I have always been goal-oriented and have used the last day of December to reframe and write down my goals for the next year. I recently learned of a better approach from podcaster and influencer Tim Ferriss.

Tim has replaced making New Year’s resolutions with a 60 minute “past year review” (PYR). He has found PYR to be more insightful and actionable than his previous approach of setting broad goals with resolutions.

Past Year Review Process¹

1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
3. For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
4. Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask: What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?
5. Based on the answers, take your positive people and activities and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one.
6. Step two is to take your negative leaders, put NOT-TO-DO LIST at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2021. These are the people and things you know make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar.

He stresses the importance of getting positive things on your calendar as soon as you can before it is filled up with less important activities and negative people. This will ensure that you have a richer, more productive, and enjoyable year.

After completing your PYR consider creating a Stop Doing List. I have rarely regretting intentionally deciding to stop doing things that I have judged to be low-value or that drain my energy. Learning to say no is an extremely valuable skill.

Identifying the people in your PYR that triggered positive experiences reminds me of the Jim Rohn quote, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” Identifying the positive people in your life and intentionally planning for time with them will likely have great benefits. (Likewise, reducing your time with the negative people in your life will make you happier and more productive.)

Jim Rohn was an entrepreneur, author, and one of the first motivational speakers teaching about personal development. He died in 2009, but his website remains a great resource. I recommend it to supplement your PYR or New Year’s Resolutions. A sampling of topics:

• A good life contains these six essentials
• 13 ways to improve your life
• Three money habits that separate the rich from the poor
• This is how to leave a legacy
• Don’t wait until tomorrow
• How to deal with negative influences in your life

We hope you have a very happy Holiday Season. Please email or call if you want to set up a Zoom videoconference meeting or talk by phone.

1 http://tim.blog/2018/12/28/past-year-review/

Ralph Broadwater, M.D., CFP®

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