My annual birthday review

I started doing a review of my year that was a few years ago. This typically happens on the first free weeknight after my birthday.

I make a cup of tea, grab my bullet journal and sit down at my desk to do some actual writing.

It’s actually not important how you do it; just that you do.

I prefer to write so that I’m not distracted by the internet, notifications, etc. but if you don’t have that problem, by all means just type out your answer.

An aside – there’s no magic time to do a life review; I just happen to think my birthday’s a good time to take stock, but you can do it tonight! Tomorrow! This weekend 🙂

Here’s a post I wrote about this before.

Me, at 43

Again, here are some of the questions I used this time, but listen to your heart and write the questions you feel you need to explore. If you don’t have a clue where to start, start with these questions:

1. what worked well for me this year?
2. what didn’t work well?
3. what do I need to stop doing?
4. are there any relationships I need to let go of?
5. how am I living out my word of the year? do I need to choose a new word?
6. how am I living out my values?
7. what do I want to focus on in the year ahead?
8. what am I grateful for?
9. how do I want to feel this next year?
10. what do I want to give myself this next year?

A few notes from my birthday review:

1. I’m very happy with my current work rhythms because I mostly feel on top of things.
2. Some of my biggest joys this year were from learning my enneagram number and taking the Discovering You and Exploring you courses with Your Enneagram Coach, and from doing the Four Tendencies deep dive course with Gretchen Rubin.
3. I’m happy tending to my current friendships while leaving enough space for spontaneity.
4. We’ve had three amazing family holidays this year.
5. I read 111 books from one birthday to the next 😉
6. I’ve chosen to let go of situations that I normally wouldn’t, because it just didn’t feel worth it any more.

And now I’m ready to tackle 44!

Have you done a birthday or life review lately? What were some of your highlights/ insights?