Create an impactful annual review for your business or creative work
It's a little hard to believe, but we’re a third of the way through the month of December already. The shorter days and longer nights in the northern hemisphere offer a time to reflect, assess, and most importantly, celebrate. (And even if you find yourself in the southern hemisphere where the days and nights are warming or the beach may be calling, the turning of the calendar into a new year invites this same reflection and celebration.)
Your business and your creative work deserve this time too.
The end of the calendar year is a wonderful time of the year to look at all that has happened with your work throughout the past year. Whether you're building a business, developing your creative practice, or weaving both together, I invite you to create a year-in-review that honors where you've been and what you've created.
In the past, I talked about why this review process can sometimes be difficult for coaches, healers or other creatives, especially if their financials are not where they'd hoped they'd be. In that article, I offer a powerful process to shift your focus and gain fresh insight going into the new year.
And today, I offer a simple way to help you gain a holistic view of your work during the past year.
First, It's Not Just About the Numbers
This process is about more than just gathering numbers and facts, although that's part of it. Doing this thorough year-in-review offers you so much more.
First, it gives you the chance to see and look clearly at all that happened during the past year. With so much on your plate and with all that's going on in the world today, it's easy to forget all the love and care and tending you've given to your creative work or your business. Having the chance to see that all in one place is powerful.
In addition, this also gives you the chance to face the reality of where your work is. It lets you see it for what it is, unshrouded from the wishes of what you want it to be or think it should be. Accepting where your business or creative work are now helps you come into a healthier relationship with them, and facing where you're at enables better decision making and opens the doorway for so much love.
Choose Your Year-in-Review Path
Select the worksheet that best fits your focus this year. Both guides will help you gather meaningful information, celebrate your progress, and gain clarity for the year ahead.
Download the Creative Year-in-Review Worksheet
Perfect if you're focused on creative projects, artistic development, and creative practice
Download the Business Year-in-Review Worksheet
Perfect if you're tracking clients, income, marketing efforts, and business growth
Not sure which one?
You can do both! Many people find value in reviewing both their business and creative dimensions of their work.
Take Note
Your mind may choose to be unhelpful during this exercise. For example, you might have the thought "Oh my goodness, I only had two payments in the entire month of September! Two!" Or "I didn't finish a single piece for three months!" Or "I didn't submit any writing or poems for possible publication!" Or "My email list didn't grow at all!"
All these types of thoughts - and many others - are normal and to be expected.
Remember that you don't have to change anything about the way you're feeling as you pull this together. There's room for it all.
Moving Toward Acceptance
One of the best things doing a year-in-review helps us with is strengthening a foundation of acceptance.
So much of the culture (and marketing) tells you that you should be able to grow your business exponentially and almost overnight, or that your creative output should be constant and prolific.
This just isn't the reality for most people. If you can accept and love your business or creative practice exactly - exactly - the way it is, right now, you'll be in a much better position to make resourced decisions about what's really needed next.
Celebrate
When you finish your review, celebrate!
Celebrate what you did, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Look at and appreciate all that happened in your work, big and tiny.
And, invite in compassion for yourself and your work for the things that didn't happen that you hoped would. And for the things that didn't happen the way you wished they would have.
It's been a beautiful year of you showing up – be sure to let your work in this world know how much you appreciate it.
What did you discover doing your year in review? What will carry you forward? I'd love to hear what arose for you.