E46 How Year-End Reflections with God Set You Up for a Better New Year

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
If you want a life of meaning, of happiness and satisfaction, one important step is to make reflection a regular practice in your life. New Year’s resolutions have been shown to not be very effective, but setting aside time to reflect on where you came from and then where you want to go next, that carries great value. Reflection keeps you grounded. It keeps you focused. It keeps you connected to the plans and purposes of God.

That’s why I recommend doing a year-end reflection every December. In this episode, I’m going to provide you with some tips on how to recap from the past year and then use that reflection to prep for the upcoming year so you can set yourself up for success. So let’s dive in.

Welcome back to the podcast where we dive into who we are and we break free of who we’ve been. If you have never taken the time at the end of the year to do a reflection, I am going to tell you today why it matters. Reflection is when you think through and evaluate what has happened in your life so that you can better set yourself up for success in the future. and a side note as we get started, never should shame or condemnation be a part of that process. We never look at

things and condemn ourselves for what we didn’t get done or the areas where we failed. That’s not what this is about. ⁓ reflection at the end of the year is meant to simply be about self-awareness. It’s not judgment. It’s simply noticing how did things go, what we did well, what we could do better, and then using that to improve on later. So, and then of course celebrating your wins because it’s important to celebrate where you’ve grown. So

There’s so many scientific studies that talk about ⁓ the benefits to your well-being when you spend time in regular reflection. That’s a little bit of a mouthful. ⁓ thoughtful reflection, ⁓ people who do that on a regular basis tend to report a higher sense of well-being. So let’s dig a little bit into more of that. Studies show that…

Self-reflection contributes ⁓ to positive mental health, things like personal contentment or resilience. ⁓ Participants who engaged in regular reflection through like journaling, they showed significant improvements in their psychological wellbeing, which enhanced relationships and gave them more purpose in life. And then also, I thought this was interesting,

It improves self-efficacy, which is basically like self-confidence and learning to believe in yourself and to better embrace and own who you are and your identity. So there’s a lot of positive outcomes when you do this. And I know for myself, this is why I like to spend every morning just in some time of prayer and journaling is because I can talk to God, I can connect with him, I can…

Review the day before you don’t have to do it daily. That’s just what works for me Some people do it weekly, but doing it regularly is super important for your well-being so what I’m to Cover today is why it why it’s so important to do a year-end reflection and

by reflecting on what happened over the past year, you can take that data, if you will, and use that to set yourself up for a better year the next year. can learn from it, grow from it. You can, as I said, celebrate your wins and what you did really well. And then it’s a conversation with the Lord about what does he want, right? So,

It’s not about how did I do this year? Did I measure up? Where did I fail? No, no, no, no. That that’s not the right approach. What you want to do is simply have a conversation with God. Think through ⁓ just all the different areas of your life and just ask him for his insight and then kind of evaluate all the different things that happen throughout the year. So what I’m going to do is just share with you a little bit of what my process looks like just to give you ideas of what it can look like for you.

And I’m sure if you did some research, you could get some other ideas that might work well for you that might fit your personality better. But I recommend that you’re going to need a couple of hours. I try to spend three or four hours, which I can’t always do, but I like to go deep and just make sure I’m covering everything. And so you can figure out what works for you. But this is what it looks like for me. This works really well for me. One of the things I do is I review everything that God has said to me and

For me, looks like ⁓ every time God talks to me, I write it in my journal, but then I highlight it with a blue highlighter. That way, when I’m flipping through my journal, I can always easily pick out the things that he has said to me throughout the year. That works really well for me. I like to color code. So I use a blue highlighter. So that’s an idea if you want to try it. I love it because it just makes it really easy to pinpoint when God’s talking to me and what kinds of things he’s saying.

But I like to review all of those and just refresh my memory on what did he show me and what did he say to me and where was he encouraging me and what was the circumstance around that? Whether it was a dream or a specific sentence he gave me or possibly like ⁓ a vision or just a spiritual supernatural encounter. There’s lots of different ways you can encounter the Lord. But along with that, I like to ask, did I do everything that he wanted me to do?

Was I obedient when he gave me an assignment? Did I follow through on everything that he asked of me throughout the year? And hopefully my answer is yes every time. But there’s been some times it has not. I will be honest, one specific area that I just have struggled to be obedient is he has asked me to fast one day a week and I still have not made that a consistent priority.

I’ve definitely done it here or there, but I’ve not done it regularly. And so I had to repent of that and say, sorry, God, I did not obey this assignment that you had given me. And so that is one of my goals for next year. I want to be more obedient and follow him in all the things he’s asking me to do. ⁓ So that’s one of the things I like to cover is what did God say to me over the past year? But then sometimes at the beginning of the year, God will give people a word or a theme.

To carry throughout the year and and he shows up in different ways to reinforce that or sometimes it’s even just a specific Bible verse I’ve seen lots of different ways that God has done this for people He doesn’t always give me a specific word or scripture every year, but a lot of times he does I remember not this past year, but I think it was 2024 where he gave me the word Fortitude and I was like, I wasn’t even sure I knew what that was So I had to look up the definition. I was like, why did he give me this?

But the more I studied it, the more I was like, okay, he is wanting me to build ⁓ fortitude in my life. He kept ⁓ reminding me, you can do hard things. And so I had to repeat that to myself. I can do hard things. I can do hard things. And ⁓ I thought it was also interesting, like, why didn’t he give me the word like perseverance or endurance or resilience? Like those are words that we’re more familiar with. And…

What I realized is that he specifically used a word that I wasn’t super familiar with because he really wanted me to lean in and really own and embrace what that word was supposed to mean in my life. So that’s just an example. I know it looks different for everybody, but if you’ve never experienced that, it might be a question you can ask him is, hey, ⁓ for this next year, 2026, would you give me a word or a theme or a Bible verse that I can lean into? So

He may or may not, but I have found that to be really helpful in just sort of the direction of my life and better hearing him around that specific topic. Another thing that I like to do is reflect on my growth. Like, what did God teach me and where have I grown and what have I done well? And this is easier if you keep track of your wins. If you’re regularly writing down

all the things that you’ve accomplished and all the good things, the blessings that have happened in your life. ⁓ I try to, haven’t done so well at this lately, but I used to be really good at every night. I would write down at least one win for the day or one way that God showed up. And so that’s always really fun to review that and really see the hand of God moving in your life and all the wonderful blessings that he, he, the little things that we can so easily forget about.

Sometimes we can feel stuck and we can forget how far we’ve come. Sometimes it’s really hard to see our progress and we’re like, wait, did I even accomplish anything? Did I even grow at all? And so that’s one reason that it’s super important to reflect on this question is, what did I accomplish? What did I do well? ⁓ Where did I heal? What did I overcome? All the areas of growth, and that can look different in different ways.

So that’s a really great question to put before the Lord. Along with that, I like to review my specific goals and how far I got on each one of them. And sometimes my goals are not ⁓ fully met, but sometimes I make a lot of progress on them and then I can roll them over into the next year. Or I realize that I needed to refine them, like the goal that I originally set out with.

wasn’t specifically what I was after or it wasn’t really what God wanted for me. So I had to tweak it a little bit throughout the year. And that is normal.

But what did God want me to do? What were His goals for me for the year and did I meet that?

And then another really great part of this would be to reflect on and go through your list of prayers and notice like what prayers did God answer for you this past year? Like how did God show up for you throughout the year and what ⁓ all the things that you asked him for all the ways that you were hoping he would come through for you. Mark that and count them up. I mean I didn’t used to do this and man I really

grows your faith immensely when you start paying better attention to how often God actually answers your prayers. And ⁓ sometimes he does it the way you want and sometimes he doesn’t. it’s even he shows up even bigger and better. So and then sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. But we realized later that he really did no best in the way he answered was the right way. ⁓ We just don’t always see that till later down the road. But anyway.

So that is such a huge ⁓ blessing when you can look at that list of things that you asked for and you can see all the ways that he answered. It’s just incredible. Like you just fall in love with him so much more because you’re like, wow, he really does care about these things and he really is involved in my life. So that’s always really fun. Like.

he’s constantly proving his faithfulness to us, but sometimes we miss it. And so that’s one of the reasons that a year end reflection is so helpful is because

It helps you to remember all the ways that he was faithful and all the ways that he blessed you throughout the year So if you’re not writing down your blessings and if you’re not writing down your prayer requests I highly recommend that you start doing that because it’s just amazing how God shows up ⁓ and Keeping track of that really is inspiring. So Then similarly at the beginning of the year I like to take that reflection that I did from the past year and use that to sort of

point me in the right direction that I want to go for the upcoming year, the new year. And I always ask myself, what does God want from me? Like I always have my own goals and projects, but I ask like I want to.

ask him like, are these in alignment with your plans and purposes for my life? And so sometimes he’ll redirect me and sometimes he’s like, no, this is exactly what I want for you. And then sometimes he throws you a curve ball and he’s like, no, I want you to add this and this. And you’re like, wait a minute, what? So he will definitely stretch you if you ask him what he wants for the year. So I hope that helps to get you thinking about how you can add some times of reflection and regularly spend the time with the Lord reviewing just different areas of your life.

life.

And just the way like, these rhythms that I have, are these habits that I have, are they working for me or are they not? And then let God show you where you need to tweak it. There’s so much value in this process and you don’t have to do it exactly like me. That’s not what I am saying at all, but begin to do those kinds of things and let the Lord show you the whatever he wants to show you. And you can go get ideas from other people on the kinds of questions that they ask themselves and they ask God when they’re doing the year end reflection.

looking forward to.

Mapping out the upcoming new year. So I wanted to keep this episode short This is the last episode of 2025. It has been such a joy Doing this podcast and I hope that it has been a joy for you as well So I am gonna take a little bit of a break I think probably two weeks off from the podcast but I’m gonna try to put out a couple of things so that it’s not a totally empty space and for the next couple of weeks But I am gonna spend some time with family

and I also want to make sure that I get plenty of time with the Lord to finish my 2025 reflections and then begin planning for my new year and set myself up for a great 2026. So thanks for sticking with me. As you go about your week, let’s explore the depths of this final thought. Where can you set aside time for more personal reflection?

Whether that’s weekly or daily, it can be a short five or 10 minutes. It can be longer depending on your personality and your season of life. There’s different things that can factor into that. But where can you start doing that regularly? And then over the next few days, where can you carve out a good couple of hours where you can sit with God and talk through how everything went for 2025 and just recap this past year and all the different things? Maybe you need to get up

a little bit earlier, maybe you just need to drive over to a coffee shop, whatever works for you doesn’t really matter, but make sure that you carve out a little bit of time or maybe a lot of time. ⁓ It is possible. You can do it. Ask the Lord to help you rearrange your schedule so you can get some space and get some time alone, but ⁓ make sure you surround yourself with peace and quiet, cut back on distractions, and you can really hone in on what God wants to show you. And I just speak blessings over that process.

I just want to say how much I love you and appreciate you all and I just speak blessings over the end of your 2025 and your upcoming new year 2026. Bye everybody.