Peak Performance Newsletter # 17 | Closing out 2021
Best of 2021, favorite exercises for annual reviews, and the importance of celebration for driven individuals
Hey All,
I'll be taking the week between Christmas and New year's off. That makes this the final newsletter of 2021. I’m treating it as a bit of a year in review. Below, you’ll find some of my favorite writings from the year as well as some of my favorites exercises for annual reflection.
Best of 2021
Newsletter
ICYMI, Here are my favorite editions of the newsletter from 2021:
Tweets
I’m largely anti-social media, but decided to test some of my negative assumptions this year on twitter. Results were mixed. I still believe in many of the downsides of these platforms and what they do to our individual and collective psychology. But I also made 4-5 extremely meaningful connections that have translated to meaningful relationships in real life. I’ll continue experimenting.
Regardless, I’ve enjoyed how twitter’s constraints require you to compress ideas into their most essential form. Below are some of my favorite ideas-via-tweet from this year:
Tools for Annual Reviews
I’m a big fan of using the end of the year as a period of reflection and intention-setting. Below are some of my favorites exercises:
Pareto Lookback
Pull open your calendar, journal—anything and everything that you can use to look back on your year at a high and granular level.
Start with January and make your way through the year. Take notes:
What were major learnings?
Highlights?
Lowlights?
Achievements?
Experiences?
Basically anything that you think or feel was relevant from the prior year. Take anything that stands out to you and put it into one of three buckets:
80/20 Positive: One of the 20% of activities that drove 80% of your happiness, fulfillment, meaning, and wellbeing for the year.
80/20 Negative: One of the 20% of activities that drove 80% of your stress, negativity, and misery for the year.
Indifference: Something that didn't move the needle for you meaningfully in either direction.
We'll use these buckets for a final summary later.
Learnings Summary
Based on your review of the year, summarize your learnings into 3-20 synthesized points. Three because I'd hope you learned at least three thing in an entire year, 20 because much more than that might be challenging to internalize going forward.
Projects Review
List all major projects in your life, including jobs, side projects, and relationships. Ask yourself:
Which of these do I want to remove going forward?
Which of these do I want to continue?
Are there any projects that aren't on this list that I wish were?
Life Audit
Rate your life on a scale of 1-10 for the following categories:
Physical Environment
Health + Fitness
Emotional Well-Being / Self-Care
Family + Friends (Community)
Love + Relationship
Social / Fun
Career / Business
Money + Finances
Personal / Spiritual Development
Map them out onto a radar chart.
Ask yourself:
Why are you giving it the score that you are?
What would it take to make it a 10? If not a 10, to improve it?
Which of these are most important to you right now? Which are less so?
Summary/Look Forward
Based on the Pareto analysis, project review, and life audit, populate 3 categories:
Continue. Things to continue doing. These are things that you are actively doing that drive meaning in your life.
Stop. Things to stop doing. Things that you are actively doing that are to the detriment to your life as a whole.
Start. Things you are not currently doing but would drive meaning in your life.
Next Year Planning
Being
Reflect & Write: What Principles/Values do you want to embody in the new year?
Top Priorities
Ask yourself: What are your top Priority Areas for the new year?
What are the top 1-5 external developments/outcomes that you'd like to see in your life?
Top 1-5 internal/personal developments would you like to see?
What habits/practices will you need to add to achieve these outcomes? Subtract?
How do these fall into a timeline for the year? I prefer to map things out quarterly.
Theme
Based on the above, what is an encompassing theme for the new year? Synthesizing your year into a theme will allow you to make decisions in alignment with your North Star even if you don’t remember every subcomponent.
Readiness/Decisions
What decisions do you need to make before 2022 starts?
What decision are up in the air for 2022? Are there deadlines tied to any of them that you would like them decided by?
What decisions don't need to be made at all?
Celebrations & Gratitude
If you're here, it's because you have a relentless drive to be better. It's a beautiful thing, but it comes with its cost. One thing I've identified in myself and the driven people around me: we chronically under-celebrate. **We're so quick to move on to the next challenge that we forget to celebrate overcoming the one that we just did.
The opportunity is to reframe: it's not celebrate or move onto the next challenge, it's celebrate and move onto the next challenge. Celebration doesn't have to slow us down, it can actually speed us up by filling our cups!
Here are some things I'm celebrating from 2021:
Taking the leap into full-time entrepreneurship
Grow a coaching business from $100 → $8,000 MRR
My 1st round of referrals from existing clients
The fact that I get to work with inspiring, driven, caring people every day
One year out of NYC and into nature; validation of they hypothesis that you can have a driven, successful career without living in an urban metropolis
4 years of partnership with an amazing woman
I am supremely grateful to all of you for being here and supporting me as friends, clients, and often both!
1 Question
What do you have to celebrate as 2021 comes to a close?
As the year comes to a close, take some time to slow down and celebrate all that you accomplished. If you have a partner, ask them what they're celebrating. Make it a source of connection. Commit to celebrating each others continued growth and success more often.
If you don't have a partner, celebrate with a friend! It's likely that you have driven friends who also under celebrate.
Best to you and yours this holiday season. I wish you good health and quality time with those you love.
Best,
Justin