Reviewing Your Year
By Brett Steenbarger
One of the popular traditions among the people I work with is a year-end review of their development and performance. Out of this review comes a plan for the year ahead: What do you want to get out of 2022 in your personal life, in your relationships, in your education, and in your career development? How can you make 2022 the best year it can be?
Reviewing your year involves three key questions:
- What did I do well in 2021 that I want to build upon in the new year?
- What did I fail to do well in 2021 that I want to correct and improve upon?
- What new challenges do I want to tackle in 2022?
It helps to have a vision of where you would like to be by the end of 2022. A vision is what inspires us and gives us energy. The questions above help us translate that vision into specific goals and plans that can guide us from week to week, month to month.
The key idea is that we want to live life intentionally, with meaning and purpose. It’s all too easy to go from daily routine to daily routine, never growing in the ways that would make us all we can be.
I would also encourage you to think about how Connect-123 could be part of your 2022. Perhaps you’re considering an internship, remote or in-person. How would you like that experience to help you grow in the new year? Perhaps you’ve completed an internship and would like to connect with alumni to meet new people and brainstorm ways of translating your internship experience into the start of a fulfilling career.
Whatever you do, push your comfort levels. No one ever grew by staying in their comfort zones. Tackle new things, exciting things. Meet new people, experience new cultures. Innovate. Challenge yourself. You’ll make lots of mistakes and all of them can be learning experiences. The only real failure is the failure to grow and develop.
Reach out if we can be part of your exciting 2022!