2023 review and 2024 goals: 5 questions to improve every aspect of your life

Late December, early January. It’s time to do your annual review and set goals for the year ahead.

So make yourself comfortable, grab your favorite drink (for me it’s a latte macchiato), and get ready to take some time for yourself.

Because yes, taking stock of the past year and thinking about what you want for the future means taking care of yourself and your future.

Here are 5 questions I ask myself every year to find out where I am and where I want to go.

Because it’s just like on the map with “You are here“: first we need to know where we’re starting from and where we’re going, so we know the itinerary we need to take.

Here we go!

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Contents

• Why you should do a year in review and set goals for the coming year?
• 2023 year in review: what questions should you ask?
• A complete review of all areas of life
• How to balance personal and professional life?
• Setting your 2024 goals
• Life goals as a beacon
• Defining your goals
• How do you achieve your goals?
  • Relevant goals
  • Define your vision
  • Look at your goals every day
  • Routines and habits
• A tool for planning and taking action

Taking the time to do a review of your life and set goals allows you to step back and decide what to do next with intentionality.

It helps you look back, see what you’ve accomplished, understand what worked and what could be improved.

It’s a time to reflect on your experiences, the lessons you’ve learned, and the things that really matter to you.

And then to set your goals, you need to know where you are now, and that’s done through the year in review.

Your goals will act as guides for your future.

By setting clear, achievable goals, you give meaning to your days and your life.

It helps you make decisions in the direction of your dreams.

Setting goals is like mapping out an itinerary for a journey you choose, instead of wandering aimlessly. It motivates you to move forward, overcome obstacles (because there will be some) and create the life you really want to live.

In short, doing a review and setting goals are more than just formal exercises.

It’s like giving yourself the tools to consciously build the life that will make you happy.

So why not take a moment to do a year in review and set those goals?

While it’s true that the end of the year, with the Christmas holidays, is a good time to slow down, reflect and look back, you don’t have to wait until January 1st to do your review and think about your goals.

Ideally, you should do it every 3 months, or even every month: not only will you remember better the results you’ve achieved, but you’ll also be able to rectify the situation if these mid-term reviews show you that your actions aren’t going in the desired direction.

If you set goals for 2023 a year ago, now’s the time to see if you’ve achieved them, and if not, what obstacles prevented you from doing so.

If you didn’t set any goals last year, here are 3 key questions to consider for a thorough review, covering all areas of your life.

To begin with, choose the areas you’d like to focus on.

I like to use a tool called the “Level 10 Life” (or Wheel of life).

It’s a visual tool for evaluating and balancing the different aspects of our lives.

The domains often used are the following:

• family and friends
• love life
• physical and mental health
• career
• finances
• hobbies or time for yourself
• environment (where you live)
• personal growth
• contribution to the world
• spirituality

You can, of course, adapt it to your own areas of life, if, for example, spirituality is not important to you.

Then, for each category, ask yourself these 3 questions:

1. What is my current rating in this area, on a scale from 0 to 10? (The scale goes from 0 to 10, hence the name Level 10 Life.)

2. What have been my greatest achievements in this area this year?

3. What were the most difficult moments and how did I overcome them?

I’ve created a “Level 10 Life Questions” collection, which you can duplicate in your My Bullet online account, by clicking here.

You’ll be able to answer all these questions easily.

Discover other templates to duplicate in My Bullet Shop.

Once you’ve noted the areas of your life (question 1), you’ll be able to see at a glance which aspects are the most fulfilling for you, as well as those you’ve worked on less this year and which can be improved.

You can then decide whether to work on all the areas of your life, or to focus on just 3 or 4 of these categories.

We’ll look at this in the “Goals” section.

Before moving on to defining goals, I’d like to focus on the professional /personal balance.

Your Wheel of Life will certainly not be uniformly colored, as is the case for me (on the previous graphic).

Because it’s not always easy to do everything well at the same time: have a fulfilling social and love life, a satisfying career, the finances to go with it, hobbies and time for yourself, and so on.

If you score the same in all these areas, congratulations!

But in general, we will prioritize certain aspects of our lives at certain times, then put them aside at other times to prioritize others:

• when we’re young and active, for example, work and social relationships take precedence,
• when you become a parent, the family suddenly takes priority, and you’re less motivated by work or sport, and have less time for yourself and your partner…
• then, as we age, we want to take care of our health, choose the right place to live, and so on.

It’s all a matter of priorities.

So it’s normal not to be 10/10 in every area of your life, but the Wheel of Life will serve as your guide, to :

• first, realize which aspects you neglect more than others,
• intentionally choose which areas you will prioritize and which you will put aside for a while,
• and adjust as you go along.

In My Bullet online, you can assign a color to your different projects and areas of your life.

And thanks to the color filters in the calendars, you can see at a glance how your days, weeks and months are balanced.

For example, here for this week, there are :

• a lot of personal (pink)
• not much pro (blue),
• a lot of house management (purple),
• and some me time (beige).

I always start with my life goals to define my objectives for the year. I do this with the help of 2 questions.

I think about my ideal life in 5 or 10 years in all areas of my life:

4. What would my life be like if I had 10/10 in this area?

Because yes, it is possible to have the best possible health, the most beautiful relationship with your partner and family, a fulfilling career, a body you’re proud of, hobbies you enjoy.

Write down in detail what a typical day or week would look like, so that you can score 10/10.

You can answer this question with My Bullet online:

• either in the “Level 10 Life Questions” collection, which you can duplicate in your account by clicking here,
• or on the “My Goals” page, in the “My Life Goals” section.

Then, without necessarily wanting to reach 10/10 all at once, but rather to progress by a point or two, ask yourself this question:

5. What can I do better this year to improve my rate?

These will be your goals for the year.

Similarly, in My Bullet online, you can write down your goals for the year:

• either in the “Questions Level 10 Life Questions” collection, which you can duplicate in your account by clicking here,
• or on the “My goals” page, in the “My goals for the year” section.

You can then divide your goals for the year into quarters and months.

Monthly goals are then automatically synchronized on your “My Agenda” page.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how many SMART goals I set, I still couldn’t reach them.

For my part, I don’t talk about goals as results, but as actions to be done, projects to be launched.

Because “losing 10 pounds in 3 months” doesn’t depend on you: you’re not the one who decides to transform the fat cells in your body.

However, it is you who decides that you’ll buy fruit and vegetables instead of ready-made meals or cookies, that you’ll choose a starter/main course rather than a main course/dessert in a restaurant. And that you’ll go to the gym 3 times a week instead of going out with your friends.

The same goes for professional goals:

You’re not sure you’ll get 10,000 new followers on Instagram because that depends on other people.

On the other hand, it’s you who decides to create 3 Reels a week and to comment on other accounts 30 min a day.

You can still set these 2 types of goals:

• expected-results goals, which are not dependent on you, but which can provide motivation,
• action goals, which depend on you, in particular by planning your projects and developing a routine and good lifestyle habits.

You are not responsible for the actions of others, but for your own actions.

You’ve set your goals.

But deep down, you don’t really believe it because you rarely manage to reach your goals…

Let’s be honest: we all know what we need to do to have better health, better finances, better relationships with our loved ones…

But we spend our time procrastinating and finding excuses.

There are several reasons why you may not be achieving your goals.

What if the reason for your failures is that you don’t REALLY want to achieve them?

• Either because it’s not a goal that really motivates you: you’re doing it to please your loved ones (passing a degree) or to follow society’s injunctions (losing weight),
• or because you’re not ready to make the sacrifices and overcome the obstacles you’ll encounter to reach your goal.

To find out how important a goal is to you, rate it: on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you want to achieve it?

If it’s a score of 10/10, you should normally do everything in your power to make it happen: it’s no longer a simple goal, but a real commitment, lika a matter of life and death.

Having a vision is a great help in making decisions, knowing what goals are most important to us.

For each goal, ask yourself “Why” you want to achieve it:

• What are the deeper reasons, the ones that drive you the most?
• What will happen once you’ve achieved these goals?
• How will it make you feel?

It’s often said that we need to find things that make us want to get up in the morning.

Honestly, I don’t want to get up at 6am to do yoga or run on my mat. On the other hand, I do want to have energy throughout the day to carry out the tasks that bring me closer to my dreams.

It’s my vision that makes me want to push myself, not the tasks themselves.

Hence the importance of knowing “Why” you do things.

If your goal is to write a book, it may seem too big and end up discouraging you.

The task seems overwhelming and you feel like you just can’t do it.

Because: how do you eat an elephant? (or a watermelon for vegetarians like me?) Piece by piece.

How do you climb a mountain? Step by step.

This is the method of small steps used by the Japanese, also known as Kaizen.

So take all your goals and break them down into intermediate objectives, then into small tasks.

With My Bullet online, you can set :

• your life goals,
• then those for the year,
• for each quarter,
• monthly,
• every week,
• and every day.

Most of the tasks I put on my to-do list last barely 15 minutes, because I cut them down to the max so I know exactly what to do and so they seem easier to do.

For example, instead of having the task “Write an article” which would take me hours, I have the following tasks:

• Research the subject
• Write paragraph 1
• Write paragraph 2, etc.
• Create images
• Reread the post
• Optimize SEO
• Program the post

With My Bullet online, you can create tasks lasting a minimum of 15 minutes and set them as sub-tasks of a main task.

If you really want to improve several areas of your life, that can be a lot to achieve.

The other problem can be that you end up forgetting them and therefore leaving them aside.

A study has shown that it’s the people who :

• write down their goals,
• review them regularly,
• and have a partner to commit to,

who are most likely to achieve their goals.

For the first 2 points, I suggest using a Vision Board: this is a visualization board containing images and inspirational quotes representing your goals.

Posted on a wall where you can see it every day, your Vision Board will remind you of the goals you want to achieve and motivate you to take the actions that will bring you closer to your ideal life.

You can even sum up your Vision Board with a single word, an intention for the year ahead.

It’s a key word, the most important intention that will guide you in your decisions and actions.

And, of course, to bring you closer to your vision, as seen above.

You can find this word among your values, or an aspect of your personality, or a skill that you’d like to develop and that would enable you to achieve your goals.

For example, my intention for the year is: awareness.

• I want to come back to the present moment, to enjoy moments with my son, my husband when I’m with them.
• But also to be fully engaged when I’m working, to come back to myself and refocus if I see I’m procrastinating.
• I want to step back and manage my emotions when I’m feeling anger or fear, and be grateful when I’m feeling joy.

Next, you may start but not continue the actions that help you achieve your goals.

But it’s by being consistent and persevering that things will fall into place. This applies to both professional and personal goals:

• it’s by regularly publishing posts on social networks that you’ll make a name for yourself,
• it’s by working out regularly that you’ll lose weight and gain energy,
• it’s by sleeping at the same time every day that you’ll have energy,
• it’s by calling your loved ones, spending time with them often, that you’ll have a beautiful relationship.

So to give yourself the best possible chance of achieving your goals, create a routine for yourself.

I’ve created my ideal week, with all the tasks to be done hour by hour, from bedtime and getting up, to sport and important recurring tasks.

Because not only does this mean you don’t have to think about what you need to do each moment (and therefore avoid procrastinating on social networks)…

But what’s more, having habits means you’ll do them easily, almost automatically.

Make a note in your calendar of the things you want to do, the habits you want to follow, and above all, plan when you’re going to carry out these tasks.

We saw that a study showed that those who wrote down their objectives had the greatest chance of success.

Whether on paper in a notebook, or online like My Bullet online, write down everything: your goals, your tasks, your habits, your results…

What’s more, you’ll reduce your mental workload: there’s no need to remember all the things you need to do and risk forgetting them.

Then you can concentrate on what really matters.

This tool is often called the“second brain“: you have everything in one place, so you don’t have to make the effort of memorizing.

So you can use your brain only for important things like making decisions or creating, acting in your zone of genius.

With My Bullet online, you can :

• set your goals in the “My Goals” section,
• define your action plan in the to-do list and calendar,

• manage your projects in collections,
• track your habits with trackers,

• track your numerical progress in graphs,

• record your achievements, experiences and lessons learned in the“Journaling” section.

The icing on the cake is that at the end of the year, you’ll be able to easily do your 2024 in review because you’ll have recorded everything in your digital Bullet Journal.

It’s your turn

If you haven’t yet created a My Bullet online account, you can do so below, by entering your first name and e-mail.

Then answer the 5 questions in this article, and start achieving your goals and dreams!

Let me know in the comments if you’ve completed the Wheel of Life, or if you’re using other questions and tools to do your year in review and set your goals?

I wish you all the best for 2024 and the success of all your professional and personal projects.