Around 12 years ago, I picked up the book “Your Best Year Yet.” Using the book I intentionally planned for the coming year, in a way that I had never done before.

Then something amazing happened. Not only did the process helped me create meaningful goals, but with the clarity of how I would want my life to look like, I could see opportunities that I would have otherwise have missed.

During the year, what seemed impossible, began to seem very achievable.

Ever since then I’ve been doing the Annual Review. Over time, I and Arif have customized it to suit our needs.

This year we opened up our Annual Review process and invited folks our on list to do it together. We called it Design Your Year – 2021.

Here’s my process we went through in Design Your Year 2021, along with my own answers.

The process to Design Your Year

What did you accomplish in 2020?

There’s a tendency for our minds to focus on the negative. This question helps me to focus and acknowledge what when well. It gets me to a state of gratitude, and access my higher self.

My Accomplishments:

Delivering Coaching

• Worked with twelve GTD 1 to 1 coaching clients during the year. My clients ranged from a student to a senior executive at Google. I learned a lot about coaching and really grew as one.
• Creating visuals on GTD Insights

Taking Coaching

Besides delivering coaching, I also ended up taking coaching in the following:

• Yoga
• NonViolent Communication
• Integral Coaching
• Learning Kannada

Parenting

• Staying at home during lockdown meant spending more time with family, especially with my 4-year-old son. We spent lots of time together playing, reading, and cycling. I also learned hard lessons about what it means to raise a strong-willed child.

What were your disappointments? And what did you learn?

Telling the truth to yourself provides a great release, and shows you the way ahead.

Jinny S Ditzler

The purpose of bringing awareness to disappointments is not to put ourselves down, but to learn from the experiences.

Here are some of the questions to reflect on the previous year:

• What has been your unfinished business in 2020?
• What expectations weren’t fulfilled?
• What were the lessons learned in 2020?
• What advice would you like to give yourself?

My disappointments and learning:

• My disappointments were mostly around work. While we did more of personal coaching, there was a dip in corporate workshops. The business was down overall.

Some of my lessons from 2020

• Being grateful for what I have
• Diversify my business
• Express myself from a place of authenticity

Discover your values

I revisit my values before planning for the coming year. This helps me to align myself to what really matters to me, so that I make goals that are meaningful.

Here are some questions that help to get clarity on what is important to you:

• What have been your happiest moments?
• If you knew you couldn’t fail, what would you try?
• You have all the time and money in the world, what would you do?
• If you had only 6 months to live, what would you do and how would you live?

When you answer these, you’ll see a pattern which will help you identify your values.

My Values

Growth, Peace, Connection with family, Contribution, Wisdom, Beauty, Expression, Creativity

Identify your life roles, and share a vision

Too often when I make goals I don’t consider the impact that it’ll have on other areas of my life. By clarifying my Life Roles, it gives me the awareness to make goals that serve my life roles.

My life roles:

• Family: Father, Son, Husband
• Work: Vakil Housing, Calm Achiever
• Community: Sufi Comics, ILM Montessori
• Health: Yoga
• Spirituality
• Hobbies: Art

Create a Vision for your life role

Here’s where I brainstorm and allow myself to dream. Like an artist painting on a blank canvas, I paint what my vision for my life roles. I write in the present tense.

Professional

My team is excited about work. No difference between work & play.

I’m successfully running Holacracy Cohorts with international clients. Clients are experiencing freedom & productivity like never before.

I’ve got good control & understanding over my finances. I’m able to make confident and long term decisions.

Health

I’m able to comfortably practice advanced yoga poses. Completed 100 sessions with my coach in 2021

Family

I’ve taken my family to 2 international trips to places we’ve never been before.

I’ve reconnected with long lost friends and family. Developed a strong bond with them.

Community

I’m working on my 6th book, which is my dream project on the topic “Purpose of life”, in collaboration with talented artists.

Create 10 Specific Goals, and Identify the Top 3.

This is the stage where I create goals for 2021. I keep in min the following:

• Align the goals with your values
• Balance them across your life roles
• Be specific

My Goals (Top 3 are bold)

• Complete 2 Holacracy Cohorts in 2021, in collaboration with international coaches.
• Serve 100 Clients for The Finisher’s Club
• Reach GTD target set by DAC
• Take the family on an international trip
• Create 12 high-quality pieces of content using Visuals in Wait But Why style
• Sell balance inventory in VHDC
• VHDC: Launch a new project
• Be able to speak Gujarati fluently by taking the help of a coach.
• Be consistent with my Yoga practice aiming for 90 sessions during the year
• Create 20 more Sufi Lines images.

Your Turn to Design Your Year

When I asked myself, why do I do the annual review. I realized there are only two choices I have in the way I want to live my life.

• A created life, or
• An unplanned life

A created Life is one where I create using the power intention. It begins with the words I choose to describe my world, instead of the world happening to me.

Doing the process doesn’t mean I always get what I want, but it means that I orient myself to make better decisions in the present moment.

I invite you to do your own annual review. When you go through this process you’ll get experience the sense of creating your own life.