Why Reflection Matters More Than Goal Setting
Most people rush into the new year with fresh goals, vision boards, and planners. But without reflection, those goals lack context.
Reflection is how you build consistency. It shows you what worked, what didn’t, and what needs to change. It’s your reset button—one that ensures your new goals are rooted in wisdom, not wishful thinking.
When you ask the right year in review questions, you don’t just plan—you pivot with intention.
The Recap Ritual: Three Simple Questions That Change Everything
This ritual is simple, powerful, and takes just two hours. I’ve done it every year for over a decade and I guide my clients through it too.
These year in review questions give you a clear snapshot of the past year, so you can lead with strategy instead of survival.
What Went Great This Year?
Start here. Celebrate everything you’re proud of – big or small.
Scroll your calendar. Look through your photos. Review your inbox. This helps jog your memory and highlight wins you might’ve forgotten.
Where did you grow? What made you proud? What moments lit you up?
What Didn’t Go Well?
Next, review what felt off. Be honest, not harsh. This isn’t about guilt – it’s about awareness.
Where did things fall apart? What got neglected? What was frustrating or draining?
Reflection isn’t about shame – it’s about creating insight so you can move forward smarter.
What Will I Do Differently Next Year?
Here’s where change happens.
What will you change or stop doing? What new boundaries, systems, or habits do you want to build?
Your answers here become the foundation of your new strategy – not just for doing more, but for doing better.
How to Reflect on Your Year Personally and Professionally
Don’t just look at your career. Reflect on your whole life.
Maybe your business soared but your wellbeing suffered. Or maybe your home life flourished while your goals stalled.
This dual-lens reflection helps you see how aligned (or misaligned) your energy really was. It’s not just about how much you did – it’s about how you felt doing it.
Connect Your Recap to Your Five-Year Vision
Reflection tells you where you are. Vision tells you where you’re going.
Once you’ve answered your year in review questions, revisit your five-year vision. Don’t have one? I walk you through how to create it in this episode.
When your yearly reflection aligns with your long-term vision, everything changes. You build momentum, track your progress, and know exactly when it’s time to pivot.
Set Your One-Word Intention for the New Year
Look back over your reflection. Is there a theme? A lesson? A feeling?
Distill all of it into a single word or phrase. Something that becomes your compass for the year ahead.
In past years, mine have been Believe, Boundaries and Visibility.
Choose a word that captures the energy you want to embody. Write it down. Let it guide every decision you make.
Turn Reflection Into Action: Vision to Action VIP Day
If you’re ready to turn your year in review questions into a strategic roadmap, I’d love to help.
In a private Vision to Action VIP Day, we’ll map out your five-year vision, create aligned annual goals, and build the custom systems you need to stay consistent.
You’ll leave with crystal-clear direction and a plan you actually want to follow.
Spots are limited (I only offer 8 per year), so if this resonates, apply now to reserve yours.
Let’s make your next year the most intentional one yet.
CLICK FOR TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Before you rush into another year of goals, planners and vision boards, stop and ask yourself three simple questions. What went great this year? What didn’t go great this year? And what will I do differently next year? In this episode, I’m gonna walk you through my recap ritual. It’s the same three question process I use with my clients and in my upcoming book, ‘The Five Overwhelm Culprits’, to help you close your year with clarity and start your next one with consistency.
If you’re new here. My name is Corrie LoGiudice, otherwise known as Corrie Lo. I am a professional keynote speaker, high performance coach and author of the book, The Five Overwhelm Culprits. And every December I carve out, I wanna say two hours for this reflection, but honestly, it’s probably way more than that,
it might be like a full day and with good reason why. It’s simple, but it’s powerful because consistency doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from learning faster [00:01:00] and this ritual helps you make every year a little wiser than the last.
So to do this, find two uninterrupted hours. block it off on your calendar. Just you, your favorite drink in a notebook or possibly a Google Doc. If you’re like me, I liked all digital. Truth is you don’t need to make this complicated at all.
What matters most is creating the space to think, which is why we wanna block off the time on the calendar and you wanna do this before your next year fills up with everybody else’s priorities. This is why we are doing this.
Once you’re settled in, then it is time to ask yourself the questions. ie the recap ritual.
This Recap Ritual Framework, it’s three deceptively simple questions that give you the insight that you need to move forward with consistency. And let me tell you, this is something I have done every single year for no joke over a decade at this point. These questions are so simple, but so [00:02:00] powerful. The first question is what went great this year?
Reflect on what are you most proud of. Where did you grow the most? Where did you succeed? Where did you surprise yourself? List it all out. Brain dump everything big and small. What were like the best highlights of the year? One thing that I love to do that I find really helpful with this, because sometimes it’s difficult to remember what you did 365 days ago.
I know I have a hard time remembering what I ate for lunch yesterday. So one thing that I do that’s super helpful is going through things where I have a digital footprint, like my calendar. I’ll go through my Google calendar and look and I’ll be like, “oh, I forgot I did that event.” Even looking through my email, “oh, I forgot that I got that message from that person that I aspire to be one day.”
You have those kind of reminders in your system, that’s a great way to jog your memory. Looking through photos on your photo thread, whether it be on social media in your iPhone. Look at all the photos that you took. These are great ways to jog your memory on [00:03:00] what were all the things that went great.
And while you’re collecting all this information, you can also reflect on the second question, what were things that didn’t go well? So where were some things that maybe fell off track? Maybe you overcommitted or maybe you avoided something that definitely needed attention. This is a time to be honest.
This isn’t about any kind of guilt, this is simply about bringing awareness because if we don’t reflect on what didn’t go well. We can’t create a plan to strategize how we’re gonna handle it differently moving into the new year so that we have a different result.
Then from there we’re reflecting on what am I gonna do differently next year? This is so much simpler when you know what was great and what was really awful. so the really awful stuff is going to, especially after you do the reflection, you see like, “oh, okay, well I did it like this, it didn’t work, maybe next time I could try it this way.” Right?
This is where your reflection turns into strategy. So what boundaries, what systems, what habits will you implement to start to build more [00:04:00] consistency? This ultimately is what’s gonna become your roadmap.
Now, the other thing that’s important to know too is this system you can reflect from two different lenses, right? So you could use these exact same questions personally as well as professionally. As an example, maybe your business grew, but your wellbeing didn’t. You burnt yourself out in the process or maybe your home life absolutely flourished but your professional goals took a backseat.
Looking at the duality of who you are as a person, both in your career as well as personally looking at all the areas of yourself, gives you a full picture of your year. It’s not just your productivity.
And once you’ve done your recap from there, you’re gonna connect it back to your five year vision exercise. This is something I went over in the ‘Find Your Why’ episode. It’s episode 2, and we’ll make sure that we link to it in the show notes So the recap ritual is great in that it tells you what’s working right now.
Your five year vision tells you [00:05:00] where you are going next or where you’re planning on going next. Together both of them create the consistency that you need to close the gap between where you are and where you wanna be. It helps keep you accountable and it helps keep you documenting the process so that you know where to pivot if necessary and how to continue with your momentum.
So from here, it’s simple. You’re gonna set your intention for the year ahead. You’re gonna look at all the reflection that you’ve done so far and there’s gonna be a very common theme that’s gonna come up. Usually, I know for me, I can encapsulate it in a single word. so you’re gonna end your reflection by writing one intention for the year.
It could be a one word, word of the year or it could be a phrase, anything that captures the energy that you wanna bring into it. So some great examples from my own past recaps include in 2019 my word was believe. And it made a lot of sense why the word was believed, because in 2018[00:06:00]
that year, I had so many what went bad things on the list. I had lost a partner to suicide, I just quit my job, I didn’t have any security. There were so many things that were bad and going into the new year, I knew what needed to change was. I had to believe that I could have something different and no joke true story,
I the very next day after setting that word, I had done all of this on New Year’s Eve, I usually do this process on New Year’s Eve, on New Year’s Day. I met my now husband through eHarmony. So by believing it, the Universe delivered right away. Some other words I’ve chosen in the past, one year I did the word boundaries, because I recognized through my recap ritual that my boundaries were preventing my growth.
So I focused an entire year on that. Over the past year, for me it’s been visibility. That was a big one that I knew was holding me back. So having that one word intention or word of the year can be very, very helpful to act as a north star going into your next year. That if you’re making a decision and it [00:07:00] doesn’t align with what that word that you set for yourself, it’s a very easy no.
So that word becomes your compass for consistent action. It ultimately is the theme of your next chapter in the next year.
So I’d love to know what is one thing that you wanna do differently in the new year? Drop it in the comments, you might inspire somebody else’s recap.
And if you’re ready to take your recap ritual deeper and turn those insights into a crystal clear actionable plan for next year, I’d love to guide you through it personally in a Vision to Action VIP strategy day. These are private one day intensives where we map out your five year vision, your annual goals, and your exact systems that you’re gonna need to stay consistent all year long.
Again, this is completely customized. This is all for you and what your vision is. You walk away with total clarity on your direction as well as the strategy and systems to make it happen. You can learn more and book your vision, action VIP day using the link in the show notes and do note too, it [00:08:00] is capped,
I only do eight of these a year. So if you’re interested, make sure that you apply today.
I truly hope that you found this valuable in helping you reset and reflect going into the new year. And remember, consistency isn’t about never falling off track. It’s about pausing long enough to learn from where you’ve been and how you can move forward with clarity and confidence.
So I will see you in the next episode in the new year. We are taking a quick break. Team Corrie Lo & Co we do a holiday break every year. About this time you’ll see new episodes from us in the new year and I cannot wait to see you there. So happy New Year everyone.
Thanks for checking out the next step with Cory Lowe. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend, subscribe and leave a review. Together we’ll transform overwhelm into action and we’ll keep taking the next step towards competent leadership. See you next time.