Have you ever found yourself at the end of the year wondering if you even accomplished anything? I feel that way sometimes and have to remind myself that life is a constant ebb and flow.
Today I want to share my yearly review journaling pages. These are the same journaling prompts that I do at the end of every lunar month at the balsamic moon and at the end of every calendar month. I ask myself these questions to see how I did for the month on my goals. This year I am doing the same for a look back at this entire year.
Now, let’s take a moment and look back at the year. Grab some tea and let’s journal together.
How I Make Journaling An Experience
I felt like setting the stage today… I haven’t really set the stage for a little while and I wanted today to feel special, so I decided to light a candle and pull a tarot card.
I reached for The Universe Has Your Back deck which isn’t actually a tarot deck, it’s more of an Oracle deck. The card that I pulled today is so sweet. The colors are beautiful! These are actually some of my favorite watercolors that I used in my bullet journal this year. September and December in my bullet journal have a really similar watercolor design and pallet. This card says:
“my happiness is a direct reflection of my level of faith in the universe.”
and then in my bullet journal I added “and myself.”
These are perfect little love notes and messages from the universe. I love to start my day with one of these cards as a note from the universe. I tuck it up in to my mirror and look at it every time I go by and at night before bed.
The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith, by Gabrielle Bernstein is a really great set of oracle cards that are perfect for those who are religious (even Christian or Catholic!) and those who are spiritual but not religious.
This is a really great addition to your tarot card and oracle card collections. It’s also really great for your vanity or shelf for self care and self love. I love having a vanity or shelf set up that is dedicated to self care and self love, because it acts as an altar dedicated to the most important relationship in my life, the one with myself.
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Yearly Review Journal Prompt Questions
At the end of every month I always ask myself the same questions:
what workd?
what didn’t?
what can I improve?
what I learned.
how I challenged myself.
what is a time-saver?
and what isn’t?
what am I most grateful for?
Below are my answers to these yearly review writing and journaling prompts.
what worked?
Pivoting! Instead of feeling guilty for failing. I started the practice of reorienting and pivoting my goals or approach to the problem at hand.
what didn’t work:
Exercising consistently and working on a yoga practice that were both daily activities. I completely failed at that this year. This is one of the things that I’m going to be focusing on building little habits for in the next year.
what can I improve?
Tiny habits that get me to exercise. My follow-through. And my vegetarian, sometimes vegan way of eating around meat-eaters. I tend to capitulate when I shouldn’t. This year I made the tiny habit shift of eating more vegetarian meals and only eating meat and dairy when I was really craving those things. I dropped a lot of weight for such a small dietary change and that’s something that I want to continue into the next year. It wasn’t really the weight loss that is making me want me to continue this into next year, it’s how good my body feels on a plant-based diet. I’m not doing this for any ethical reasons, I’m just doing this for dietary reasons, I feel a lot better when I eat plant-based and like shit when I don’t.
what I learned:
I learned a lot about filming and editing. More green witchery and garden knowledge. AND composting! I filmed a vlog about that recently. I have no idea if I’m doing this right. So if you have any tips for me for composting let me know in the comments.
how I challenged myself:
Rather uncomfortably, I pushed myself to open up more on camera and in person. It’s so hard for an introvert like me. I also challenged myself with two 30-day challenges for daily videos! Vlogtober with 31 days and right now with the 21DaysOfYule.
what is a time-saver and what isn’t?
Time savers this year have been meal prepping, having soup, smoothies (I’m obsessed with our blender and adore it for kitchen witchery) and protein shakes. Planning out my clothes for the week and batching everything. What didn’t work for me was cleaning my home on one day of the week. I was taking the entire day to clean or at minimum a morning or afternoon. We aren’t finding time for it and it just feels like such a time suck on the weekends. The other thing that wasn’t a time-saver for me this year was TV rabbit holes and binge watching or binge listening to podcasts.
and now the final question….
what am I most grateful for?
I’m most grateful for all of my growth this year spiritually, in business, in my mental health and in Owls&Indigo.
I’m so grateful that you chose to spend your time here with me today. I hope that you ask yourself these questions for your yearly review as well.
What are you doing today to connect to your spirituality?
L I N K S M E N T I O N E D
