Winding Down 2022

It’s that time of the year again, when everyone is starting to feel the need to start winding down. Even if you’re still frantically trying to squeeze whatever you possibly can into what little time we have left, I guarantee you there’s that calling deep down inside to finish off, to bring 2022 to an end. Some of us are planning or have already planned our holidays or small get-aways and that’s probably the best thing you can be doing now.

My advice to everyone is to find the time to do a post-mortem of the year. And whilst post-mortem has a negative connotation, it doesn’t have to. My advice is that you set aside an hour or two for yourself. Draw a line across the centre of a piece of blank paper. Divide that line into 12 months – if you’re planning on doing this now, don’t stress that you won’t have too much to enter in the 12^th month. Above the line on each month record what you can remember happening in your life this year. All the big things in that month. They don’t have to be mind-blowing, just the things happening in your life that you love and enjoy. Below the line in each month, you’re going to record the lows in each month. Hopefully you won’t find a low in every month. Once you’ve completed recording everything that has happened through the year, draw a little dot at each recording. Then connect those dots with a line and you should end up with something similar to this :

I just did this diagram very quickly this morning to illustrate this article for you and give you an idea of what yours should look like. I know that if I have to spend a good hour on it, it will look rather different, in that there’s very likely to be much more recorded at each month.

What I like about this exercise, is that you get a rather profound image of your heartbeat across each month, through all the highs and the lows confirming for you that you are living! And that’s brilliant!

It also allows you to see on paper what you have done this year. What you have achieved. Where your struggles have been, and that you have overcome those struggles. It also allows you to see what you had planned that perhaps didn’t work out or just hasn’t worked out yet. But seeing it on paper, keeps it in your ambit of thought and so you’re reminded that there are things that you still want to do, and need to keep them on your radar and plan them into your life in 2023.

You can make this illustration as detailed as you like. If you want to get yourself a great big sheet of paper and pin against the wall and work on it that way, that’s great. That will give you the opportunity to include little drawings, or illustrations, or make more notes, or cut out images from a magazine to place as you would in a dream-board. You can record all your goals for 2022 and make notes to follow up on those goals, or continue working towards achieving them in 2023. You can make space at the bottom of the page, to make notes of everything that you want to do in 2023 and when and how.

Essentially you’re looking at the past year, seeing what you’ve done, what has happened to you and what you’ve enjoyed and then creating a stepping stone from which to launch yourself into 2023. Entering 2023 with a solid plan or at least the beginning of a great foundation for what you want to achieve, will boost you into this coming year in a way that you’ve never done before.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Also I’m always here to help you if you feel stuck and so you are more than welcome to send me a whatsapp on 0825706473 – you know where to find me.

Hugs all round

Glynis