2014 Recap and Looking Ahead to 2015
I was in a small symphony promo on the daytime news yesterday, and in reviewing 2014, the news highlights were the "year of Taylor Swift" and "J-Law made 1.4 billion dollars." Other topics included Kim Kardashian's bottom, Justin Bieber's clash with the news, and fitness resolutions for 2015, including "exercising and drinking water." I'm not a huge fan of big sweeping resolutions, and I could care less about KK's derriere, but I do happen to like reflecting on the past year's successes and the future year's possibilities (Note the lack of the word resolution). Inspired by Katy Bowman's health recap, here's a combo career/health recap as well as suggestions for looking ahead to 2015.
Most of these questions can apply to your career, personal life, (musical, administrative, etc.) or to your health, so feel free to tailor them to your needs! I like to journal/write/think about plans, goals, or aspirations, and then follow up on them throughout the year to make sure I don't totally derail myself.
Reflecting on 2014
1. What was your biggest health success in 2014? What was your biggest career/personal life success?
I have a problem with filling up journals...some of these are from 15 years ago! Sometimes I write about new year goals, practicing, challenges, sometimes, what movie I saw and what food I ate. Post from January 1998, "I want to get in shape and that will be a challenge." Did I even know what that meant then? Not sure.
2. What was the smartest health decision in 2014? (ex. I made the decision to walk 3-5 miles almost every day, no matter what, and that was an excellent choice. )
3. What was the greatest lesson your learned about your own health? What was the greatest personal/career lesson learned?
4. What was your greatest health/career/personal life challenge? How did you address this?
5. What about your health/career/personal life are you most happy with right now?
6. Name three people who impacted your personal/health/professional life (for the better) this year.
7. What was a risk you took this year? What was gained or lost from taking said risk?
8. What did you intend to do (any area of life) in 2014 and fail to follow through on?
Here's a picture of my mostly blind dog, just because. She had eye surgery this summer and with care, we've been able to transition off of all of her glaucoma meds and most of her antibiotics. She still likes short walks and daily carrots.
Looking ahead to 2015
1. When you think ahead to December 2015, what would you like to be proud of having accomplished in 2015?
2. What health/personal/career advice would you give yourself for the coming year?
One of my goals for 2014 was to expand my understanding of embodied anatomy, and start to share my knowledge/learning process with people. I also wanted to try crossfit (check) and keep running a few 5ks (check). Anatomy is a HUGE subject, and I 've barely scraped the surface, but I've learned a lot and I'm excited to learn more.
3. What's one thing you can do to improve health/career/personal life this coming year?
4. What makes you happy and how can you incorporate more of that into your life?
In addition to walking daily, self-massage with squishy rubber balls has helped SO much with shoulder, back, neck, and hip pain, either from music-ing or just life in general. I live with less pain and more mobility than ever before.
5. What's something you'd like to learn more about in 2015?
6. What's something you've dreamed of, but never been able to make happen? (Be semi-pragmatic here, folks. "I'd like to marry celebrity X" is perhaps not the best dream to make happen, though I support that dream anyway.) What steps can you take now to make that dream a reality?
7. What about your health/career are you most committed to changing/improving in 2015, and how do you intend to do that?
8. What's one word to summarize your plans (career/health/etc) for 2015?
I totally understand if this sort of reflection isn't your thing, but I happen to find it really helpful, and I hope you do too. I realize that not everyone needs to read about my personal health journey/music health journey, but if you have some epiphanies, I'd love to hear about them!