I prefer to have values or themes, and to remain opportunistic in searching for ways to follow through on those principles, I’ve come to really enjoy a Year in Review come December.

Perhaps you can describe it as knowing what I want clearly in very general terms, and being quite free on the details. It’s not ‘SMART’, but it works for me. These are the questions I use to reflect, in case anyone else also resonates with a “reflection template” rather than a goal setting template.

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

1.) Who did I meet this year who is now in my life?

2.) What emotion really caused me to grow? (e.g. Courage? Faith? )

3.) What emotion was I unafraid to feel? (e.g. Fear? Sadness? )

4.) What am I most proud of?

5.) In what area(s) of my life did I really make some progress?

6.) What did I do that completely surprised me and was unexpected to me?

7.) Who did I help?

8.) What is the biggest lesson I really faced and what did I get from it?

9.) What am I most grateful for?

10.) What were the most fun times I had?

11.) What advice would I give myself for the coming year?

12.) What else?!?

These are from Dani Rukin, an amazing coach I worked with earlier this year

Comparing my initial hot takes as I look over these questions to what I expected this time last year, it’s amazing to notice how many cases the themes or values were very fully lived out, and definitely not in the way I expected! I guess that’s how it goes with life, and with trying to live whole-heartedly.

Do you have a year in review template or guide you use, or any big questions you like to ask yourself to check in on your personal values? I’d love to know.

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Katie Wilde

VP of Engineering at Ambassador Labs. I love it when you flourish.