Summary: Conducting an end of the year reflection can help us gain clarity and perspective on our lives and understand why we operate the way we do. In order to guide you through that process, in this post you’ll find 25 personal development questions that will help you digest what you’ve lived through this past year and give you valuable insight in return.  

As the end of the year approaches, we can either continue with ‘business as usual’, move onto our next chapter, and never look back, or we can take the time to pause and reflect on the lessons and events that have shaped us along the way.  

There’s usually two main reasons why people don’t conduct an end of the year reflection: 

1. They think it’s dumb (in other words, they don’t think they need one)

2. They wouldn’t even know where to start, so they simply don’t.

Allow me to debunk the first statement and offer guidance for the latter.

There’s great power in self-reflection, we simply don’t tap into it enough. 

We’re submerged in a culture that’s hyper focused on productivity and achievement, where we rush from one milestone to the next like automatons, without taking enough time to celebrate, evaluate, digest, or question our direction and understand why we operate the way we do. 

The way I see it, there’s no use in diving into new year’s resolutions and setting goals for the upcoming year if you don’t know why you are headed in that direction in the first place. 

If you haven’t analyzed and evaluated why those goals and resolutions might have failed before. 

If you haven’t stopped to question whether they actually have meaning to you. 

If you are planning future decisions with little self-knowledge, how can you be sure that those decisions you are making and the path you are carving are actually the most suitable for you? 

When you don’t really know ‘you’, it’s like the blind leading the blind.  

Therefore, without engaging in some self-reflection every now and then, we could end up in Bermuda when we were headed for New York, or worse even, we could arrive in New York according to plan, but realize with great disappointment that New York was never the place for us. 

That’s why conducting an end of the year reflection can bring us great value when it comes to gaining clarity and perspective on our lives. Okay, okay. But where do we even start with this end of the year reflection?

Keep reading, we’re getting there.

Start by committing. Don’t just read through this post and never actually get down to it. While you’re still here, set aside a day and a time that you’ll use to focus fully on answering these personal development questions that are meant to help you self-reflect and assess key aspects of the year that we are about to leave behind. 

I’d suggest using pen and paper to take notes and jot down your answers, but there’s no set rules, so feel free to make this exercise your own.

Answer all twenty five personal development questions or don’t (just pick the ones that you feel bring value to you and would like to explore instead).

Do this exercise by yourself or don’t (share it with a friend who would also benefit from engaging in this self-reflection exercise instead).

Your choice. 

The end goal is to gain clarity and insight about yourself – the behaviors, habits, needs, desires, dreams, failures, events, people, accomplishments, roadblocks and challenges that have shaped your year – so that you can reassess and realign wherever you need to. 

But most of all, put the valuable insight you’ll gain out of this exercise to use. Once you’re done with this excercise, you should be able to:

  • Celebrate where you are
  • Identify the gap between where you are and where you want to be
  • Define action points to help you close that gap.

Here’s 25 personal development questions that will guide you through this end of the year reflection exercise. Hopefully they’ll help you learn, grow, appreciate and understand things with greater depth so that you can gain valuable insight to support any actions and decisions moving forward.  

That said, let’s get to it.

1. What 3 words would you use to describe your year?

2. What was the most challenging part of the year for you and why?

3. What is something that you accomplished this year that you are proud of?

4. What is something that you left unfinished that you’d like to continue to pursue in the year ahead?

5. What did you learn about yourself this year? Anything new you discovered you loved?

6. What didn’t go as planned this year? Can you still find something positive that came out of it?

7. What did you learn about the world this year?

8. In which ways do you think you’ve grown this past year? (how are you different from a year ago?) And in which new ways do you want to grow this year? What character trait or skill would you like to develop more?

Related post: 7 signs you’ve grown more than you think.

9. What character trait did you rely on, or practice most, this year? (e.g.: patience, forgiveness, leadership, courage, commitment, hope, joy, thankfulness…)

10. Name a few habits that have shaped your year (either positively or negatively) and explain in which ways. Which ones do you want to keep and which ones do you want to quit? 

11. How did you take care of yourself this year? Emotionally, mentally, physically. What would you improve for the following year?

12. What’s an aspect of self-regulation you’ve gotten better at this year? (e.g.: going to bed earlier, not self-isolating and asking for help instead, putting your appointments on your calendar so you don’t forget, taking the space and time to cool down before reacting impulsively, communicating better instead of bottling emotions…)

13. What are some things you were still holding onto this year? (events, grudges, painful memories…)

14. What are some positive memories that stand out to you from this past year? 

15. What excited you and brought you joy this past year? 

16. What disappointed you this past year?

17. Simple pleasures you’ve enjoyed this year?

18. What energized you this year and what drained you?

19. What did you fail at?

20. What have you not done this past year that you wish you had? 

21. What did you celebrate this year? 

22. What did you cry over this year?

23. Who do you need to thank for their role in your life this year? How will you let them know?

24. If you could go back in time one year, what advice would you give that past version of yourself, knowing what you know now?

25. Making a guess of how the year ahead will go for you, write down some words of advice to take with you for the upcoming year (then read it at the end of next year and see if it was valuable advice). 

Self reflection brings clarity and alignment into our life. It helps us grow by allowing us to explore the connections between the world within us and the world around us, and points us in the right direction in order to better align both. 

In fact, one could argue there’s no personal growth without personal discovery first. Without the right personal growth questions to reflect on, we’ll continue to act and behave in ways that don’t serve us. 

It’s like driving towards your destination in a vehicle that’s full of blindspots. You’re probably going to crash often, and take many more wrong turns than you should. 

Growth is a process and change is never easy, but I hope that these personal development questions and end of the year reflection exercise help you digest what you’ve lived through and gain the necessary self-awareness to take well-informed and aligned action moving forward, such as: 

Let me know how it went and remember that sharing these questions with others so they can reflect as well is a generous gesture. 

Happy (but mostly ‘thoughtful’) reflecting!

Maitane