13 Essential Questions You Need to Ask Yourself about 2021 to set yourself up for Success in 2022
Do you have a yearly reflective practice? A ritual or process whereby you take a couple of hours to meditate, sit in quiet contemplation or do a ritual, tarot or divination spread to outline your lessons from the year just past and highlight what might be coming in the year ahead?
I definitely do. Every year, I set aside one day where I take time to sit in reflection for the journey I have traversed over the year just passed. I take time to unravel and make sense of what opportunities, challenges and teachings I have experienced and what that might mean moving forward in to the new year.
If you don't have a practice such as this, that is perfectly ok. I just find that by taking this time to reflect on the year as a whole, I am better able to unpack and process my highlights, my difficulties and my lessons, so I am able to set an outline for what I want to change, what I want to grow and what I want to achieve in the coming year.
There are several ways I go about this 'year in reflection' ritual but I will say, they all involve creating a sacred space for deep, inner work and include my essential tools of sacred smoke, candles, crystals, feathers, divination cards and my favourite Tarot deck plus a new journal to start the new year. And it is my journal that gets the biggest workout during this session as this is where I journal on the deep uncoverings bought to the surface through this ritual.
You may do something similar to this each year yourself, and if you do you will have your own practice and process that you go through to illicit the deep, inner reflections that support your spiritual health and growth. But again, if you don't and this is something that you feel called to do, then I have given you 13 questions I ask myself to support my self-discovery and personal and spiritual growth.
I will say this though, whilst I specifically map out time at the beginning of each new year for this practice, it is not the only time of year that I reflect and journal. Self-reflection and inner work are key foundations of my spiritual practice and form the very basis of my personal journey on this Earth. There is always more to be unearthed and uncovered in the depths of our being that we dismiss, hide from or repress for fear of what it might mean for us as we walk our journey, so this unpacking (if you will) is a lifelong endeavour, that forms a natural part of my Be-ing.
In any case, whether you do this process once a year or it is a normal part of your journey in this life, it is a powerful process to support you to understand yourself and what you want to create in your world. After all, you have the capacity to create whatever life you choose, but in order to do so, you need to understand the good, the bad and the ugly of how you are living right now.
So as I said, I have listed some of the questions I ask myself every year to help me to uncover insights that I may not be consciously aware of as I move through my daily life. I also regularly add additional questions based on the overarching energies of the year (i.e. think - life during COVID). These additional questions help me to unpack where I may have allowed internal and external influences to impact my goals, my growth and my energy.
The important thing to remember is to be honest. You are the only one reading it. There is literally no point doing this process if you are going to sit on the surface and lie to yourself about what comes up for you. It will likely be painful. Because it is always painful to truly look at ourselves and see what we have contributed to our life, especially if we are stuck repeating old patterns that don't serve us. It is tough to see yourself as a contributor to stagnation or bad habits or repeated behaviours.
But that's the point isn't it.
If you want something to change, you are going to have to take the reigns and change it. This is your life. You are the only one who will be willing and able to step up to that change and create the life you want.
So decide Sister. Decide whether to settle or whether to fight. And if you decide to fight, then grab your journal, light some candles, smudge the shit out of everything, and get to answering the below questions.
Year in Reflection Questions
- What was my overarching feeling for 2021?
Here are some feelings to consider to get you started; peaceful, calm, in control, happy, joyous, satisfied, accomplished, important, successful, competent, healthy, autonomous, purposeful, stressed, annoyed, overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, rushed, cranky, bored, lonely, insignificant, lost, tired, ignored.
It is important to remember that you will have experienced many different emotions over the year. The point here is to try to capture your overarching feeling for the majority of the year. Dig deep, this is an important foundation for the coming questions.
2. What was the biggest contributing factor for that feeling?
For example; in 2021 if your overarching feeling was frustration it would be easy to attribute that to continual lockdowns or restrictions due to COVID, but I want you to dig deeper here and try to identify what the frustration was really about. Obviously loss of independent decision making could be a major reason why you would have felt frustrated. But I want you to ask yourself why, and keep asking yourself why until you fully unpack what the deep underlying cause of your overarching feeling for 2021.
3. What goals did I have in 2021 that I fully achieved?
List everything you achieved in 2021 that you set out to achieve. Also consider here what you did to celebrate your achievements. If you didn't celebrate, consider why that is?
4. What goals did I have in 2021 that I didn't achieve? What stopped me from achieving them?
List everything you had hoped to achieve but didn't. As part of this process, it is important to also consider why you didn't achieve them. Was it due to external factors that were out of your control or was there some personal reason why you didn't achieve these things (i.e. lack of time, fear, disinterest, imposter syndrome?).
5. What is the biggest thing of value that I accomplished in 2021? Was it for myself or someone else?
Think about where you accomplished something that added value to your life or the life of someone else. What was it? Why did you do it? Why was it important to you? How did it make you feel when you did it? This question gives you valuable insight into your deep motivations and what you put value on.
6. What activities made me feel productive, engaged, and deeply content?
This question provides you with important insights into your true purpose and where you could focus your intentions for 2022.
7. In 2021 how did I take care of my body and my health?
Did you have health goals that you wanted to reach during the year? What were they? Were you successful? If not, what prevented you from doing this? Or did you achieve your health goals? How did that feel? What did you do to get to your goal?
8. What things distracted me during the year?
Think about what you allowed to take your attention from your personal and/or health goals, your work, your family etc.
9. What words did I use the most often and how are they reflective of me as a person?
Think about the words you use the most in your own mind, especially when you're talking to yourself. Words have power, so it's extremely important to consider what words you regularly used in relation to yourself. Your thoughts create your reality, so consider what you created in your world in 2021 and what you might need to change for the coming year.
10. In what ways did I show love for myself? How often did I spend time and energy taking care of myself versus taking care of others?
Self-care is part of self-love. Consider where and what you spent time doing that was solely for you. What ways can you improve on this in the new year?
11. Do I have any regrets from the past year? If so, can I let them go?
It's normal to have regrets. We all make mistakes. The important thing is that you are able to forgive yourself for your mistakes and leave them in the past. Think about your regrets and whether you can forgive yourself and let them go. If you are not able to let them go, consider why and what you need to do to get yourself there.
12. If I were to describe 3 things I’m grateful for from the year, what would they be?
Showing gratitude is an important component of creating more great things in your life. The more you practice gratitude, the more good things will flow to you.
13. Based on everything you've learned about yourself through this process, what will be your main focus for yourself in 2022?
This can be a word, a feeling, a goal, anything that is positive and brings you joy.
As I said, these are just 13 of the questions that I ask myself as part of my 'year in reflection' ritual. You may have others that you want to explore, or there may be other important highlights that come in to focus for you when answering these questions. Take your time with this process and trust that it will bring up important insights for you that will support your growth throughout the new year.
Now, it's really important for me to stress a couple of things here; 1. for this exercise to be useful, you must be completely honest with yourself as that is the only way you will learn and grow, and 2. do not beat yourself up over your answers. You are human. Sometimes we get it right, other times we don't. But it's in the imperfections where we get the most value. This ritual is not about finding faults, it's about getting Raw and Real with yourself and opening up an internal conversation about what is important to you, where your life currently is and where you envision it being.
So there you have it. That is one important part of my ritual for each new year that I wanted to share with you. I generally lock out time on the 2nd or 3rd January in each new year and just allow myself the time and space to do whatever my Soul needs to release the old and call in the new. And I encourage you to try it as well. You'll be amazed at your mindset shift when you start your new year in this way.
And please, if you do decide to embark on this journey, I would love to hear what insights come up for you. You can reach me at: kelli@rawandrealwomen.com, so feel free to flick me an email and let me know how you go.
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About Kelli
Kelli is a global leading Mindset & Women’s Empowerment Expert, Master Energetic Healer and High Performance and Soul Shifts Coach
She is the creatrix of Raw and Real Women, a Master Healer and Witch, and for over 15 years she has been unleashing and igniting women to silence their inner critic and step into their full feminine power. Kelli’s passion and focus is to help women to move out of conformity and mediocrity and uncover their fundamental nature as a feminine woman in her wholeness.
If you are interested to work with Kelli or want to know more about her services, you can find her at the various links below:
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