Looking Back and Looking Forward

Recently, I was reading some writing by Whitney Johnson about the coming of the new year where she talked about the importance of taking the time to look back on the past year to reflect on what you have learned and accomplished before turning your gaze to the upcoming year. So I wanted share how our family incorporated this idea of looking back into how we brought in the New Year.

Our New Year’s Traditions

For the last several years, we have combined old New Year’s traditions with new ones. Growing up with a blend of Japanese-Canadian and British traditions, New Year was one of the most important holidays over the December break for my family. We would bring in the New Year by making sushi and eating noodles at midnight for longevity. So we continue this tradition in our family.

Several years ago our family has also added two new New Year’s traditions:

1. We pick a word for the year (thanks to my sister-in-law, Christi, for telling us about her family’s practice of doing this).
2. We set a goal for the upcoming year (yep, this one’s from me – I’m super goal oriented so I love this one).

(Our family is used to these kinds of conversations because we have structured conversations daily at dinnertime.)

Looking Back

This year, inspired by Whitney Johnson, we also added a starting point that involves looking back before we look forward.

So after we did the New Year’s countdown with our family (on January 3rd because that’s the day we were able to have a family-only celebration), we had a discussion where we each shared one thing that we were proud to have accomplished last year.

• My daughter had set a goal to try figure skating. So we registered her in weekly lessons and she was ecstatic that within a month she had already advanced a level. During our discussion, she was proud to reflect on her accomplishment in this area of her life.
• My son’s goal last year was to start taking archery more seriously and get his own Recurve bow. He advanced one level last year, got a bow and is now starting to pursue archery with a club this year.
• My husband, Robby, said he was proud of the steps he took towards his lifelong goal of hunting, which included getting his license and getting the equipment he needs. He also took one practice trip to camp and watch for animals.
• I noted that the accomplishment that I was most proud of from last year was being patient. Last year I had picked the word patience as my word for the year because I wanted to cultivate and draw on a deep well of patience as I interact with my family members, particularly my children. Over the past year, I have really worked to develop this ability to remain very calm, empathetic and patient. I am not as patient as I would like to be all the time but many times I’m really proud of how patient I’m able to be. So I gave myself a big pat on the back for that.

Taking this time to look back and reflect was really valuable. I appreciated Whitney Johnson’s much-needed reminder to prioritize this important self-reflection. As someone who is highly goal-driven, I tend to focus a lot of my attention on my goals for the future and often don’t spend enough time celebrating my accomplishments. So this practice of taking the time to look back, reflect and celebrate with others is an important way to mark the passing of another year.

Looking Forward

After we took the time to look back, we then turned our focus forward and each picked our words for the year:

• My daughter’s word is persistence.  She has picked this word for the last three years and she is very persistent in whatever she puts her mind to.
• My son’s word is wealth. Each year his word has been different and this word choice surprised and delighted me because he is very good with saving money, very entrepreneurial, and very interested in learning more about wealth creation.
• My husband’s word is centered. He wants to work on staying very even this year – in alignment with Eastern philosophies.
• My word is focus. I have spent most of the past year focusing on the needs of others and some of the big things I had wanted to accomplish fell to the wayside. So this year I’m going to carry on with all the lessons I have learned about patience from last year and also press forward to achieve some of my personal goals.

After identifying our words for the year, we moved on to set our goals for 2020:

• My daughter identified her goal as wanting to practice singing. She has a real passion for music and is always singing her own original songs so this is a great goal for her.
• My son said: “I think I want to invent a new plant-based energy source to replace the existing fuels we use that is better for the environment.” Wow! What a goal – we’ll have to figure out how to support him in doing this (and if you have any ideas, please let me know!)
• Robby said he had to think about his goal because he wasn’t ready to set one just yet. A few days later, he told me that he would like to pursue the goal had had set for 2019: to hunt. He said that although he accomplished major steps towards hunting, he had not actually gone yet so he was keeping it as his goal for this year.
• My goal is to finish revisions on my book manuscript and submit it back to the publisher.

Now you’re probably thinking…well that was very detailed Kirsten. There is, of course, a point to me sharing all of this.

This conversation took about 20 minutes. And in the short span of time, we were able to reflect on the past year, to feel proud of what we have accomplished, and then to turn our gaze forward to think intentionally about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year.

In this short conversation, we learned so much about each other – we learned about how our minds work, what our various interests are, the kinds of goals we want to set and achieve, and where our passions lie. And importantly, as parents, Robby and I caught a glimpse of the amazing dent our kids are going to make in the world.

So I encourage you to think about having this kind of conversation in your family; one where you look back to reflect on the things you have achieved and the lessons you have learned and then look forward to intentionally set the tone for your life and goals you want to achieve this year.

If you were to have a conversation like this in your family, what would it be like? What accomplishments from last year would you share as ones you are particularly proud of? What word would you pick as your theme for the upcoming year? And what big goal will you set for yourself for the new year?

We would love to hear in the comments below!

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