How I’m writing my 2019 personal retro (and changing how I think about goals)

There’s a time around New Year, after Christmas festivities/hangovers subside, when taking a moment to step back and reflect seems like the thing to do. Last year was the first time I considered recording my thoughts for future reference and decided to write a personal retrospective and plan. Something to draw a line under the year, lay the foundation for the next, and generally figure out what the hell I was aiming for.

I gave it a go, and a year on it seems like as good a time as any to share my experience and thoughts on the process as I sit down to do it all again.

Last year I asked the obvious questions

My research failed to turn up an existing format that felt right to me - most of them had too many questions and were too specific. I didn’t want it to become a set of New Year’s resolutions; another to-do list on my list of to-do lists. So in the end, after a couple of false starts, I jotted down some broad categories and wrote free-form answers:

What was 2018 about for me? What did I learn?

What were the best non-work things about 2018?

What are my expectations of 2019?

What do I worry most about?

What would my dream for 2019 be?

I chucked a couple of questions in there to force me out of my usual mode of thinking. There’s an explicitly non-worky one, as a catch-all for writing about lifestyle, relationships and such. And the last one was to make sure I didn’t get stuck thinking too small, caught up in whatever was currently going on around me. I wanted to zoom out of my situation and imagine how things could be different.

This year, I’ve made a bit more progress in how I think about my personal development and life goals, and think I’ve found a way of looking at it that suits me much better than “what type of job do I want” or “where do I see myself living.” Join me if you will on this brief(ish) tangent about figuring out what kind of person I want to be.

Replacing achievement goals with personality goals

Recently I was researching goal setting for a mentoring programme. I came across this article: “This 20-Minute Writing Exercise Will Provide Immediate Focus (and Clarity) On Your Life Goals”. It didn’t (not even a bit), but it did start me thinking about my personal values. Or, as I like to call them, my Personality Pillars™.

What do I think makes someone a good person? A good team member, or manager? A good friend? What do I want people to think of when they say to themselves, “I really admire how Kate [listens to people’s perspectives]” or “I’m so glad Kate’s here, [helping us stay focused].” It’s these questions I realised I care more about than “What can I tick off in the next 12 months?”

In short, how do I imagine the best possible future version of myself — someone I could look up to as a role model?

I wrote down a handful of wishful statements, such as:

People don’t hesitate to come to me for support

I have a strong sense of self, without the need for external validation

I’m always improving myself and my environment

This felt like a breakthrough to me: instead of trying to fix something that was unstable (achievements), I could base my plans around something more intrinsic and less likely to change soon (core values). After all, I don’t know what direction my life will take, or whether future Kate will want to live in London, or France, or the Bermuda Triangle. But as much as I know anything I know that I value empathy, pro-activeness, initiative, and so on, so I’m using this as my foundation.

Making personality goals tangible

The next step for these high level goals is figuring out how they can translate into actual action. Now I know who I‘d like to be, how can I work backwards and figure out how to become that person?

What I need to ask is: how did future me get to where they are (it helps me to think about them in the third person)? What kind of things do they spend time doing and thinking about? What are their habits and lifestyle? Most importantly, what choices can I make that will shape present-day me into that person and foster the right mindset?

To give some examples, future me is a good mentor figure. An obvious step is to read about and practice mentoring skills both in and out of the workplace. Future me has gained a variety of experiences, so I know I need to keep pushing outside of my comfort zone. Finally, future me is proud of their creative work more than their commercial success — how can I make sure I don’t lose sight of that?

The new retro format

So, where does this leave the retro? Of course, I still want to look back at the year, remind myself of what happened, and think about specific learnings and improvements. Standard retro fare. But I also want to go deeper on personal growth, thinking less about what I achieved and what mistakes I made, and more about how I’ve changed (or not) as a person. How much progress have I made towards becoming my best future self?

Here are my questions for this year:

How are things going in different areas of my life right now?

How am I different person than I was 12 months ago? What I have learned about myself?

Thinking about my pillars, what are my key areas of focus for 2020 - who do I want to be this time next year?

What steps will I take to make that happen (and check I’m on track)?

What are my hopes/fears/expectations for the next year?

Over to you

The right way to approach these topics is different for everyone, so you’ll have to figure out the best format for yourself. But by sharing my ideas I hope to at least get people thinking about it, and give you a starting point for doing your own exercises. If you have done a personal retro before or decide to try it out, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!