Year-End Review
Every year, at the end of the year, for at least the past 6 years, I have done the “year-end review.” It’s something I learned from one of my greatest mentors, John Maxwell.
What you do is basically set aside at least four hours to flip through your calendar for the year and look at every single thing you did! Then you sort it all into categories. I can’t quite remember the three categories, but everything should fall into one of three lists something like this:
This was so worth it and I must do it again! :)
This was a waste of time and I need to scratch it. :(
This was a basic responsibility or something I need to continue to do.
The year-end review is one of my favorite things to do because I know from experience, that when I reflect on the year and am aware of where I spend my time and energy, it helps me to realign for the new year my intentions and focus as I move forward.
For this past year, 2024, my team at Choco le`a and I, accomplished A LOT and were proud because we felt like we “came back” post pandemic. We did a lot of the things we used to do back in 2019 like we opened our shop again five days a week, brought back drinks to the shop, offered hands-on classes, and returned to pop ups and big events. In ADDITION, we added on even more physical space, new tasting events in the space, more talks in the community, a new item made in-house in small batches from scratch, soft cream, and more!
Though financially, 2024 was a successful year, the reality is I felt like I was all over the place and can’t sustain this on my own and God is reminding me to focus on one thing at a time. (Which is also why I need to learn to let go even more in 2025 and am hiring a Manager!)
At this time of the year, I also do our year-end financials and audit where we spent our money and who we gave it to, which helps me see our business from a very high-level and nitty gritty detailed level. The tedious work of reviewing it all helps me make the best decisions to set us up for the kind of year we want to have next year.
Looking back at your year, what is God asking you to review?
Let’s find peace by piece in knowing that we can make changes for an even better year going forward, when we look back and learn.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” -Isaiah 43:18-19