Many of us get into a reflective state towards the end of the year, in anticipation of the new year. As 2024 draws to a close, we thought we'd provide some guidance on how to tap into emotional health while you reflect.
Get into your most self-compassionate headspace. Imagine someone who loves and supports you is giving you feedback throughout this. Or, imagine you're giving feedback to someone you love and support. This is important because judgment is the enemy of change. We mentioned the pitfalls of self-criticism in a previous post. Self-judgment sparks shame, and shame does not serve you in times like this (to clarify, guilt says “I did something outside of my values” while shame says “I am a bad person”).
Start yourself off by listing all the things that happened this year that you're grateful for. Too often we start by going through our goal list and chastising ourselves for the ones we didn't check off. This only serves to disparage and discourage us - not exactly the mindset we want to take with us into the holiday season through to the new year. We encourage you to focus on the good. Focus on the things that went well. Focus on the unexpected and surprising. Focus on the fun, adventure and joy that you experienced.
Consider this question - Is there anything that you regret doing or not doing? We pose this specific question because regret can teach us a lot about what we value, about what's most important to us. Author Daniel Pink found that nearly all regrets fall into four core categories: foundation regrets, boldness regrets, moral regrets, and connection regrets. Once you can identify regrets (which are framed as events, rather than deficits within yourself) you can reflect on what different actions you want to take in the future. This is the time to think about some of the things that didn't necessarily go to plan, that you want to carry over into the new year. Maybe there were some things that were out of your control that you were really set on achieving; this is a great time to rework and find a new way to get that goal. We recommend this podcast episode featuring Daniel Pink for some inspiration here.
We also want you to think about ways to bring joy, peace, pleasure, adventure and play to your end of year and start of the new year. Enjoyment for enjoyment's sake, and savouring simple joys are often lost in our modern world, so we challenge you to reclaim them this season.
We'll see you in 2025!
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