How to Use a Personal Retro for Year-End Reflection
Who knew software product development tools could work so well for personal life??
As a former product leader, I love applying the best product/engineering practices to my personal life and in my executive coaching.
One of these tools is a personal retrospective (or retro, for short).
The personal retro structure that I find most useful is inspired by the weekly team retrospectives that helped our software product development teams perform at our best at work. Tools like these help us create a clear strategy for the highest-impact priorities and a routine for continuous learning and improvement/iteration.
The same concept works well for personal growth and personal goals!
I try to do a personal retro weekly (don’t always make it!), and these upcoming weeks are a perfect time to make space for a year-end personal retro.
We look back to look forward with clarity!
How to Do a Personal Retrospective (and not procrastinate)
The format is very simple:
- What went well this year?
- What didn’t go well this year that I want to improve going forward?
My recommended approach for best use of your mental energy:
Start by jotting whatever comes top of mind for both questions 1 and 2. The biggest things usually stick out in our minds. Some people like to review every month in the year, but I suggest to start listing bullet points for whatever is top of mind from your memory for the last year. Timebox this to 30 minutes or 1 hour and see how far you get in that time.
The main point is to keep this easy breezy and keep the scope small, so we don’t procrastinate and avoid the task because we think we need to block half a day for something like this. You can always do a second pass if you want to do a more detailed month-by-month review.
One guideline: Focus on highest impact. The goal is to identify the top priorities, not to create an exhaustive list.
To prioritize, focus on jotting:
- The biggest things that went well that were highest impact to your career goals, health, personal growth, whatever your personal priorities are.
- The biggest things that held you back from reaching your highest-impact goals or using your best capabilities.
Don’t spend too much mental overhead for this exercise. We don’t want to spend hours trying to remember every little thing. Broad strokes!
The final step is to prioritize the top 3 for your personal strategy for next year:
1. Top 3 things that worked well and were highest impact, and thus you want to double down on or invest in in a bigger way.
2. Top 3 blockers holding you back from your best potential and your highest impact for your goals.
That’s a personal retro in a nutshell!
The main benefit is that it helps you get clarity on what’s truly most important and forces you to make space to reflect on and incorporate your best learnings from the past year to inform your personal strategy to make that vision happen in the new year!
Next steps would include visioning the life you want to manifest a year from now, as well as brainstorming options for how you could improve those top 3 blockers holding you back from your highest impact.
Again, we aren’t looking to improve everything. We don’t have energy for that! Everything is not high impact or important.
If you try doing a personal retro or have a practice like this already, I’m curious to hear how it goes for you!
Wishing you introspective discovery and illuminating insights as you make just a little space to reflect on your best learnings this past year!
Founders (and aspiring founders), executives, and leaders scaling in new challenges: We can tackle your top blockers together, suss out potential mind blocks or blindspots getting in the way of your greatness, and reframe the mindset and design an effective action plan to achieve your highest impact and harness your full potential. Let’s make that vision happen!!
Life’s too short to not be the best leader you can be and leverage your zone of genius every day!
DM me on Instagram christinawpan to start the convo.
Testimonials and info on my executive coaching: https://linktr.ee/christinawpan
(Author’s note: Article updated in November 2023.)
