It's hard to believe that 2022 is already coming to a close.

Another year, come and gone.

While somewhat arbitrary, the end of the calendar year does present us all with a valuable opportunity to reflect on the year that was, and plan for the year that will be.

It's easy to glaze over the former and focus on the latter, but failure to reflect will eventually manifest as a failure to grow.

“We do not learn from experience...we learn from reflecting on experience.” ― John Dewey

I started conducting a Personal Annual Review 10 years ago as I was nearing the end of my college years. It has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest areas of progress.

This piece shares the template for my Personal Annual Review. I hope that it will spark you to conduct your own before year-end, as I'm highly confident you will gain the same value that I have from the exercise.

You can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here.

Here are the 7 simple questions that may change your life (and my responses in italics)...

Question 1: What did I change my mind on this year?

I used to assume that the most successful people had the answers to everything—that they just knew more than the rest of us.

But as I got more experience and spent more time with these winners, I began to realize that this simply wasn’t the case.

The most successful people don't have the best answers—they ask the best questions. They realize that finding the truth is much more important than being right.

In fact, they legitimately enjoy being wrong. They embrace new information as “software updates" to their brain.

The first question of the Personal Annual Review brings this to the fore:

What "software updates" did I have this year?

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” ― Mark Twain

To paraphrase Mark Twain, what did I "know for sure" that I now know just ain't so?

If you can't think of anything, that's a bad thing.

Sahil Response: I have several things I changed my mind on this year, but the one I'll share here is the idea that you can "teach" your kids certain traits. Before my son was born, I assumed I'd be able to mold him to my liking in a variety of ways. It may be possible on the margins, but I now believe each kid comes out with a personality and perspective on the world—their "kit" if you will. My job as a father is to harness it in accordance with a strong set of values, but the idea of molding or teaching is no longer one that I think is possible.

Question 2: What created energy this year?

A few months ago, I wrote about a framework in this newsletter that I call the Energy Calendar.

In simple terms, the idea is that you reflect on your calendar from a day or week and color code the events according to whether they created energy (green), drained energy (red), or were neutral (yellow).

The Energy Calendar is a great way to course correct on a weekly/monthly basis if there are specific activities that are highly positive or negative for your energy.

Question two asks you to examine this on a macro annual scale:

Review your calendars from the year.

What activities, people, or projects consistently CREATED energy in my life?

Write them down.

Did I spend ample time on the energy creators or did they get neglected?

Goal: Spend more time on these in 2023!

Sahil Response: Looking at my calendars from the year, I realized that I consistently get energy from writing and creative work, meeting in person with smart, ambitious folks, and "productive leisure" activities like walking with my son. I'm going to be reprioritizing my calendar accordingly in 2023.

Question 3: What drained energy this year?

Question three asks you to continue your macro scale calendar examination, but with a focus on the negatives.

Review your calendars from the year.

What activities, people, or projects consistently DRAINED energy from my life?

Write them down.

Did I allow energy drainers to persist or did I cut them in real time?

Goal: Less time on these in 2023.

Sahil Response: Calls and zoom meetings were consistently energy draining for me. I've taken two actions on this front: (1) Calls will all be batched onto Thursdays and (2) I will try to limit calls/zooms and replace them with in person meetings whenever possible. Fortunately, NYC is a city that most people come through regularly, so most of the "get to know you" calls and zooms can be replaced by real, in person meetings in a normal timeframe.

Question 4: Who were the boat anchors in my life?

Boat anchors are people that hold you back from your potential. You're trying to push, full speed ahead, but they literally create a "drag" on your life.

Boat anchors are people who will:

• Belittle, put down, or diminish your accomplishments.
• Laugh at your ambition and tell you to be more realistic.
• Harm the quality of your environment through negativity and pessimism.
• Make you feel bad by consistently showing off all they have (to remind you that you don't have it).

Identify who they are.

Goal: Eliminate them in 2023.

Sahil Response: I often think of this one in the context of a hermit crab. The crab has a shell, but sometimes it needs to leave its shell and find a new one. The prior shell might have been the right one for that phase of its life, but when circumstances change, it might be appropriate to shed that old shell and move on to a new one. Without naming names, there are a few people in my life who represent an old shell for me. They helped me in another phase of life, but now provide much more harm than good, generally because they subtly try to put me down or belittle my big ambitions. I'm going to slowly separate and distance myself from these relationships and conversations in 2023. Remember: It doesn't have to be explicit to the other person, but you need to be intentional about it.

Question 5: What did I not do because of fear?

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca

A few months ago, I wrote about Tim Ferriss' fear-setting framework in the newsletter. The idea behind it is to get closer to your fears in order to fight back against them.

Fear distorts reality—question five forces you to confront and reflect on it.

Deconstruct the fears that held you back:

• What was the downside if you had taken action?
• What was the upside if you had taken action?

Goal: Get closer to your fears in 2023.

Sahil Response: Making the decision to move on from the podcast I had co-hosted was the right decision, but I made it six months too late due to fear. I was afraid that moving on would be viewed as a failure, when the reality was that moving on was progress towards my ideal day and life. The structure and flow was not a fit (for me or my co-host/friend) and I allowed the fear of the external perception of ending it to keep me involved for far too long. This burned a ton of time that could have been redeployed into more energy creating activities, or into time with my son (the most important thing!).

Question 6: What were my greatest hits and worst misses this year?

Your natural bias skews how you see your year:

• The optimist sees all hits.
• The pessimist sees all misses.

The objective with question six is to take a balanced view.

Write them all down.

Reflect on why the hits hit and the misses missed.

Sahil Response: Greatest hits: (1) raising my $10m venture fund in March, (2) signing my book deal in September, and (3) the arrival of our first child (!!!). Greatest misses: (1) delaying my departure from the podcast for too long, (2) lost a chunk of money on one stupid FOMO-induced crypto trade, and (3) neglected a few important friendships while in the heat of battle on several important professional endeavors. I have a much longer list, but I'll save it for when any of us meet in person in 2023!

Question 7: What did I learn this year?

“When you stop learning you start dying." — Albert Einstein

The most important question comes last.

It's easy to lose sight of growth in the trenches—zoom out to reclaim perspective.

Take your time on this one. Reflect on the other questions from the exercise.

Write down what you've learned.

Sahil Response: I detailed this in last week's piece. You can find it here!

Your Year In Review

My 7 question Personal Annual Review:

1. What did I change my mind on this year?
2. What created energy this year?
3. What drained energy this year?
4. Who were the boat anchors in my life?
5. What did I not do because of fear?
6. What were my greatest hits and misses?
7. What did I learn this year?

The Personal Annual Review is a life changing exercise. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

To get even more out of it, consider conducting the Annual Review in a small group format. Go through it individually, but then get together with a small group of your intellectual sparring partners and walk through it. Pressure test, question assumptions, and provide feedback. This is a great way to reflect on the year that was and prepare yourself for 2023 to be the best year of your life.

As a reminder, you can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template here. Please share the link with anyone who you think will benefit from it.