8 questions to ask yourself at the end of the year

Year-end reviews seem so corporate and pointless, but they can help us reflect on what we’ve done, how we’ve grown, and where we want to go next. Here’s the framework I created for myself and use every year.

When I worked in media as a journalist and eventually an executive, it was common for every editorial calendar to have a series of year-end content pieces that we would produce and publish for our websites and TV programs. You’ve probably seen some of them: The biggest moments of 2023, the most successful celebrities of 2023, the most popular TikTok videos of the year, the biggest influencers of 2023 — and I always wondered, does anyone truly care about year-end reviews?

Do you really want to know all the major news stories of 2023?

Do you really want to know how much richer billionaires have gotten in 2023? It’s a lot, by the way.

Do you really want to know what the top shows were on Netflix? OK, this one is cool, but mainly because I want to know whether I watched any of them.

I would argue no. Most people don’t care about year-end reviews unless it is about themselves.

Spotify Wrapped is a great example of how people love year-end reviews when it’s about their interests and habits. The popular marketing event by Spotify shows its customers which artists, songs, and podcasts they most frequently listen to throughout the year. And that information is put in context with the data they have from their 574 million users. For instance, in 2023, Spotify said I was the top 1% of listeners who streamed the artist Miley Cyrus on their platform. What can I say, I love a good heartbreak song.

Spotify Wrapped is so successful that 156 million users engaged with it in 2022. Now, other companies like PlayStation, Nintendo, Duolingo, and Reddit have launched similar products to boost user engagement.

This leads to my theory about why people like year-end recaps, or wraps when it’s about themselves: We want to understand who we are, and these year-end summaries and data points help us see what we like, how we act, and how we live.

So as 2023 comes to a close, I wanted to challenge myself to create a year-end review, highlighting the good, the bad, the ugly, and the best things that I accomplished, experienced, and lived through this year. In corporate America, year-end reviews are a common way to reflect and assess what you’ve done for the company, and how your work ladders up to business priorities. But we rarely put that sort of rigor against our own life, which I would argue is way more important than work.

That’s why I made a framework that I’m following to help me document how I think my year went. I want to highlight what I’m proud of, what I enjoyed, and what I’m looking forward to doing next year.

The questions for my year-end framework are in bold. My answers — at times a little vague for privacy reasons — are italicized. The context of why we’re asking ourselves these questions is provided below my examples.

Year-end review questions

2023 was the year I…

… got comfortable working, traveling, and being alone which helped me create new ideas and launch big projects.

I like to start a year-end assessment with a big statement. This is your opening line, and it also helps summarize your year. It’s where you define how your year was with a statement, feeling, or accomplishment. I try to keep my answers short, like a sentence or two because brevity helps with clarity.

What I’m proud of the most this year is…

• Launching my food brand: The Hungry Bengali

• Becoming a better chef and creating more than 50 new recipes

• Reading more. I read 30 books in total, which helped me get inspired to finish my manuscript. Also, it turns out I love reading Stephen King and Lisa Jewel.

• Traveling around the world by myself, some highlights: Dominican Republic, France, and Vietnam

• Filming a documentary in another country

• Launching a new video project that tells the story of small businesses

• Creating a new marketing program for work that I’m going to implement in 2024

• Spending more time walking and being active, averaging at least 5 miles of walking a day

• Creating more art that I enjoy making and using new mediums to create it

• I became more financially independent, saving more than I have in any other year.

For this question, I like to create a series of bullet points of my top highlights. It can be as exhaustive as you want, but I think it’s important to just make a list of what comes to mind. What makes you feel proud doesn’t have to be strictly work accomplishments either, it can be feelings, experiences, or hobbies that brought you joy or filled your time that are memorable and worth documenting.

This year, my favorite …

• Movie: Oppenheimer and Barbie

• Song: “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus

• Book: “The Institution” by Stephen King

• Show: “Hadestown”

• Restaurant: Keens

• Trip: Vietnam

• Work project: Filming my documentary

• Project: Drawing I did of a woman working in her bedroom with her cat

• Recipe: My stuffed artichokes with sweet corn

• Purchase: Gold spider ring

• Clothes: My mid-rise black denim pants

• Activity: Hiking 20 miles through a state park in North Jersey

• Game: Mario Wonder

• Wine: 2021 Thompson Vineyard Syrah

• Food: Dry-aged steak I cooked and paired with a fancy cheese board

• Event: Dave Chapelle live

The problem I often have with year-end reviews is that they focus too much on accomplishments and work and not enough on things you’ve enjoyed and experienced. Therefore, I like to ask myself what I liked this past year. I like to challenge myself to pick “favorites” or memorable things I saw, ate, and did because documenting those experiences helps us appreciate and cherish them more.

What I wish I did more of …

• Spend more time with my partner

• Hang out more often with friends during weekends

• Take more and longer vacations

• Work less, especially after hours when things weren’t urgent

• Try cooking new cuisines I haven’t done before

• See more live music

• Have hobbies outside of computers or devices, like taking up pottery, crafting, jewelry-making

• Explore new neighborhoods and restaurants outside the metro New York area

• Stop posting so frequently on social media

• Grow more plants, especially herbs and vegetables

• Practice my language skills

• Take on one project at a time so I don’t get burnt out

Every year, there are a million things I wish I did. I like to ask this question after I reflect on what I enjoyed this past year because it helps me get more clarity on what I didn’t do and what I may want to do the following year. I try to keep this list close to my top 10 things I wish I did that were within reason. When I say, within reason, I mean things that can realistically be accomplished in a year. For instance, I wish I was an astronaut, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, so it wouldn’t make sense for me to add that to the list. Try to not add more than 10 things because any more can become unrealistic. We only have so much time in a day, week, month, year.

This past year, I mostly felt…

… anxious about my timeline and eager to pursue projects that have lasting impact.

This question can be a little scary to answer. It forces you to sum up your year into a few feelings, which can be hard or painful to do. It took me a while to find the words for this question if I’m being honest. And I truly did feel anxious a lot this year for personal reasons. Although I accomplished a lot in my work life and my side projects, I often felt anxious in my personal life, straining to figure out if I was going in the right direction, second-guessing the projects I started, and unsure if I was making the right financial moves. But there is strength in being honest with ourselves about how we feel, and the reality is that we don’t always need to be happy and the world isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, and that’s OK. It’s OK to be unsure about things, that is what makes us human and those feelings and experiences matter.

For 2023, I am grateful for my …

• Health

• Family

• Best friend

• Partner

• Work friends

• Boss

• Curiosity to learn

• Willingness to fail and try again

• Taking risks even when my ideas aren’t fully ready

Gratitude is a powerful emotion we often don’t practice in our modern society because many of us are so busy. Reflecting on what we’re grateful for can help us gain perspective on our time, accomplishments, and the people in our lives. It can help us navigate feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress, especially during challenging times. It can also help people disrupt negative thinking, focus on solutions, and appreciate relationships and experiences. I like to list a few things I’m grateful for every year. I’m especially grateful for my health this year. I was sick for a part of this year and it was very disruptive and painful and prevented me from exercising or going out for a while. I’m finally feeling a lot better and I am so grateful to be able to walk, run, cook, and hang out with people, especially because those are the things I value the most in my life.

For 2024, I feel …

… hopeful and level-headed about my future. I know there’s a lot of uncertainty in my personal life, but I know I am talented, hardworking, and smart, and I’ll be able to finish every goal and project I set out to do while making space to live my life and enjoy it too.

Sometimes it is easier to list a bunch of things we want to accomplish next year than to ask ourselves how we want to feel. Of course, we all want to be happy, but it’s important to reflect on how you’re feeling at the end of 2023, and what you’re hoping to feel and experience next year. By doing this, you can set out realistic goals and expectations for yourself. For me, 2023 was marked with a lot of anxiety around my health and personal life, but for 2024, I want to embrace uncertainty with calmness and clarity.

For 2024, I want to…

• Spend more time with friends, family, and loved ones during long weekends

• Take more vacations outside the country

• Create a habit of unplugging from technology and the internet during most of my weekends

• Finish my manuscript by the end of January

• Grow my food brand by making more high-quality content on YouTube and taking on more brand partnerships

• Design and launch a product that I feel proud about selling

• Create my art brand and share my process videos as well as launch a new art Etsy store

• Uplevel my consulting business and take on new clients

• Find a community that I want to settle down in and put down roots

I always have hefty goals for the next year, and I think those are so important to have because they are big and motivating. But it’s also OK to have small goals as well because life is full of big and small moments that can both be important and influential. I like to list no more than 10 things I want to accomplish for next year because too many goals can feel overwhelming or impossible when you put those goals against a timeline. Some of my examples are a little vague for this exercise. For instance, I want to take more vacations, but in reality, it is best to be specific. Where do I want to go? When do I want to take this trip? Who do I want to go with? What’s my budget? What do I want to experience? For example: “I want to spend two weeks traveling by train through Europe with my partner as we do a whirlwind tour of European sites and highlights on a budget of $5,000 in May.” Being specific with your goals can help you see them clearly and make realistic plans to achieve them.

That’s a wrap on my year-end review questions. To recap, the questions are:

1. 2023 was the year I…

2. What I’m proud of the most this year is…

3. This year, my favorite …

4. What I wish I did more of …

5. This past year, I mostly felt…

6. For 2023, I am grateful for my …

7. For 2024, I feel …

8. For 2024, I want to…

As you can see, it’s a pretty short year-end review. Who wants to fill out a long questionnaire during the holidays? This exercise is supposed to be enjoyable. It’s supposed to help you reflect, show gratitude, document success, cherish memories, and plan for next year.

I like to do this exercise for myself. I’ve been doing it for the past six years, and this is the first year I’m sharing my answers and framework publicly, outside of a few friends and family members. I hope it inspires you to give it a try.

You can keep your answers private, but I’ve also gotten a lot of value from sharing my answers with close friends, partners, and family members and using them as sounding boards because sometimes it’s helpful to get the perspective of others, especially when reflecting on yourself.

I wish you a wonderful new year filled with success, joy, and company.

If you liked this article, please like it and share it with your social networks. You can follow me here, or on TikTok and Instagram “at jareenimam” where I post often and talk about topics like love, money, and work.

Does suffering make you a better person?

Does going through a traumatic event like the death of a parent, a debilitating illness, or a painful divorce make us better people? Many religions and cultures see value in suffering.

For example, the Buddhists believe life causes suffering — it’s the cycle of samsara: Birth, life, death, and rebirth. Authors like C.S. Lewis, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, have said “a life of happiness brings complacency, and suffering wakes us up.” And the old maxim from philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger,” has become a popular saying in our present-day culture. Even the pop singer Kelly Clarkson wrote a billboard hit song titled “Stronger” that was inspired by Nietzsche’s phrase.

But is any of it true?

Richard Tedeschi, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, is one of the founders of the theory called post-traumatic growth. He says that some people who go through trauma discover a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. He reasons that trauma can help people relate to others, have a better understanding of themselves, and even appreciate life.

But psychologist Eranda Jayawickmere says it’s not that simple. Jayawickmere, who researches and teaches leadership and character development at Wake Forest University says traumatic events don’t necessarily make us better people. Instead, how we process that trauma determines who we become later.

For example, Jayawickmere studied survivors of the 30-year civil war in Sri Lanka, his homeland. During the civil war, thousands of people were killed, including civilians. In his research, he did a quantitative study of 50 survivors of the war. These survivors had gone through severe suffering such as sexual violence, being imprisoned multiple times, and being tortured in many disturbing ways. Jayawickmere asked these survivors what their daily life was after experiencing those traumatic events. He found that instead of thriving, many were suffering.

Some survivors tried coping by practicing religious rituals. Other survivors focused on staying busy and having a job. It was important for them to have something to do with their time so that it distracted them from their pain.

In his research, Jayawickmere was interested in trying to measure post-traumatic growth. He used the post-traumatic growth inventory, which assesses five areas of growth:

• Feeling a greater appreciation for life

• Believing there are new possibilities because of the trauma you endured

• Thinking you have a greater sense of personal strength than you had before the trauma

• Increasing your religious faith after the traumatic experience

• Assessing whether the quality of your relationships has changed

What he found while using this framework was that people don’t necessarily know why they changed. Generally, psychologists want a definitive answer for whether adversity leads to change in people when in reality what leads to growth is not always clear, he says.

@jareenimam Does trauma make us stronger? @jareenimam #selfgrowthjourney #personaldevelopmentjourney #understandingyourself #overcomingsetbacks #selfhealingjourney #personalgrowthtiktok ♬ Cornfield Chase - Hans Zimmer

In an interview on the Hidden Brain podcast, Jayawickmere says that pain and suffering can help reveal who we already are on the inside. It’s like a catalyst that helps us uncover our courage, perseverance, grittiness, empathy, and resilience.

Learning about how trauma affects us made me reflect on my past. When I was 10 years old, my father died suddenly. To this day, it remains the most traumatic and painful event of my life. My father’s death brought me great stress, unhappiness, uncertainty, and fear. And through that pain, which lasted for many years, I do believe I grew significantly, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. For example, I felt compelled to excel in school because it was clear to me that it would be a lot harder for me to go to college. After all, my family took a significant financial hit after my father’s death.

But before my father’s death, I was already a stellar student. I loved learning and creating. I don’t think my father dying made me any smarter or motivated me as a student. Research shows traumatic events suffered as a child can stunt your learning and cognitive ability.

So, am I a better person because my father died? Probably not. Rather, I think I’m just a different person than I may have been if he were still alive.

Does suffering bring hope?

Saint Paul says in the book of Romans that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” I’d like to believe that despite our suffering, people generally remain hopeful that better things will come along. Hope keeps us going.

For instance, when I had my first breakup in college with my long-term high school boyfriend, I was miserable. I could barely eat. I stopped socializing with my girls. I’d sob throughout the night in my freshman dorm room. I barely survived my first year at college because I was so depressed. My dormmates were distraught by my heartbreak. They tried to distract me after class with walks on the quad, episodes of Sex in the City, buttery pastries from the cafeteria, and stories of their own horrible boyfriends.

When I was alone, I’d find myself spiraling into a state of despair. I’d think about how this is the worst heartbreak I’ve ever felt. But I’d also remind myself that I had survived other painful experiences, so I could certainly survive this — and that gave me hope.

Finding resilience

Also, we’re not as fragile as we think. Psychologist George A. Bonanno writes in his book The End of Trauma that we’re more resilient than we think when it comes to enduring traumatic experiences. Many people go through traumatic experiences, but not all of us develop PTSD. Therefore, Bonanno argues that resiliency is a common throughline in the human experience.

Sometimes, painful experiences are inevitable, random, and callous. It can feel unfair, especially when those around you are fine and unscathed. I’m not going to say painful experiences make you a better person because I don’t believe that. But I do believe we’re stronger than we realize.

But that doesn’t mean you should navigate suffering alone. If you’re going through something painful, I urge you to try to find support. I survived my father’s death because of my brother and my mom. I survived my breakups because of my friends.

I’ve found it’s easier to gain strength, build resilience, and be the best version of yourself when you have friends and allies by your side.

How do I plan my life?

Deciding on what to do with your life? Try creating an odyssey plan.

During the Great Resignation, I switched careers. I went from being an industry leader in media to transitioning over to the tech world. There were many reasons why I left my 10-year career in journalism, but one of the main reasons was I needed a change.

From stressors fueled by the pandemic to changes in economic conditions, I think there are many people right now who are also facing moments of great transitions. And they are trying to figure out the next steps in their life. Although I landed a job at a big tech company, I still feel like my life is in a moment of flux. And I still feel the urge to figure out where my life is heading, and what I’m going to do next.

So, like any diligent student, I started researching ways to better plan out my life.

That’s when I came across Stanford’s Design Your Life course. This course, created by professor and author Bill Burnett, discusses a technique to create 5-year and 10-year plans to help students better design a purposeful and fulfilling life. This life designing technique is called: the odyssey plan.

What is an odyssey plan?

The name “odyssey plan” was inspired by New York Times social commentator David Brooks. In one of his articles, he used the term to describe a period of great exploration in a person’s life — much like Homer’s epic poem. These odyssey years happen generally between ages 25 through 35 as people transition from adolescence to adulthood. This is a period of time when people are discovering who they are, and it can be a critical moment to develop a plan that helps people reach their goals.

Planning multiple years of your life ahead of time can feel like a daunting task. But Burnett says in his course that “if you plan for nothing, you’re going to get nothing.”

Another reason to create a plan that helps us chart out our lives is simply that we’re living longer. One hundred years ago, the average life expectancy was 35, now in most developed nations, the average life expectancy is 75. Thanks to science and activism, we’ve essentially gained a second life.

Now that we’re living so much longer, it’s not uncommon for us to have multiple careers in different industries. Additionally, social scientists are viewing the stages of our lives differently. For instance, in the 1970s, sociologists believed there were 4 stages in a person’s life:

• Childhood

• Adolescence

• Adulthood

• Retirement

But now, thanks to our longevity and more complex social worlds, scientists believe we have six stages in life:

• Childhood

• Adolescence

• Odyssey years (a period of self-discovery)

• Adulthood

• Encore years (a time when a person is working for purpose rather than money)

• Retirement

Seeing these new stages of life listed out like this resonated with me because I was at a point in my journalism career where I felt like I’d achieved as many milestones in the industry as I could. When I asked myself, “what’s next?” The answer seemed pretty obvious: Become a corporate executive. But when I tried to become a vice president at the media company I was working for, the next stage of my career journey, my managers told me it wasn’t my time — despite my qualifications.

Instead, I was told to wait my turn.

When to transition to a new career?

I don’t like sitting still, I never did. Therefore, I couldn’t see myself being a middle manager for another 10 years before there was room at the top of the corporate ladder to promote me. I wasn’t going to let a company’s corporate leadership structure stagnant my life, which is what I feel like I had endured for the first six years of my media career.

Facing this pushback and witnessing my lack of support, I realized it was time for me to leave the media industry. Instead of waiting my turn, I wanted to try something different while I still had the time. I wanted to learn a new skill. I wanted to take a risk. I wanted to embrace change, even though I was really scared of going from an area of immense expertise to an industry where I needed to start over again.

I also wanted to do more outside of my career. For 10 years, I dedicated my life to being a journalist working in the media industry. But before starting my career, I used to paint, write creatively, film short movies, play tennis, rock climb, and dance. But all those passions lost their priority while I worked in the media industry. It wasn’t because these activities weren’t important to me, but because they weren’t relevant to my journalism career. And because our time is finite, the passions I had that weren’t related to my career faded away.

Reflecting back on this, I felt remorseful, angry, and bitter about how I spent the past 10 years working as a journalist. I wanted to plan out my life better, and spend time doing things that I valued.

Life is funny in some ways. For instance, life feels long and short at the same time. When you’re working towards something, like building a career, starting a business, or accumulating a net worth, life can feel so long because your goals take time. But once you look back at your life, you see that time has gone by so quickly. And when you reflect on your life, it’s normal to question whether working so much was really worth it. And according to researchers, one of the biggest regrets of people who are dying was spending too much time working. And for me, working those extra hours every day for 10 years to cover breaking news events, it just wasn’t worth it anymore. Not at the expense of my life and time.

How to design your life

So that’s why I created an odyssey plan for myself. Technically, you’re supposed to create several different plans with different life choices and get feedback from peers, friends, or family on which plan is the right one for you. As of now, I’ve created two plans. Here’s one plan that I’ve put together as an example for you.

In this 5-year plan called “financial independence as a creative entrepreneur” (Burnett suggests titling your plans using six words), I picked three things that I wanted to focus on:

1. Starting my own business

2. Having a family

3. Writing, publishing, and selling my book

Burnett, the creator of the odyssey plan, says that it’s important to pick three things to focus on in your plans and create a roadmap for yourself on how to achieve your goals. Selecting too many goals could lead to wishful dreams and unfilled plans. The reason I picked these three goals is that I wanted to have goals for different aspects of my life: My professional life, my personal life, and my passionate life.

While creating my first odyssey plan, I was surprised by how difficult it was to narrow down what is actually important to me. The first few drafts of my plan were devoted to working and rising in my corporate career. But when I read through those plans, I didn’t feel excited. Instead, they all felt safe and boring.

When I stripped away my desires for corporate accolades and my fears of failing, I saw that what I really want to do is to create something meaningful for myself and others, like writing my book to share with the world. I want to have a safe and stable home with someone I love. And I want to be financially independent outside of working a corporate job by starting my own business.

I’m still in the middle of creating my other plans, but I think this exercise has been a good way for me to reassess my values. And now that I’m in my early thirties, I think this is a perfect time to head in a direction that finally puts me first.

If you’re in a moment of transition and looking to figure out what to do next, I suggest designing a 5-year plan for yourself. Science gave us a second life, and it’s now in our hands to decide with to do with it.