The Mental Performance Corner: Saying Goodbye to 2021!

It’s the last week of 2021! Having a process to reflect on the year as a whole will not only help you to close the chapter, but also help to prepare you for the new year to come. So let me start with a question: 

What is your end of year routine?

A) I’ve got this, already started! 

B) I do a little reflecting in my head but not much. 

C) I do nothing. Tell me what to do!

D) I’m a combo of all of the above and open to suggestions/refreshers!

If you chose ‘A,’ amazing! You’re ahead of the game. If you are like the majority of us, you probably fall somewhere between B, C, and D. And that’s totally fine. In this article, I am going to give you my top suggestions for how to maximize the most out of your end-of-year routine so that you can close 2021 with grace, gratitude, confidence, and excitement.

I have broken my end-of-year routine down into 4 parts. I would suggest you take a day to do each so that you can fully immerse yourself into each task. They are each very powerful in their own right, and it can be a little overwhelming if you try to do them all at once. 

How to Finish the Year Strong, Part 1:

The final self reflection. 

• Think abt or review your reflections from the year. What were your biggest successes/accomplishments/wins? Take notes on how you can repeat those. 

• What were your biggest failures/mistakes/losses? What did you learn from them, how have you grown, and how will you apply these things moving forward? 

Having a growth mindset is key. In AND out of sport. Repeating things you were successful at is important, absolutely. But learning to identify, (honestly and without judgement), where you went wrong and how to fix that moving forward is a MUST.

What are some things you learned about yourself this year?

How to Finish the Year Strong, Part 2:

Review your relationships. 

Sport (life) gets hard sometimes. Having a strong support system in place is imperative to maintaining confidence, motivation, and drive. 

Although you can do this anytime, the end of the year is a good time to evaluate the people in your life and what they’re bringing to the table, so to speak. 

Simply put — keep those around who are supportive, who challenge you to be the best version of yourself, who are there for you when times get hard, and who understand the sacrifice and commitment involved in whatever you’re doing. 

Let go of those who don’t do those things. 

A good barometer — how do you feel when you leave them? 

Positive, energized, happy, enriched? Keep. 

Drained, depressed, sad, down? Delete. 

Somewhere in between? Edit. (Have a chat and tell them how you feel! Chances are there are areas where both parties can improve).

The same goes for coaches! Not all coaches are created equal. In sports a lot of time is spent with coaches therefore, they have the potential to have a huge impact on a child’s life - which could be a really great thing, or a really BAD thing.  You want to make sure they’re in an environment that sets them up to thrive. If you would like more guidance on this, please reach out to me directly.

How to Finish the Year Strong, Part 3:

Gratitude. 

I am a HUGE fan of doing this on a daily basis. If you don’t already have a daily gratitude practice, the end of the year is a great time to begin this journey. 

Gratitude is a simple way to access appreciation in your life. Practicing it daily helps to build the muscles of optimism, positivity, and always seeing the glass as “half full” - helping you to find that silver lining in all situations, faster. Gratitude increases well being, happiness, energy, and empathy as well. 

So before you dive into setting goals or intentions for the new year, it’s important to take some time to reflect on all the things that happened over the past year that you are grateful for. And really feel it. 

Here are a few simple exercises you can start today:

Think: 

Sit quietly and close your eyes. Think back over this past year and remember the times when people did things for you that really made a difference in your life. Send them gratitude.

Take another moment to think about the experiences you’ve had this year with a clear focus and intention of appreciation and really feel the gratitude flow through you. 

Write:

Get your journal out and answer these questions:

• This year I am most grateful for:
• The five things I’m grateful for this year:
• The person I am most grateful for is:
• Three other people who impacted me this year are:
• The things I did for other people this year include:
• The things I feel most blessed to have in my life now are:

Speak:

Do this exercise with your family or any team you are a part of (sport, work, etc). 

• Sit in a circle and have one person at a time stand up. 
• Everyone else will tell them why they are grateful for them. Be specific to moments, lessons, words they said, things they did, and any impact they may have made on your life and how you are different now because of that impact. 
• (We actually did this with my college hockey team and it was extremely powerful) 

How to Finish the Year Strong, Part 4:

Plan for the year ahead.

Now that we have taken the time to truly squeeze every last drop of goodness out of 2021, it’s time to start thinking ahead and set our goals or intentions for 2022.

Pull out your list from Part One and review your success and failures. Jot down a quick plan on how to implement these items throughout the year - how you will repeat the things you want to repeat, and how you will implement what you’ve learned in your areas of growth.

Next, think about the things you want to accomplish this year. Once you have identified your intentions for the year, you must come up with a [SMART] plan of action to actually achieve these items. A goal without a plan is just a wish. If you don’t put any action behind it, nothing will happen.

I do a lot of goal setting work with my athletes for this very reason. Setting the goal isn’t the hard part. The hard part comes after that. And sadly, a lot of people don’t know how to do much past setting the actual goal and when it doesn’t happen for them, they get discouraged and never do it again (this is why resolutions don’t work - it’s easy to make a resolution, not so easy to follow through because there is usually no plan put in place to actually carry it out (Forbes)).

When writing down your goals/intentions for 2022, keep these things in mind:

• Identify what specifically you’d like to achieve.
• Develop a baseline for your starting point.
• Identify a realistic timeline to follow.
• Work backwards by creating smaller steps that will enable you to track you progress (and establish how you will track it).
• Celebrate small successes along the way.
• Consistently evaluate achievements and make adjustments when necessary.
• Have that support system we talked about in Part Two in place for when things get tough, bc they WILL get tough.
• Come up with a mantra or word as a theme for the year ahead, that will remind you of your intentions for the year and keep you motivated to keep going.

What do you think? Hopefully this is a good starting point for you and after doing so, will leave you feeling grateful about the year that has passed, and hopeful for the year that is to come. If you have any questions on any of the work I do with my athletes and/or families, please feel free to reach out [email protected]. Want guidance on something specific in the next blog? Let me know! 

What are some of your intentions for 2022??