December Introspection

Personal Photo

As the years stretches to its end, December seems to be the best month for a bit of contemplation and introspection. I find it to be a very good way to wrap up the year, take away some good moments and learnings, and prepare the way for 2014.

Since I am in an Advent Calendar mood, I decided to cover 24 mini-themes to think about, please feel free to pick and choose those relevant to your situation. The rule is simple: whenever you have a bit of down time, you pick one of the 24 subjects and think about it. You can choose whatever form suits you best, I have decided to record it in a notebook.

The Daily Introspection

The objective of this short introspection is simple: figuring out how you did in 2013. What small victories to celebrate, what you learned about yourself in the process. What elements were more difficult and why, so you can take away the lessons for next year. If it helps making things more concrete, here is a more "formal" list of topics to think about, and you will find below a personal example to illustrate it.

- Today's Introspection:
- My 2013 objective/wish was:
- What I succeeded at:
- The difficulties I encountered:
- The key learning I can remember from 2013:
- My objective for 2014:

Personal example (from the mini-topic #2 below)

Today's introspection:
Body Shape
My 2013 objective was:
Getting an overall fitter body with more muscles and less fat (with a stable weight)
What I succeeded at:
Maintained regular Body Pump sessions to work slowly on my muscle endurance and shape
What Difficulties I encountered:
Had to adjust the workout sessions to integrate them within my routine despite holidays, business trips etc. Had to adjust clothing sizes and shape as my body started to change a bit (broader shoulders for example made all my fitted shirts too small, on the contrary I lost a pants size and my skinny minis are too big now...)
Key Learning for 2013:
Daily habits can be modified with trial and error - do not persist in maintaining a habit that clearly doesn't work (in my case sports in the morning before work), but find a solution that makes the habit easier to stick (at lunch time for my case)
My Objective for 2014:
Start a workout programme based on muscle strength and actively lower the fat percentage in favor of more muscles. Keep weight fluctuations within +/- 3kg over the year.

24 mini-themes

Here is a proposition of 24 mini-themes for this December introspection. I based these on the 4 areas of level up: physical, mental/spiritual, social and creative growth. I tried to make these as generic as possible but they might not all apply to your lifestyle and objectives, so please feel free to pick and adapt them to your personal needs!

Physical/Health Growth

#1 - Healthy eating: Implementing or maintaining food habits (Can cover special diet objectives, cooking objectives...)

#2 - Body shape: attaining or maintaining a certain shape (Can cover weight gain/loss, getting a fitter silhouette, maintaining a healthy body shape...)

#3 - Sports/Exercise: Reach or maintain a certain level of regular exercise (can cover workout objectives, running distance or time, a specific sport you practice and compete alone or in a team, or simply walking more, biking...)

#4 - Looks/Style: Work on wardrobe/style/outfits (can cover wardrobe editing, finding or refining personal style, purchase habits objective, overall feeling of "bien dans sa peau")

#5 - Body Care: Taking good care of one's body and health (can cover beauty routine,  institute/massage treats, working on a specific illness or chronic health problem...)

#6 - Overall Wellness: How confident are you in your body compared to last year (more general, the evolution of self esteem, body related complexes or issues, evolution of overall health objectives...)

Mental/Spiritual Growth

#7 - Culture: Devoting time to discovering new pieces (reading books, watching films, visiting museums, new music albums, video games, or whatever your field is)

#8 - Discoveries: Find out more about new topics, travels, learn something new (travel to a new country, meet people who share their vision of the world, discover about new topics for example via TED talks or books...)

#9 - Learning Skills: How did you progress in the skills you are learning? (it can be an art, musical instrument, cooking or sewing, a new language, new code of web design tool, a skill at work...)

#10 - Meditation: Did you devote time to paying attention to what's going on in your body and mind? (it doesn't have to be actual meditation, it can be simply taking the time to assess your life, emotions, path and objectives, a religious contemplation activity like prayer...)

#11 - Happiness/Contentment: How fulfilled to you feel compared to last year? (can cover overcoming a difficulty from the year before, some subjects of insatisfaction, desire or objective to change something in particular like job...)

#12 - Overall Mental and Spiritual Evolution: How much did you grow your skills, self discovery and  contentment this year?(more general growth objectives, of overall mental well being, happiness, satisfaction, knowledge level and skill objectives...)

Social Growth

#13 - Family Care: How did your relationship to your family evolve? (it can be reconnecting with family members, nurture a couple, taking care of the kids, spending more time with the family...)

#14 - Friends Connection: How did your friendships evolve? (it can be making new friends, reconnecting with lost buddies, devoting more time to maintaining close friendships...)

#15 - Social Habits: Did you implement new social gatherings or parties? (it can be an objective to meet new people, go out more often, spend more time with specific people...)

#16 - Work Goals: How did your job/career/personal business projects and connections evolve? (I wasn't sure if it should be in "social" or "mental growth" depending on the type of job, but decided that being inserted in a work environment was a social thing, even for people with their own business, you need to connect with clients or partners etc. in order to make it work)

#17 - Social Circles: Did you meet new types of people, did you engage in new activities? (the difference with #15 is that it is about enlarging and diversifying social circles in a way - like engage in a new activity, volonteer in a new association, meet people from another cultural or social background... it is a way to be more open minded)

#18 - Overall Social Well Being: How did your 2013 social environment evolve? How happy are you with your current situation, did you overcome specific challenges or had difficulties with something in particular? (can cover more general topics of feeling lonely or not, insertion in a new city or job...)

Creative Growth

#19 - Creative Project: If you had a creative project in 2013, how did it evolve? (can cover DIY projects, artistic ones like writing, drawing, photography, web design or coding, any creative projects you may have at work if you are lucky to have a creative job...)

#20 - Creative Skills: did you learn something new to improve your creative abilities? (can cover courses you learned, books read, new techniques you may have learned etc. on creative skills you already work on)

#21 - New Creative Field: Did you engage in totally new creative activities this year? (can cover anything you created, lessons you took or things you tried to learn yourself...)

#22 - Visibility of your Creations: If you created things in 2013 or before, did they become more visible to new users, more popular, did you work on spreading them to a wider audience? (can be publishing your books or drawings, putting photographies in a gallery or simply opening a portfolio website, sharing DIY or recipes with friends or online...)

#23 - Reviving old Projects: Sometime, life happens and we give up side projects. Did you pick up any back this year?

#24 - Overall Creative Fulfillment: Are you satisfied with the time you devoting to creativity this year? (can cover any general self actualization obectives, projects etc., personal or professional)



I initially wanted to post this on the first of December so it could be a mini introspective Advent Calendar but life happened. I hope you like this little experiment, please don't hesitate to share your feedback on that idea! If there is any topic you'd like me to elaborate on, please let me know.