With the new year, a favorite thing for many to do is to pause and look back at the previous year. The end of December is filled with lists of things that have happened, people who have left us, fashions that have come and gone, even new words and phrases that have come into common use.

One thing I like to do is to look back over my achievements from the previous year. Because I keep a daily journal, as well as a calendar with my to-do list for each week, it’s easy to skim through and make a month-by-month list of what I got done. I split my list into three tracks: one for home, one for my author services (coaching, editing, and formatting), and one for my own writing. And, as I mentioned earlier, I organize it by month. It ends up looking like this:

January

Home                                  Anessa Books                            Meredith Bond
Paint                                   formatted 4 books                     Plotted Book #4
edited 2 books                            Edited Book #3
2 coaching clients

              With a list like this there is no room for “I should have…” or “I didn’t…” The entire list is purely a list of achievements—positive things for you to be proud to have accomplished.

Not everything I did last year was positive. I spent the first four months of the year setting up Annessa Ink, my brief-lived publishing company. The next four months were crammed full of working to advertise the company, edit the work of the authors who put their trust in us, and publish a few books as well. It took me two months to realize we were not fulfilling the promise we made to our authors, and one month to close everything down. Despite all that I managed to do all those months for Annessa Ink, I can’t fully count the whole experience as an achievement; a learning experience—yes, an achievement—no. Happily, not all the books I edited and formatted were tied to the company, so I still did have enough other work to note down in my list.

The whole point of this achievement list is to bolster yourself up for the year to come. By looking back at all you did last year, you can’t help but be confident in all that you will be able to achieve in the year to come.