Gentlemen. Happy early 2026.
Before we cross over into the new year (completely imaginary btw), I wanted to share some prompts and questions with you that you may get value from if you’re into doing annual reflections, or if you’re interested but never knew where to start, give you a solid format of simplicity.
Each year this format evolves, and here are the updated questions for 2025 that I’ll be journalling on:
- What were the top wins? (ie. 3-10)
- How did I advance, progress or grow the most?
- What were the most valuable lessons I learned?
- What 20% of things resulted in 80% of my happiness, growth or results?
- What 20% of things resulted in 80% of my unhappiness or lack of progress?
- What good things got me here, but won’t get me to the next place?
I tend to specify “big” or “most” as a lens to keep things focused, but these are just how I like to word things. If there’s a different phraseology that resonates more with you, use it.
These questions don’t need to take a long time. It could be an hour if you’d like. It also could be more, or could be less. You can let the responses be as short or verbose as you’d like.
Now, you don’t need to do an annual reflection like this to move forward, so don’t stress if you don’t partake in practice like this. But there’s a reason why this marks the 10th straight year I’ve done this and why after all these years I keep coming back to it.
If you feel a pull to do this, do it tonight if you can, or carve out some time over the next few days.
Otherwise, if you don’t, no pressure. Enjoy the celebrations, getting a head start on your goals — or maybe both.
Talk more soon,
—Josh
