My Favourite Ritual For Starting The New Year: The Yearly Compass

How Year Compass helps me reflect on a great year and prepares me for the coming one

The turn of the new year is a time of reset, relaxation, and getting ready to put our best self forward for the next 365 days.

This often means thinking about our “New Year’s Resolutions” - the things we’re not happy with at the moment and our magically motivated future self will surely be able to accomplish (after some leftover pavlova of course).

Goals and aspirations for the new year are great, but we often miss out on properly reflecting on the year we just had.

There’s a lot that happens in a year, and not giving it the attention it deserves not only makes us miss out on remembering all the good that has happened, but it also doesn’t get a chance to plan what we want to do next year.

That’s where one of my favourite tools, Year Compass, comes in.

Year Compass is a booklet created by a group of friends back in 2012 that includes reflective exercises and questions for both the past year as well as the year to come.

Others online found it really meaningful, and after going viral now has something of a cult following.

Now it’s maintained by a group of volunteers. Here’s a little of what you can expect if you decide to try it out.

My Favourite Parts of The Year Compass:

The Past Year - Calendar Review

Calendar review is the first thing you do in the booklet, and is by far my most favourite part of the booklet.

You go through the past year in your calendar, photos, emails - anything that has a record of the last year, and list out events, outings, projects, or other significant things that happened.

The exercise is simple, but when you’ve gone through everything in the year, you get a surprisingly huge picture of what’s happened.

You’re reminded of things you’ve forgotten about, what you’ve accomplished or made you feel good, and gives those good memories a happy refresh.

This is especially great to do with a partner or friend.

The Past Year - Forgiveness

Forgiveness is a section I was surprised to enjoy, but I think it’s helpful - be honest about the things people have said or done that hurt, and list them out.

I tend to be less confrontational and more self-critical, so there was a bit of difficulty in shifting from “I could have done things better” to, “actually I wasn’t happy with how this person said this to me”.

The point isn’t necessarily just to vent though, more to acknowledge those things and forgive, or at the very least understand how they hurt you.

The Year Ahead - Dare to Dream Big

Another one of my other favourite exercises in the booklet: letting go of expectations, restrictions, and roadblocks and just brain-dumping what an amazing year for you could include. Big projects, trips, achievements - everything is up for consideration.

It doesn’t really matter if you even will do anything on the page. The point is to let your mind reach out for what an amazing year could look like, and to inform the rest of the questions and exercises for the next year.

The Year Ahead - Magical Triplets

Magical triplets is a series of questions that are answered with 3 responses each. Some of the questions include:

• “I will dare to discover these three things”,

• “I will have the power to say no to these three things”, and

• “I will make my surroundings cozy with these three things”.
  
  I really like that this section makes you think of three answers, so you’re not just defaulting to some automatic answer that comes to mind, but really get to think about what they look like for you.

Check it Out!

Year Compass is my favourite ritual for starting the year, and there’s much more good stuff inside the booklet.

Be sure to check it out at https://www.yearcompass.com/ and hopefully you’ll be able to take some quiet time to yourself or with a friend to fill it out.

Also check out @yearcompass and #yearcompass on Instagram.

I hope you find it as good as I have!