Journal Prompts to Reflect and Prepare for the New Year

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Wanting a fresh start in the new year is a universal experience. You see it in how more people sign up for the gym or share their dreams and resolutions. As the new year starts, it’s just as important to reflect on the past as it is to plan your resolutions and set goals. Here are a few journal prompts to get you started. 

Journal Prompts to Reflect 

Before you begin thinking about your goals for the year, take some time to think about the previous one. You can better move forward when you see how far you’ve come.

What Am I Most Proud of Accomplishing This Past Year?

While it’s important to look forward to growing in different areas of your life and setting fresh and exciting goals, it’s also important to reflect on the ways you did well in the past year. Take yourself back to all the times you accomplished your goals. 

Reflect on the steps you took to get there and how it made you feel. This reflection can be about any goal. Perhaps you got a raise at work or met 80% of your deadlines. Maybe you finally got a good gym routine or learned how to make pretzels from scratch. Celebrate each of these moments and celebrate yourself for your achievements. 

What Did I Learn From the Challenges I Faced?

List three or more challenges you faced and describe how you overcame them. How did you deal with these obstacles? How did they make you more resilient, and what did they teach you? When you face something head-on, you allow yourself to grow stronger and stretch your mind to find solutions. You’ll be surprised how much you grew and what you’re capable of when you remind yourself of what you did. 

This is also an opportunity to reevaluate your values, desires, and hopes. What did your determination to overcome obstacles show you about what you value most? What strengths or weaknesses did it reveal? 

What Was the Best Part About This Year?

Think of the moments that made life beautiful in the past year. What memories did you make that you will cherish? How did you make your life more enjoyable, like sitting down with a cup of herbal tea to read every evening or developing a skin care routine that works for you? These are things you will want to build on and continue in the new year.

Print out your favorite pictures from the year and tape them into the journal. Use the pictures to write passages and reflect on those moments. 

What Could Have Been Better? 

Reflect on disappointments or moments where things didn’t go as planned. You may have moved past the event physically, but you must also move past it mentally and emotionally. Grieving disappointments and reflecting on the less happy parts of your year helps you accept what happened and move on with a clear mind. 

Journal Prompts to Prepare for the New Year

While you reflect, think about your future self and how you will feel having accomplished these goals. This motivates you to think big and set intentions and systems to achieve your objectives. 

What’s Your Word of the Year?

This prompt will help you figure out your direction for the year. Decide on a word or phrase to guide your actions, decisions, and habits. It could be consistency or balance. Think about how you can set goals or systems that support your theme. 

What’s the Best Thing You Can Do to Support Your Well-Being?

Being your best self will be easier if you feel healthier and more emotionally or mentally balanced. Think about practices you will carry into the new year or fresh ones to try. This could look like prioritizing exercise to support physical health. Perhaps you could set aside an hour to meditate and reduce anxiety, increase your sense of well-being, and cultivate peace. 

What Do You Want to Achieve This Year?

Writing your goals might take several pages since you will have them for every part of your life. What are your top three to five priorities this year? What would you like to achieve professionally in work or school? Is there anything new you would like to start? What are your health and relational goals? 

Who Do You Want to Be This Year?

Who you want to be is equally important as what you want to achieve. Your behavior is a reflection of your identity and who you believe you are. If you want to build lasting habits and achieve your goals, it’s a good idea to focus on your inner self. 

Think of the habits you would like to develop or character traits you want to work on. This could be consistency in keeping an evening routine so you wake up fresh every morning and are ready to tackle the day. Perhaps you want to be more confident, so you focus on boosting your self-esteem or practicing confidence in situations you usually shy away from. 

Take your big goals and reflect on the small steps to get you started. Then, build on them to become who you want to be. 

How Can You Be More Intentional About Keeping up With Your Goals?

How can you set yourself up for success? What systems and routines can you establish to help you achieve your goals? For this prompt, it might help to make bulleted or numbered lists. How will you make it easier for yourself to achieve a certain objective? Reflect on your motivations, obstacles, and resources that will get you a step closer to where you want to be. Consider creative ways to maintain consistency, such as a habit tracker or weekly calendar to plan your goals. 

Reflect to Prepare for the New Year

As you start your year, take a few moments to celebrate and accept what was before you look to the future. Reflect on the small things and ponder the big ones, remembering that both the good and the bad helped you grow and prepare you for the future. They’re all a part of your journey to developing yourself and achieving your goals this new year.