Year-End Reflection Questions: 50 to Ask Yourself

The most useful year-in-review questions ask what went well, what was hard and what you want to carry into next year. Below are 50 questions to ask yourself, grouped into wins, hard parts, people, health, work and money, learning, what to leave behind and next year. Set aside 30 to 45 minutes, answer them in writing, and finish by choosing a few things to carry forward and one small first step for January. If you’re short on time, answer one or two from each group.

How to run a 30 to 45 minute year review

1. Find a quiet spot and a notebook. Phones off except for step two.
2. Scroll back through the year. Spend about five minutes on your calendar and photos, month by month. Jot down anything that stands out: trips, hard weeks, people, firsts.
3. Answer the questions in writing. Go group by group. Short answers are fine. Skip any question that doesn’t fit your year.
4. Look for patterns. Circle anything that shows up more than once, like a person, a worry or a time you felt good.
5. Choose what to keep and what to drop. Pick three things you want more of next year and one thing to leave behind.
6. Write one first step. Make it something you can do in the first week of January.

When you’re done, you can turn your answers into a letter to your future self to open next December, or into goals for a vision board that actually works.

50 year-end reflection questions

Wins and good moments

1. What are you proudest of from this year?
2. What was the best day of the year, and what made it good?
3. What did you finish that you once doubted you would?
4. Which small habit did you keep more often than you expected?
5. When did you feel most like yourself?
6. What’s one kind thing someone said to you this year that you still remember?
7. What surprised you in a good way?

The hard parts

8. What was the hardest moment, and how did you get through it?
9. What did you keep putting off, and what was really in the way?
10. Where did you say yes when you meant no?
11. What worried you most, and did it happen?
12. What did you learn from something that didn’t go to plan?
13. When did you go easy on yourself, and was it the right call?
14. What would you tell yourself on the first day of this year?

People

15. Who made this year better?
16. Who do you want to thank, and have you told them?
17. Which relationship grew, and what helped it grow?
18. Who did you lose touch with that you miss?
19. Who did you show up for?
20. Who do you want to spend more time with next year?

Health and energy

21. When did you feel most energetic this year?
22. What drained you the most?
23. How did you sleep in most weeks?
24. What kind of movement did you actually enjoy?
25. What did you do when you were stressed, and did it help?
26. What’s one thing your body needs more of next year?

Work and money

27. What work are you proudest of?
28. What did you learn about how you like to work?
29. What did you spend money on that felt worth it?
30. What spending do you regret?
31. What would make your work feel more meaningful next year?
32. Which skill would make the biggest difference to your work or income?

Learning and growth

33. What’s the most useful thing you learned this year?
34. Which book, show, talk or conversation changed your mind about something?
35. What did you try for the first time?
36. What did you get better at through practice?
37. What did you want to learn but never started?
38. Which belief about yourself changed?

What to leave behind

39. What habit are you ready to stop?
40. Which commitment can you let go of?
41. What story about yourself is no longer true?
42. What are you still carrying that isn’t yours to carry?
43. What do you need to forgive, in yourself or someone else?

Next year

44. What word do you want next year to be about?
45. A year from now, what would make you say it was a good year?
46. What do you want to do more of?
47. What’s one thing you want to do less of?
48. What’s the smallest step you could take toward your biggest goal in the first week of January?
49. What will future you, a year from now, be glad you started?
50. What do you want to remember about this year?

Making the questions easier to answer

Start with the wins. It’s easier to look honestly at the hard parts once you’ve written down what went right.

Be specific. “I was stressed at work” is less useful than “I worked late most of March and stopped running.” Specific answers point to specific changes.

Keep the tone kind. Write the way you’d talk to a friend reviewing their year, and treat your answers as notes for next year.

Do it with someone. With a partner, friend or family, each person can pick five questions, answer them alone first and then share. Keep the what-to-leave-behind answers private if you’d rather.

Why a new year is a good moment to start

There’s research behind the feeling that January is a clean slate. Researchers at the Wharton School found that Google searches for “diet,” visits to a university gym and commitments to goals on a goal-setting website all rose after “temporal landmarks” like the start of a new week, month or year, birthdays and holidays. Relative to baseline, searches for “diet” rose 82.1% at the start of a new year, the chance of an undergraduate visiting the gym rose 11.6%, and goal commitments rose 145.3% (Dai et al., 2014).

The authors suggest these landmarks put past imperfections in a previous period and nudge people to take a big-picture view of their lives (Dai et al., 2014). A year review does the same thing on purpose, by closing out this year before you plan the next.

You don’t have to wait for January 1, either. The same study found the effect at the start of a new week and a new month, and after birthdays. If you want to see how much of the year is left to finish strong, check the days left in the year.

Today’s small step

Open your calendar or photos and scroll back to January. Write down three moments from this year you want to remember and one thing you’d do differently. That’s about ten minutes, and it gives your full review a head start.