Tag Archives: Hansei

Annual Review 2025

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Annual Review

Reflecting on the year gone by allows us to see what worked well so we can celebrate & build on our success and what didn’t work well so we can adjust & change direction.  

Hansei which is Japanese for self reflection is an integral part of Lean. I have been using this Lean concept in my personal life for a long time and this is the 13th year I have published my annual hansei (self reflection) online. 

I will be happy to see the end of 2025, it has been a difficult year.

Over the past few years my life was challenged in ways I had not planned for and so working towards my goals has been an uphill struggle. 

I wouldn’t have planned these challenges yet ironically I wouldn’t want to lose the valuable lessons learned or the personal growth required to push through these challenges.

That is life – we make plans and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. 

I have realised that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel – not necessarily the path we want!

Whatever 2025 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2026 everything that supports and nurtures you. 

I use the Wheel of Life (below) to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Fun/Experiences, Environment & Contribution. 

You can download your Annual Review Workbook here and use these categories or create some of your own.

Here is my Annual Review for 2025

1. Relationships:

The loss of my Dad in August 2023 is something I carry every minute of every day. There are no words to describe the enormous loss Dad is from my family’s lives. The sadness is constant, it feels like a part of me, not something I can remove myself from, etched in my DNA, a part of my soul. 

My Dad’s passing has heightened my awareness of the fact that time is not finite, we don’t have a never ending supply of time.

One day our time with those we love will run out.

One day our own time will run out. 

This is a constant reminder to spend time with those we love and spend our lives doing what we love.

This year brought unexpected and painful endings of some relationships.

Everyone who comes in and out of my life is a blessing yet my family and friends remain the most important people in my life and I am deeply grateful for them. 

 2. Sense of Self: 

A few years ago my personal strategy and personal development stopped working for me – they weren’t improving my life anymore.

I needed something more meaningful and so 2 years ago I added the category Sense of Self to my Wheel of Life. 

  • Sense of Self combines my relationship with myself, my soul, spirituality including personal development and personal strategy.
  • Sense of Self is all about who I am, who I want to be and how I feel about myself and the world around me.
  • Sense of Self is where I work on the concepts of self love, self worth, self esteem, self belief, self trust, self confidence, self respect and self awareness.

Over the past few years, my Sense of Self has been on very shaky ground, chipped away at with every new challenge. 

As a born optimist I find a silver lining in every difficult situation. 

The silver lining of being challenged in the external world is that I have tuned into my inner world and focused on, learned about, got support with and built a more solid foundation for my Sense of Self.

Developing a strong Sense of Self is like building armour for the battles of the external world from the inside out. 

I’ll be writing more about Sense of Self in 2026 as this is the foundation on which everything else is built. 

3. Health: 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, the quality of our lives is totally dependent on our health. I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health yet over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 

I went backwards in terms of most of my health goals over the past few years. 2025 was slightly improved yet that wouldn’t be difficult as the baseline was low.  

Health is a fickle thing – one day you have it and the next you don’t, one day you don’t have it and the next day you do. 

Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health ebbs and flows like the tides, it’s never one thing or another and improving health is never a straight line or a consistent forward motion. 

The important thing is to keep working on health, keep learning about it, keep focusing on it, keep prioritising it, don’t give it away for anyone or anything – it is our greatest wealth. 

4. Work:

Over the past 4 years I have spent the least amount of time in this category which is ironic as for the previous 25 years it was where I spent the most time! 

Since leaving the corporate world in October 2021 I have focused on streamlining & stabilising my entrepreneur world and creating precious time to focus on what I want for my future.  

No job or salary can compete with how precious this time has been.

  • This precious time has allowed me to slow down and see my life more clearly without the fogged up glasses caused by racing around at a million miles an hour.
  • This precious time has allowed me to see what elements of my work no longer interests me and is best removed from my life.
  • This precious time also gave me clarity on what work I want to do going forward and how I become the best version of myself to do this work. 

The one constant that has been with me for my entire life is writing. 

Writing has always been there, in the background, part of my daily life, waiting patiently for me to slow down and give it the attention it deserves.

As challenging as the past few years have been, I have consistently sent a weekly email to my community for over 5 years. This one weekly email kept me sane and the replies I received from my readers kept me writing on some very hard days. 

This one weekly email taught me,

  • much about writing and the discipline required for consistent writing.
  • how to be more confident in my writing and share more of myself.
  • that writing is a very powerful tool for connection during hard times. 

People may not speak about the challenges they face yet they will share it through their writing. Anything that allows people to open up about their challenges is an incredibly important human connection tool – such is the power of writing. 

You can sign up to my weekly email here. 

My three simple goals for my writing in 2024 stayed the same for 2025,

I. Write more 

I didn’t write as much as I would have liked in 2025 due to so many personal challenges, I’ll be prioritising this goal for 2026.

II. Learn more about writing 

Ask any accomplished writer how to learn more about writing and they will say – write more and read more

Writing more didn’t work out this past year and reading more also took a hit! 

What I did read taught me how others write, what flows well in writing, how to keep someone’s interest and how to use words to the best effect. 

Through sharing my own writing I have connected with authors, journalists, copywriters, marketers and loads more incredible people who use the power of their words for a living. This has been so enjoyable yet has also opened my eyes to how much I don’t know about writing and have to learn! 

The more I learn, the less I know!

In 2025 I joined a most beautiful group of Lean enthusiasts led by Sensei Michael Balle – being part of and learning from this group was my absolute professional highlight of 2025 ❤️

III. Improve my writing 

Over the past few years I have become unhappy and disillusioned with my writing. 

My writing hasn’t accurately reflected how my life has changed. I want my writing to be richer, deeper, more meaningful, more impactful and more transparent. 

In 2025 my writing definitely became more aligned with who I am yet I am aware it is a lifelong journey to richer, deeper, more meaningful, impactful and transparent writing.

5. Finance: 

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish it was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. 

Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning, understanding, ups and downs are constant companions. 

Being without a salary for 4+ years has decreased my overall financial value yet ironically how I manage my finances has dramatically improved. While I watched my financial value decrease further in 2025, I improved many unhealthy spending habits that were not serving me. 

I completed a large financial project which delivered a new revenue stream into my entrepreneur world. I also completed many smaller financial projects that streamlined my finances and moved me a few steps closer to my ultimate goal of financial freedom. 

My top 3 financial learnings over the past few years stood firm for 2025,

1.One of the most important elements of finance is mindset

There are 2 types of financial mindset that dictate our relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of our lives – abundance mindset and scarcity mindset. 

Someone with an abundance mindset can receive €100 and feel rich yet someone with a scarcity mindset can receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough. 

Someone with an abundance mindset thinks what they have is plenty and that money will flow freely to them even if they are struggling financially. 

Someone with a scarcity mindset thinks what they have is not enough and that money will not flow freely to them even if they have loads of money and have never struggled financially. 

The difference has nothing to do with numbers – it’s mindset. 

I truly believe that having a growth mindset is the first step to reaching financial goals –  Carol Dwecke’s brilliant book Mindset outlines the importance of a growth mindset and how a scarcity mindset can hold us back in all areas of our lives.

2. Abundance is not just about money

When I left the corporate world, my income dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance can be about money yet it’s also about love, time, health and freedom which are important elements of life that money cannot buy. 

When we focus on the abundance of love, time, health, freedom and not just on the abundance of money, we can see how wealthy we really are. 

This wealth costs nothing yet cannot be bought – this wealth exists in all of our lives in immense abundance, if we just take the time to see it.

3. Time is more valuable than money

Jim Rohn’s quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites ‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’. 

Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my  time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless. 

6. Fun/Experiences:

I didn’t have much of a social life in 2025 which suited me fine as I didn’t feel very sociable, I’m looking forward to more fun and joyful social experiences in 2026.

Travel is food for my soul yet I didn’t travel as much as I would have liked in 2025. I have big travel plans for 2026 – watch this space! 🌎  

7. Environment:

In 2022 I started decluttering our home using the techniques in Marie Kondo’s brilliant book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up – I was still decluttering in 2025 and so I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing in right! 

I moved house in 2025 which was a much quicker way of decluttering!  

I’m a minimalist so I don’t need much stuff yet I only realised how much stuff I actually had when I decluttered it. 

8. Contribution: 

I continue to support my favourite charities and charities that family & friends are involved with.

Over the past few years I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and the contributions I make which aren’t monetary. 

We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice – this has been an unexpected education for me!  

That’s my 2025 review – it was a tough year and I’m happy to say goodbye to it. 

If you want to carry out your own annual review, download your Annual Review Workbook below.

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back on 2025 and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to 2026. 

Thank you for reading 🙏  

Siobhain x x

This is the 13th year I have shared my annual review online, see previous annual reviews below

2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020  2021  2022  2023  2024

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Annual Review 2024

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The annual review allows us to see what worked well so we can celebrate & build on our success and what didn’t work well so we can adjust & change direction.  

Hansei which is Japanese for self reflection is an integral part of Lean. I have been using this Lean concept in my personal life for a long time and this is the 12th year I have published my annual review (annual hansei) online. 

I will be happy to see the end of 2024, it has been the hardest and most challenging year of my life.

I said exactly the same thing about 2023, my Dad passed away in August 2023 and it was a horrific year. 2024 was worse because my family and I have spent this entire year without my Dad – every family occasion, every happy event, every sad event, every birthday, every anniversary, every conversation – Dad was missing and dearly missed from it all.

Over the past few years my life was challenged in ways I had not planned for and certainly would not have asked for. Because of these challenges, I reached very few of the goals I set. 

I could have done without these challenges yet ironically I wouldn’t want to lose the lessons I learned or the work I have done to push through these challenges. 

It’s almost like I have been guided away from what I want towards what I don’t want. 

That is life – we make plans and sometimes they work out and sometimes they don’t. I have realised that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel.

Whatever 2024 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2025 everything that supports & nurtures you. 

I use the Wheel of Life (below) to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution. When reflecting on your year, you can use these categories or create some of your own.

Here is my Annual Review for 2024

1. Relationships:

The loss of my Dad is something I carry every minute of every day. There are no words to describe the enormous loss Dad is from my family’s lives.

2024 was spent adjusting to this loss, I’ve never felt such deep, overwhelming, all consuming sadness. It’s like every cell in my body is full of sadness and there is no room for any other emotion.  

I do feel other emotions like joy and happiness yet these are fleeting, they come and go. The sadness is constant, it feels like a part of me, not something I can remove myself from, etched in my DNA, a part of my soul. 

My Dad’s passing has heightened my awareness of the fact that time is not finite, we don’t have a never ending supply of time.

One day our time with those we love will run out.

One day our own time will run out. 

This is a constant reminder to spend time with those we love.

Whilst I spent much time with Mike and my family in 2024, it seems that all of my relationships came second to the overwhelming sadness I felt. I didn’t bring anywhere near the best version of myself to anything and anyone in 2024, such is the nature grief, it’s all consuming. 

As with every year previous Mike, my family and friends the most important people in my life and I am dearly grateful for them. 

 2. Sense of Self: 

Over the past few years, personal development and personal strategy stopped working for me and weren’t improving my life anymore.

I knew I needed something more meaningful and so last year I added the category Sense of Self to the categories of my life. 

Sense of Self,

  • combines my relationship with myself, my story, my soul & spirituality including personal development and personal strategy
  • is all about who I am, who I want to be and how I feel about myself and the world around me
  • is where I work on the concepts of self love, self worth, self esteem, self belief, self trust, self confidence, self respect, self awareness and self observation

Over the past few years, my Sense of Self has been on very shaky ground, chipped away at with every new challenge. 

I’m a born optimist and so I will find something positive in every difficult situation. 

The positive of being challenged in the external world is that I turned into my inner world and focused on, learned about, got support with and built a more solid foundation for my Sense of Self.

Developing a strong Sense of Self is like building armour for the battles of the external world from the inside out. I’ll be writing more about Sense of Self in 2025 – a most fascinating subject. 

3. Health: 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, the quality of every area of our lives is totally dependant on our health.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health yet over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 

I actually went backwards in terms of most of my health goals over the past few years. 2024 was slightly improved yet that wouldn’t be difficult as the baseline was at an all time low.  

Health is a fickle thing – one day you have it and the next you don’t, one day you don’t have it and the next day you do. Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health ebbs and flows like the tides, it’s never one thing or another and improving health is never a straight line or a consistent forward motion. 

The important thing is to keep working on health, keep learning about it, keep focusing on it, keep prioritising it, don’t give it away for anyone or anything – it is our greatest wealth. 

4. Work:

Over the past 3 years I have spent the least amount of time in this category which is ironic as for the previous 25 years it was where I spent the most time! 

I left the corporate world in October 2021 and wanted to set up own business but life had other plans for me!  I took time off from the working world and 3 years later I am still enjoying this time off! 

No job or salary can compete with how precious this time has been, this time has been life changing.

This time away from the working world,

  • meant I had a precious time with my Dad during the last stage of his life – that time was the greatest gift of my entire life
  • allowed me to slow down and see my life more clearly without the fogged up glasses caused by racing around at a million miles an hour
  • gave me the space to realise what work filled my life yet no longer interests or serves me
  • gave me much clarity on what I want to do in terms of my work going forward

One constant that stayed with me over the past few years while everything else took a break was writing. 

Writing has been a constant my entire life, it’s always been there, in the background, part of my daily life, waiting patiently for me to slow down and give it the time and attention it deserves.

As challenging as the past few years have been I have consistently sent a weekly email to my community for over 4 years. This one single, solitary weekly email kept me sane and the replies I received from my readers kept me writing on some very hard days. 

This one single, solitary weekly email taught me,

  • much about writing and the discipline required for consistent writing
  • how to share more of myself and be more confident in my writing
  • that everyone goes through hard times and writing is a very powerful tool for connection during these hard times 

People may not speak about the challenges they face, we may not see it on their faces or on social media yet people will share it with you through their writing, in their own words. Anything that gets people to open up about their challenges is an incredibly important human connection tool – such is the power of writing. 

You can sign up to my weekly email here. 

I had three simple goals for my writing in 2024,

  • Write more 

In 2024 I wrote more than I have ever written in any previous year. I am for the first time in my life, writing more than I am sharing, this is a huge milestone and has been a dream of mine for a very long time. Now I have to figure out how to share more of my writing – this is a wonderful place to finally find myself in! 

I created an email course, the first course I have created in over 3 years. I loved creating it yet I was so nervous sharing it online. Marketing online is a whole new world and one I’m just learning about, it’s not easy but it is fascinating! My free email course is about reclaiming your time from social media. You can sign up here https://www.siobhaindanaher.com/social-course/

  • Learn more about writing 

Ask any accomplished writer how to learn more about writing and they will give you two pieces of advice,

  1. Write more 
  2. Read more

Writing more than I have done in previous years taught me a huge amount about writing and my own writing style. Reading taught me how other’s write, what flows well in writing, how to keep someone’s interest and how to use words to the best effect. 

I also learned about writing from other writers online. Through sharing my own writing I have connected with authors, journalists, copywriters, marketers and loads more people who use the power of their words for a living. This has been so enjoyable yet has also opened my eyes to how much I don’t know about writing and have to learn! 

  • Improve my writing 

Over the past few years I became unhappy and disillusioned with my writing. My writing didn’t accurately reflect how my life has changed. I wanted my writing to be richer, deeper, more meaningful, and more impactful. I wanted to write from a place of more transparency & openness to see where it takes me.

In 2024 my writing definitely became more aligned with who I am yet it is a journey to richer, deeper, more meaningful, more impactful, more transparent and open writing.

This journey will last as long as I continue to write which I want to be as long as I live. 

5. Finance: 

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish it was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions. 

Being without a salary for 3+ years has decreased my overall financial value yet  ironically how I manage my finances has improved dramatically. While I watched my financial value decrease further in 2024, I improved many spending habits that were not serving me. 

In 2024 I completed two large financial projects and many smaller financial projects. All of these projects were aimed at streamlining my finances and moving me step by step closer towards financial freedom. 

My top 3 financial learnings over the past few years stood firm for 2024,

1.One of the most important elements of finance is mindset

There are 2 types of financial mindset, abundance and scarcity, both will dictate our relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of our lives and also how much we enjoy earning and spending money. 

Someone with an abundance mindset can receive €100 and feel rich yet someone with a scarcity mindset can receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough. 

Someone with an abundance mindset thinks that what they have enough and that money will flow freely to them even if they are struggling financially. Someone with a scarcity mindset thinks they don’t have enough and that money will not flow freely to them even if they have loads of money and have never struggled financially. 

The difference has nothing to do with numbers, it’s mindset. 

I truly believe that having a growth mindset is the first step to reaching financial goals. If you want to learn more about the power of mindset read Carol Dwecke’s brilliant book Mindset, it’s a game changer. 

2. Abundance is not just about money

When I left my day job over 3 years ago, my income dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance can be about money yet it’s also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy. 

When we focus on the abundance of love, time, health, freedom and not just on the abundance of money, we can see how truly wealthy we really are. This wealth costs nothing and is also not for sale – it exists in all of our lives in immense abundance, if we just take the time to look. 

3. Time is more valuable than money

Jim Rohn’s quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites ‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’. Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my  time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless. 

6. Recreation:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times – these people are food for my soul! 

I didn’t have much of a social life in 2024 which suited me fine as I didn’t feel very sociable. In saying that I did get out and about a bit more than I had in previous years.

 Maybe I’ll be a little more social in 2025 – who knows! 

I did travel more this year than recent previous years which is also food for my soul. I travelled with Mike, my family, my friends and for the first time in a very long time, on my own. Every trip reminded me of the love I have for the beautiful people iin my life and my love of travel.  

7. Environment:

In 2022 I started decluttering our home using the techniques in Marie Kondo’s brilliant book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up – I’m still decluttering and so I’m pretty sure I’m not doing in right! 

In saying that our home is much less cluttered, I have given away so much of what we no longer need which has created a great sense of space in our home. I’ve got a way to go to finish Marie Kondo’s advice yet I’m happy with progress so far even though it’s taken much longer than expected.  

I’m a minimalist in that I don’t need much stuff but I only realised how much stuff I actually had when I started to declutter it! 

8. Contribution: 

I continued to give to charities albeit not at the level I would have when I was working. Over the past few years I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and the contributions I make which aren’t monetary. \

We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice, this has been an unexpected education for me!  

That’s it, my 2024 review, it was a tough year and I’m happy to say goodbye to it.

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back on 2024 and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to 2025.

Thank you for reading and for your kind words in 2024, I really appreciate your support.

 Siobhain 

x x

If you want to carry out your own annual review, download your Annual Review Workbook below 😊

This is the 12th year I have shared my Annual Review online,

2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020  2021  2022 2023

 

 

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Annual Review 2023

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In the Lean world we carry out an Annual Hansei which is Japanese for annual self reflection.

Annual self reflection allows us to reflect on what has worked well in the past year so we can celebrate & build on the successes.

It also allows us to reflect on what didn’t work well in the past year so we can adjust & change direction.  

I will be happy to see the end of 2023.

2023 has by far been the hardest and most challenging year of my life.

My beloved and adored Dad was really ill in early 2023 and passed away on 6th August. Because of this immense loss, no challenging time before 2023 even came close to the heartache and sadness of 2023.​

I reached very few goals in 2023 which was similar to 2021 & 2022. This has made me realise that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel.

This path is not necessarily what we plan for!

Whatever 2023 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2024 everything that supports & nurtures you. 

I use the Wheel of Life below to categorise my life. The categories of my life are Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution.

When reflecting on your year, you can use these categories or create some of your own.

Here is my Annual Review for 2023.

1. Relationships:

My beloved Dad passed away on August 6th 2023. That day was the worst day of my life and every day since has been a real challenge. I miss Dad every minute of every day.

Dad was a great man, a great Dad, everything about him was just great. 

I got to spend a huge amount of time with my Dad in his last months and I was by his side during his illness. It’s hard to express just how grateful and blessed I am for this precious time, as well as the previous 49 years we had together. 

My awareness of how precious time is was heightened this year as I was reminded that our time is not finite, we don’t have a never ending supply of time.

One day our time with those we love runs out! One day our own time runs out!

Everything else in 2023 paled into insignificance for me. My priority was my Dad and now my priority is learning to live with his physical absence. 

The loss of a loved one changes everything.

I’m different, my world is different, my perspective on the world is different.

Everything is different.

 

2. Sense of Self: 

In 2023 I added ‘Sense of Self’ to the categories of my life.

In 2023 personal development which I had been doing for decades was no longer working for me. Personal strategy which I had been doing for over a decade was no longer working for me.

I knew I needed something more meaningful and impactful.

Sense of Self combines my story, spirituality, personal development, personal strategy and my relationship with myself.

This category is all about who I am, who I want to be, who I need to be to achieve my dreams and how I feel about myself and the world around me.

Here is where I also work on the concepts of self love, self worth, self esteem, self belief, self trust, self confidence, self assurance, self understanding, self respect, self awareness and self observation.

2023 was a very challenging year for me and I feel my Sense of Self was on shaky ground. This shaky ground probably started a few years ago but 2023 made it even more unstable. 

In saying that, the challenges of 2023 brought me immense personal growth & learnings. These learnings and personal growth have been very difficult and painful – the saying ‘no pain no gain’ comes to mind! 

 

3. Health: 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, the quality of every area of our lives is totally dependant on our health.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health and over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 

In 2022 & 2023 I watched loved ones deal with ill health which was really challenging and reinforced the importance of dedicating time & energy to learning about and improving our physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health. 

2023 was challenging for me in all areas of my health and I didn’t reach any of the goals I set for myself. I actually went backwards in terms of most of my health goals. 

In March, I injured my back skiing and that injury stayed with me all year albeit improving bit by bit throughout the year.

The loss of my Dad greatly impacted my health. I don’t fully comprehend how but I am working to understand this. 

Improving our physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health is a journey and just like any other journey, it’s important to keep learning & moving forward no matter the pace!!

 

4. Work:

I currently spend the least time in this category which is ironic as for 25 years it was where I spent the most time! 

Work has changed dramatically for me over the past few years. I left my day job in October 2021 and wanted to set up own business but life had other plans for me! 

I took time off and am still on time off! 

This time off work has been life changing.

No job, salary or money can compete with how precious this time has been. 

Having this time off work in 2023 meant I had a huge amount of time with my Dad during the last stage of his life – that time was the most precious gift of my entire life. 

One of my writing goals for 2023 was to improve my writing.

At the beginning of 2023 I had become unhappy and disillusioned with my writing and had written many blog posts & emails that will never see the light of day. They are my writing and my words but they did not align with who I am and with the type of writing I want to do.

My writing did not adequately reflect how my life has changed in the past few years and how I have evolved as a person.

  • I wanted my writing to be richer, deeper, more meaningful, and more impactful for me and for you, the reader
  • Also I wanted to write more from a place of transparency & openness to see where it takes me

My writing is definitely on it’s way to being richer, deeper, more meaningful, more transparent and more open but it is a journey, possibly one that will last as long as I continue to write. 

Another one of my writing goals for 2023 was to write more. 

I am for the first time in my life, writing more than I am sharing. This is a huge milestone for me and means because as I write more, I can write better!

This has been a dream of mine for a very long time.

In terms of work I  still want to set up my own business, I’m just not ready yet.  

At some stage I will need to think about how to balance my precious time off with the writing I want to do but for the moment I’m just going to continue to enjoy the balance I currently have.  

 

5. Finance: 

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish personal finance was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions. 

In 2023 I changed much of my financial landscape. I wanted to simplify & streamline my finances to make them work better for me. 

Renovating and selling an investment property in 2023 will allow me to make more diverse financial decisions in 2024.

I completed a number of smaller financial projects which were all aimed at streamlining my finances and moving step by step towards financial freedom. 

My top 3 financial learnings of 2022 stand firm for 2023 also,

  • One of the most important elements of finance is mindset – one person can receive €100 and feel rich and another could receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough. The difference has nothing to do with numbers, it’s money mindset. 

There are 2 types of money mindset – abundance and scarcity – both will dictate your relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of your life and also how much you enjoy earning and spending money. 

  1. Abundance is not just about money – when I left my day job in October 2021 my income  dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance is also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy. 

The abundance of love, time, health & freedom brings me more joy than any amount of money ever could! 

  1. Time is more valuable than money – this is not a learning but a teaching from Jim Rohn. Jim’s quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites. 

‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’.

Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless. 

 

6. Recreation:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times. No-one makes me laugh out loud more than those I love and those who love me – these people are food for my soul! 

I spent much time in 2023 with my Dad who always made me laugh. My Dad had a brilliant sense of humour which my brother’s and I each inherited some of.

My Dad and I and always laughed and joked when in each other’s company. Even through his illness and last days, he was smiling and joking and reminding us how important it is to laugh and keep things light! 

Mike and I also share the same sense of humour and so our home is always filled with much laughter of which I am immensely grateful for. 

I didn’t have much of a social life in 2023 which suited where my life was in 2023. Maybe I’ll be a little more social in 2024 – who knows! 

 

7. Environment:

For me, environment is about our planet on a global scale and our beautiful home on a personal level.

In 2022 I started decluttering our home using the techniques in Marie Kondo’s brilliant book ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’. I continued with this in 2023 however implementing these techniques took way longer than I had thought and so it will continue well into 2024. 

I’m a minimalist in that I don’t have or need much stuff but I only realised how much stuff I actually have when I started to declutter it! 

 

8. Contribution: 

I continue to give to charities, albeit not at the level I would have when I was working.

In 2023 I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and the contributions I make which aren’t monetary. We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice, this has been an unexpected education for me!  

That’s it, my 2023 in review.

I am happy to say goodbye to 2023, it was a year of immense pain, heartache and loss.

Thank you for reading my blog posts and your kind words during 2023, I really appreciate your support. 

I hope whatever 2023 brought you that you can build on & learn from it. May 2024 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness, peace & prosperity. 

Thanks for reading, 

Siobhain 

x x x

If you want to carry out your own Annual Review, below is a list of blog posts to support you. 

5 Reasons To Prioritise Your Annual Review​​

3 Steps To Your Annual Review​  

This is the 11th year I have shared my Annual Review here on my blog, my previous Annual Reviews can be found here,

2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020  2021  2022

 

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Annual Review 2022

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In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese for Self Reflection. Self Reflection allows us to reflect on what has worked so we can celebrate & build on the successes and also reflect on what didn’t work so we can adjust & change direction.  

I have been carrying out an Annual Review (Self Reflection) for many years and find it hard to believe this is the 10th year I have published this review online. (See end of this post for previous year’s reviews).

2022 was a strange year in that so many things I planned didn’t work out and so many things I didn’t plan did work out! 

I reached very few of my annual goals and 2022 was full of immense unplanned & challenging change (similar to 2020 & 2021). I have realised that no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us will always be the path we travel which is not necessarily the path we plan. 

Whatever 2022 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2023 everything that supports & nurtures you. 

Below is my Annual Review for the year that was 2022.

I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life, you can use this or your own version for reflecting on 2022. 

Relationships:  

Our greatest and most important relationship is with ourselves. I truly believe that how we feel about ourselves and how much we know & learn about ourselves dictates our level of success in every area of our lives.

This is why it is so important to prioritise understanding, trusting, accepting and loving ourselves. In 2022 I continued to learn more about & build my relationship with myself. I found 2022 to be a very challenging year and so my learnings were mostly about how I deal with adversity & challenges. 

As always, Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything and the source of much of my happiness. 

As I’m not working at the moment, I have the precious gift of lots of spare time. This gift given me so much time to spend with my loved ones. I see more of my boyfriend Mike as I’m home every evening when he gets home and I’m off on his days off. This has been blissful and a welcome change to when we were like passing ships pre Covid! 

I see my parents & family more than I have ever done which brings me so much joy. Before I left the workplace I would only see my parents & family at weekends and even at that it wasn’t every weekend – now I see them every week and for a few days most weeks. 

I cannot tell you how precious a gift this time is, no amount of money can buy it and no amount of time can replace it. 

In 2022 I made up for not travelling the previous 2 years and had 4 trips abroad. 

In January I went skiing in the Italian Alps with my friend Paula. In May Paula and I joined our friend Karin for a week in Santorini, Greece which was amazing – you can read about that here.

My Top 5 Reasons to Visit Santorini

In August, my friends Aine, Eileen and Therese and I went to VillaMoura, Portugal for a few days. I stayed longer and Paula joined me with her friends to enjoy another few days in the sun. This was such a relaxing trip with a dash of nightlife thrown in! 

Mike and I went to Edinburgh for a long weekend in November for the Scotland & All Blacks rugby game. Edinburgh is such a beautiful place and we had a super weekend.  

I am immensely grateful for my love Mike, my wonderful family and friends and I look forward to more adventures together in 2023.

Health is Wealth: 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth, our health is by far our greatest asset.

The quality of every area of our lives is totally dependant on our health.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health and over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 

In 2022 I watched loved ones deal with ill health which was really challenging and reinforces the importance of dedicating time & energy to learning about and improving our physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health. 

2022 was also challenging for me in all areas of my own health and I didn’t reach any of the goals I set for myself.

Improving our health is a journey and just like any other journey, it’s important to keep learning & moving forward no matter the pace!!

Here’s to a healthy 2023 for us all! 

Work:

I started 2022 with no day job but with big dreams of setting up my own business but decided against it after watching a Ted Talk on ‘The Power of Time Off’. 

I decided to do just that and take TIME OFF from working. 

You can read about my decision here, The Importance of Time Off

I did continue with some work in that I was still writing my weekly emails to my community, writing blog posts, sharing these blog posts on social media and co-hosting a Personal Strategy table with the Women in Lean network. 

As the year went on, I realised I needed to be true to myself and take real ‘TIME OFF’ from work and so I stopped writing blog posts and took a break from social media & the Women in Lean Personal Strategy table. 

The only work I now do is send my weekly email to my community to whom I am so grateful. 

It’s actually really difficult to completely take ‘TIME OFF’ from working as our human minds are wired to DO! It takes much focus and discipline to allow ourselves to just BE! 

This ‘TIME OFF’ work has been the most freeing time of my entire life and I am enjoying it so much I will continue it into 2023.

I still want to work for myself and set up my own business, just not yet! 😊

Finance: 

The more I learn about personal finance the more I wish personal finance was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health – finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions. 

In 2022 I continued to learn about personal finance and my relationship with money.

For the first time in 25 years I didn’t have a salary which taught me more than having a big salary ever could! Here are my top 3 financial learnings of 2022.

  1. One of the most important elements of finance is MINDSET – one person can receive €100 and feel rich and another could receive €1,000,000 and feel it’s not enough. The difference has nothing to do with numbers, it’s MONEY MINDSET. There are 2 types of MONEY MINDSET – abundance and scarcity – both will dictate your relationship with money and how freely it flows in and out of your life and also how much you enjoy earning and spending money. 

2. Abundance is not just about money – when I left my day job in October 2021 my income  dramatically reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. Abundance is not just about money – abundance is also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy. This abundance of love, time, health & freedom brings me more joy than any amount of money ever will! 

3. Time is more important than money – this is not a learning but a teaching from Jim Rohn. His quote about time and money is one of my all time favourites. 

‘Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time’.

Every day I am learning the true essence of this quote. Now that I no longer trade my time for money, I see the true value of time which is priceless – absolutely priceless. 

Pre Covid, I felt I was on a hamster wheel! I was so busy working (inside and outside of my day job), there was very little time in my week for anything else. Stepping off this hamster wheel has been without a doubt  the single best thing I have ever done for myself. 

Time seems to have slowed down. Time seems to be more enjoyable.

I’m no longer crazy busy, some days I’m not busy at all. 

Busyness has been replaced with bliss. Bliss in that I can now enjoy the time I have and not wonder where it has gone or if I’ll have enough time to get through my to do list!

In saying all of the above, I do know we all need money to live. 

I’m lucky to have worked in large companies for 25 years, I made some investments and have built a certain amount of wealth that now allows me to take this precious time away from work. When I left my day job I made a decision to spend some of this money and not worry about it. This might reduce my overall ‘financial value’ but what’s the point of earning money if we don’t spend it and enjoy every minute of that spending?

At some stage I will need to think seriously about how to balance this precious time off with my vision for financial freedom but for the moment I’m just going to enjoy it! 😊

Personal Development:

I have always loved and dedicated much time to personal development. 

Just like everything in my life, personal development changed immensely for me over the past 2 years. 

Every year, I used to read many physical books, listen to many audiobooks & podcasts and watch loads of Youtube videos & social media posts. I used to take online courses and learn as much as I could from mentors & coaches that I admired who were doing what I wanted to do.

This all changed in 2022.

I still read physical books as reading is one of my favourite things to do but I no longer consume so much information from others. 

My personal development is now more personal. My personal development is no longer about what I learn from others, it’s all about what I learn from myself.

My personal development now comes from awareness of me – who I am, who I am not, who I want to be, who I do not want to be, my thoughts, my actions, my reactions, my beliefs, my decisions, my likes and dislikes.

My personal development now comes from observation of my life at a cellular level – why I do what I do, why I think what I think, why I behave how I behave, what is driving me forward and what is holding me back.

This consistent awareness & observation of myself has been life changing.

We can spend way too much time wondering why our outside world isn’t suiting us yet spend very little time on why our inner world even cares! 

If you want to learn about how you can focus more on your inner world and less on the noisy, disruptive, all consuming outer world I highly recommend Anthony De Mello’s life changing book ‘Awareness’. 

If this is the only book you read in 2023 and you follow it’s teachings, it will transform your world! 😊

 Social Life/Fun:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times. No-one makes me laugh out loud more than those I love and those who love me – they are food for my soul! 

Globally our social lives took a hit in 2020 & 2021, thankfully all that changed in 2022. We started meeting people again and enjoying the social side of life. This was a slow process for me and I’m probably not as social as I was pre Covid. 

In saying that, in 2022 I enjoyed loads of meals out, days out, nights away, holidays and saw my loved ones way more than I ever have which brought me immense joy. 

Just like everything in life, you don’t have to be doing much to enjoy yourself and have fun. Mike and i share the same sense of humour and so our home is always filled with much laughter of which I am immensely grateful for. 

Environment:

For me, environment is about our planet on a global scale and our beautiful home on a personal level.

In terms of the planet, I reduced my plastic usage but the more I reduced, the more I realised I used. This is a work in progress. Global warming is a very real thing and small steps taken by many can really make a difference. 

This year I re-read Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ and started implementing it in our home. This has taken way longer than I had thought and will continue well into 2023. In saying that, I have enjoyed this process immensely. I’m a minimalist in that I don’t have or need much stuff but I only realised how much stuff I have when I started to declutter it! 

I have wanted to hire an interior designer to design our home for a long time. I know what I love in terms of interior design when I see it on Instagram & Pinterest but transferring that to our home is not a skill I possess.

I have started working with Wioleta Kelly who is a very skilled interior designer and I’m so excited to finally get this process started. 

Contribution: 

I have been supporting four charities for many years but this year I stopped all my direct debits to charities. This was a very difficult decision as these charities mean a lot to me and they do excellent life changing work. In saying that, I continued to give to charity, just not at the level I would have when I was working.

I became more aware of the contribution I make to the world in terms of my time & skills and which isn’t monetary. We all contribute to the world in so many ways that we don’t even notice, this has been an unexpected education!  

That’s it, my 2022 in review.

As with all Annual Reviews, looking back and reviewing my year brings pride in what I have achieved but also many lessons learned and things I would like to do differently that I will bring into 2023. 

Thank you for reading my blog posts and your kind words during 2022, I really appreciate your support. I hope whatever 2022 brought you that you can build on & learn from it to make 2023 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER.

May 2023 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness, peace & prosperity.

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x x

If you want to carry out your own Annual Review, below is a list of blog posts to support you. 

5 Reasons To Prioritise Your Annual Review​​

​4 Steps To Your Annual Review​ 

My previous Annual Reviews can be found here,

2013   2014   2015   2016   2017   2018   2019   2020  2021

 

 

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A Guide To Your Mid Year Review

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Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta

Hansei is Japanese for self reflection which is an integral part of Lean. I have been using this concept in my personal life for a long time and it’s yet again time for the Mid Year Hansei (reflection).

How has the first 6 months of the year been for you?

Below are the 4 Steps to your Mid Year Review that will help you answer that question. 

I use the Wheel of Life (below) to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Recreation, Environment & Contribution. When reflecting on your year so far, you can use these categories or create some of your own.

It’s important that you document your review somewhere so you can refer to it and hold yourself accountable to the actions that come out of your review. 

Step 1 is all about what went well over the past 6 months

i. What worked well for you in the past 6 months? 

What did you do that you enjoyed?

What worked out exactly how you wanted or better than you wanted? 

There are so many blessings in our lives each and every day, sometimes it’s just a matter of taking a closer look to find them.

You may see that life goes your way more than you may realise.

Using a daily gratitude journal can really help answering this question. 

If you don’t have a daily gratitude journal maybe it’s something you could start for the next 12 weeks. Even just one gratitude a day over 12 weeks is about 90 things to be grateful for over 12 weeks, wouldn’t that be something lovely to look back and reflect on?

ii. What did you do that supported this success?

How did you bring success into your life?

How did you contribute to the things that worked well for you?

Did you work hard at something and then reap the rewards?

Did you make sacrifices to improve your life?

When we reflect on how we are successful in areas of our life, we underestimate the part we played in that success.

YOU are successful and YOU are the creator of that success. YOU have brought all of your happiness, joy and success into your life. 

Knowing how you contribute to your own success means you can build on this to bring so much more success into your life.

iii.  What brought you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

When were you at your happiest over the past 6 months?

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you? 

Knowing what brings us happiness allows us to create more time to bring more happiness and joy into our lives.

Knowing who brings you happiness means you can create more time to spend with these very special people.

You want to be spending as much time as possible with those who bring out the best in you. The more you bring out the best in yourself, the more you can bring out the best in others.

iv. Are you happy with where you spent your time over the past 6 months?

Time goes by so fast and as we get older I think time seems to speed up that little bit more.

Time is so precious – we all have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks in a year but nobody knows how many years we have. This realisation always makes me so determined to live life to the fullest every single day and that means spending my time where I am happy spending it.

Where did your precious time go over the past 6 months?

Are you happy with where your time was spent over the past 6 months?

Are you fully enjoying every minute of your days, weeks, months?

Step 2 of your Mid Year Review is all about what didn’t work well for you in the past 6 months.

i. What didn’t go well over the past 6 months

What didn’t go your way in the past 6 months?

What happened that you didn’t enjoy?

What didn’t go to according to plan?

What is holding you back from living your best life?

Challenges, obstacles and plans not working out are a normal part of life.

No matter how much we plan, no matter how much we try to control our plans there are times when things just don’t go our way. Acknowledgment and acceptance of this fact is the first step to turning challenges & obstacles into opportunities.

In his new book ‘Green Lights’, Matthew Mc Connaughey talks about the fact that if we only had green lights in life, if there were no amber or red lights, then life would be very boring and we would never grow and evolve. Such truth and wisdom in that.

How can you acknowledge and accept what doesn’t work out for you and understand this is all part of your path?

ii. What obstacles got in your way?

Looking back at the past 6 months, were there obstacles that got in your way? 

Obstacles & challenges can turn into opportunities for success if we take the time to evaluate and learn from them.

The question to ask here is what can you do to eliminate these obstacles & challenges and if you can’t eliminate them how can you think about them differently? 

We all have compete control over our thoughts and just reframing things in our mind can turn obstacles & challenges into opportunities for success.

Dr Wayne Dyer’s book ‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life’ teaches us that all we have to do to change what is not going well in our lives is to think differently about it. A most profound book, I highly recommend it.

iii. What didn’t bring you joy and happiness in the past 6 months?

Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand. No human life is devoid of unhappiness just like no human life is devoid of happiness. Acceptance of this goes a long way to find out what exactly makes us unhappy.

When were you at your unhappiest over the past 6 months? 

Think about what you were doing, who were you with, where were you?

Knowing what makes us unhappy allows us to think deeper about the role certain people, situations, interactions and places play in our levels of happiness.

There is no such thing as the perfect life that is happy all the time, however there is a level of contentment and inner peace that can be reached by understanding what takes our happiness & joy away and working to avoid, eliminate or understand more about this.

iv. Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months

We all know time is precious.

Think about all of the key areas of your life from your Wheel of Life. 

Where would you have liked to have spent more time over the past 6 months?

Did you spend too much time in some areas and not enough in others? 

What areas would you have liked to have spent more time in?

How balanced is your life in terms of where you spend your time?

Step 3 of your Mid Year Review is all about what you learned in each of the key areas of your life over the past 6 months. 

The only way we grow and evolve as humans is by learning more and by turning these learnings into action that propels us forward. 

Going through each of the areas of your Wheel of Life (or using mine below) reflect on the questions below to understand what you learned over the past 6 months in all of the key areas of your life. 

Sense of Self –  What did you learn about yourself? How did you grow and evolve as a person? Have you dedicated time to personal development? What did you learn about your relationship with yourself, has your relationship with yourself improved?

Relationships – What did you learn about your relationship with others, has your relationship with others improved? Are there relationships you want but don’t have? Are there relationships you have but don’t want?

Health – What did you learn about your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health? Did your physical, mental, emotional & spiritual health improve?

Work – What did you learn about your work? Are you growing and developing in your work? Has your work moved forward and improved?

Finance – What did you learn about personal finance? Did your personal finance improve?

Recreation – What did you learn about socialising and recreation? How can you bring more fun into your life?

Environment – What did you learn about your environment? Did your environment improve? For me environment relates to my home and also our planet, both are of immense importance to me and bring me happiness and joy.

Contribution – What did you learn about contribution?  Did you make the world a better place by giving your time, money or skills? Giving doesn’t have to be grand gestures, giving in the smallest possible way can often be the most impactful.

Step 4 of your Mid Year Review is about creating actions that will support you to live your best life every day and move you closer and closer to your goals

i. What can you build on in terms of your success?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 1.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the successes of the past 6 months?

ii. What can you build on in terms of the challenges you experienced?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 2.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on the challenges from the past 6 months?

iii. What can you build on in terms of what you learned over the past 6 months?

Reflect on all your answers in Step 3.

What actions can you take over the next 6 months to ensure you build on and take advantage of the learnings from the past 6 months?

I wish you success, health and happiness as you look back at the past 6 months and even more success, health and happiness as you look forward to the next 6 months.

​Want to join my weekly newsletter on all things positive change? Download your free ebook The A-Z of Effective Change below and I’ll see you there.

Siobhain 

x x

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Annual Review 2021

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In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese for ‘Self-Reflection’. Hansei allows us to reflect on our goals evaluating what worked so we can celebrate & build on the successes and also evaluating what didn’t work so we can adjust and change direction.  I have been carrying out a personal Hansei in the form of an Annual Review for many years and find it hard to believe this is the 9th year I have published this review online. See annual reviews from past years at the end of this blog post.

2020 was a year like no other on a global scale and for me 2021 felt like the hangover from 2020! In 2021 I reached very few of the goals I set for myself and it was a year of immense unplanned and challenging change. 

Whatever 2021 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2022 everything that supports and nurtures you. 

I use my version of the Wheel of Life below, you could use this or your own version for your goal setting and reviewing. Below is my Annual Review for the year that was 2021, 

Relationships:  

As always, Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything. and the source of much of my happiness. Similarly to 2020, even though we were in lockdown and in varying degrees of restrictions, I spent loads of time with Mike and my family in 2021. Working from home, removing the long commute from my day and working reduced hours gave me precious time to spend with those I love. 

Everything has a silver lining, for me this was definitely the silver lining for 2020 & 2021, more quality time with loved ones and less rushing & racing around trying to get everything done. 

I will be bringing this slower, less stressful, more peaceful way of life with me into 2022. 

Similar to most people, I didn’t get abroad in 2021 but I did enjoy many day trips with family & friends and spent lots of time with family in my hometown of Kilfinane which was lovely. I also attended my friend’s Fiona & Trevor’s wedding (as photographer) which was amazing and I had a few days away after that.  

Here’s hoping the world becomes safer so we can travel freely in 2022 and enjoy holidays & weekends away with loved ones again! 

Health is Wealth: 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth.

In 2021 my loved ones remained safe and healthy which is the greatest gift of all. I hope you and your loved ones remained safe during 2021, we have more work to do to ensure this in 2022

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health and over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 2021 was challenging for me in all areas of my health and I didn’t reach any of the goals I set for myself. Healthy habits I had spent years building were broken and I have much work to do to embed them again. 

I suffered serious burnout early in 2021 which pretty much negatively impacted the rest of 2021 for me. This was due to working a day job and trying to build a business on the side – lesson learned! Following this, I stopped working on my writing & business for most of 2021 and took a break from social media for about 8 months. 

Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health is a journey and just like any other journey, it’s important to keep learning & keep moving forward no matter the pace!!

Here’s to a healthy 2022 in Mind, Body & Soul for us all! 

Finance: 

Every year I learn more and more about personal finance and every year I wish personal finance was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Just like health, finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions. 

In 2021 my entrepreneur income (outside my day job) was more than ever! 8% of my income came from entrepreneur work and 3 separate income streams which was very exciting!

In contrast to this, my earnings were the lowest they have been in a very long time. I was on reduced hours due to the pandemic and then I left my day job in October, without another job. For a million reasons this was the best decision for me, albeit a difficult one. 

I am a born optimist and so always find a silver lining. In leaving my day job, what I have lost in income I have gained in the precious resource of time. Where and with who I spend this valuable resource means more to me than anything money can buy. 

Ironically when I left my day job, my income reduced but I felt more abundant in so many other areas of my life. This taught me that abundance is not just about money – it is also about love, time, health, freedom and everything else that money cannot buy. 

Work/Business/Purpose:

In 2021 everything changed immensely for me in terms of my work, writing & business. 

I got very serious about setting up my own business early in 2021 and with the support of my moach (mentor & coach) Natalie Sisson and her 10K Club I realised many firsts in my business.

I launched and delivered my first 6 week online course of which I loved every minute of. I held my first free webinar and my first paid webinars. I was interviewed on Natalie Sisson’s podcast and Sharon Singh Sidhu’s podcast which were my very first podcasts. I ran my first 5 day email challenge which was not very successful but was an abundance of lessons learned. I co-started the Women in Lean (WIL) Personal Strategy Table with Debbie Barnard. WIL is an amazing group of Women in Lean founded by Karyn Ross and Dorsey Sherman where we share our knowledge, thoughts, wins & challenges of being part of the wonderful world of Lean. 

In Q1, all of the above on top of a day job resulted in me taking on way too much work and getting seriously burnt out. This was awful and I felt the effects of it in every area of my life for the rest of the year.

As mentioned above, I left my day job in October, without another job. This was not an easy decision but it was the right decision for me at the time. Following this, what I had in income was replaced with the precious resource of time.  

I had time to myself, time for those I love, time to think, plan, dream and be, time to close projects, time to write, time to schedule social media posts, time to do what brings me joy fulfilment and happiness. After I left work I had so much time for writing and loved every minute of it, writing makes me blissfully happy.

One constant in my work in 2021 was my weekly email to those on my mailing list. I am so grateful to everyone who has signed up for this weekly email as without knowing it they were a flashlight when the light at the end of the professional tunnel was very dim. 

If you want to sign up to my mailing list and receive my weekly email, download your free ebook linked in the image below and you’ll be signed up.

Another constant throughout 2021 was the support of my small but mighty team. Debbie, Madhuri and Mugdha are a dream to work with and supported me more than they can realise in 2021.

Over the past few years I have missed Travel Photography so much. In 2022 I am going to reenergise my passion for Travel Photography and am very much looking forward to this – watch this space. 

2021 brought so much change in my professional world – some planned but mostly unplanned. I have realised that life is a bit like this, no matter how much we plan, the path that is meant for us (not necessarily the path we plan) will always be the path we travel! 

Personal Development:

Reading physical books is one of my favourite things to do. I love audiobooks but there is nothing more relaxing than sitting with a physical book and immersing myself in it’s wisdom. 

Here’s a list of books I read & loved in 2021 and highly recommend. Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and The Power of Intention and Wishes Fulfilled by Dr Wayne Dyer (RIP), Start with Why by Simon Sinek, The Greatest Salesman by Og Mandino, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, The 5 Invitations by Frank Ostaseski, The Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav, Ranger 22 by Ray Goggins, The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, Ikigai by Hector Garcia & Francesc Miralles.

‘Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn’ (hard copy & audible) was my absolute favourite book of 2021. Lean is a business philosophy that I follow both professionally & personally. Every year I am more aware of the power & necessity of a Lean culture/strategy in business and the importance of growing people to grow business. Katie’s book ‘‘Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn’ absolutely nails the philosophy of people centric leadership & business. If you are in leadership & business of any kind, I highly recommend Katie’s book.  

I completed the Certificate in Business & Executive Coaching and loved every minute of it. The biggest learning I took from it is that life coaching, while designed to support others, is really a journey of self discovery. If you don’t take that journey yourself, you can’t support others to do so! 

In 2020/2021, I bought many online courses but didn’t have the time to dedicate to all of them. Now I’m not working, I’ll have plenty time to go through all these courses and am looking forward to it all.  

Social Life/Fun:

This category could be combined with relationships as it is with those I love that I have the most fun times. No-one makes me laugh out loud more than those I love and those who love me, they are food for my soul! 

Reflection on this category of my life is short and sweet which kind of sums up my social life!!!  

Environment:

This category for me is about the planet and also our beautiful home.

In terms of the planet, I reduced my plastic usage but the more I reduced, the more I realised I used. This is a work in progress. Global warming is a very real thing and small steps taken by many can really make a difference. 

Mike and I cleared out our spare room so I could have a home office. It’s all set up with my Visual Management boards and I absolutely love it. 

Even though I have read Marie Kondo’s ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’ I seem to be continuously clearing clutter! I haven’t carried out Marie’s technique to banish clutter for once and or all – maybe 2022 is the year for that! 

Contribution: 

I have been supporting 4 main charities for many years and year on year I try to give more to each charity. Charities have been severely impacted by the global pandemic and so need our support more than ever. 

That’s it, my 2021 in review.

As with all Annual Reviews, looking back and reviewing my year brings pride in what I have achieved but also many lessons learned and things I would like to do differently that I will bring into 2022. 

Thank you for reading my blog posts and your kind words during 2021, I really appreciate your support. I hope whatever 2021 brought you that you can build on & learn from it to make 2022 your best year ever.

May 2022 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness, peace & prosperity.

Thanks for reading, stay safe,

Siobhain

x x x

Want to carry out your own Annual Review? Below is a list of blog posts designed to support you with your annual review, you can download your ‘Annual Review Workbook’ below also.

5 Reasons To Prioritise Your Annual Review​​

​5 Steps To Your Annual Review​

​Get SERIOUS about your Intentions and Goals for 2022​

My previous annual reviews can be found below,

Annual Review 2013   Annual Review 2014   Annual Review 2015   Annual Review 2016  

Annual Review 2017   Annual Review 2018    Annual Review 2019

Annual Review 2020

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Annual Review 2020

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Image Credit: Immo Wegmann (Unsplash)

In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese for ‘Self-Reflection’. Hansei allows us to review & reflect on our goals to evaluate what worked so we can celebrate & build on the successes and also evaluate what didn’t work so we can adjust and change direction.

I have been carrying out a personal annual review (Hansei/Self Reflection) for many years and find it hard to believe this is the 8th year I have published this review online. See annual reviews from past years at the end of this blog post.

2020 has been a year like no other on a global scale. Who could have thought a pandemic would sweep through our beautiful planet and bring life as we know it to a halt and do so much damage in terms of loss of life and other devastating losses. 

Just like all change, planned or unplanned, welcome or unwelcome, a new reality emerges and we adjust to it. The resilience, adaptability and drive of our human spirt supported us to get through 2020 and gives us hope for 2021 and beyond. 

In Leo Varadkar’s address to our nation on St Patrick’s Day, he said that ‘not all super heroes wear capes’, referring to the healthcare workers and other front line workers that kept our country functioning during the pandemic. From looking after our sick and vulnerable, to putting food on our table to delivering our post, these frontline workers are the real heroes of 2020. All credit and gratitude is owed to these people, I am deeply grateful to each and every one of them for keeping us all safe so we could live through this pandemic and rejoice in the fact that we get to ring in a New Year. This is a luxury denied to many this year. Thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones this year to Covid 19 or any other reasons. The finality of death is almost incomprehensible. 

My plans for 2020 changed dramatically in March as I’m sure yours did. Plans changed, work changed, socialising changed, when we could see our family & friends changed, our sense of freedom changed, communication changed – everything we regarded as normal changed. And everything continued to change throughout 2020, it was the year of immense change – and yet, we all got through it. 

Whatever 2020 brought you, I hope you find time to reflect on your year, leave behind what doesn’t serve you and bring into 2021 everything that will make 2021 your best year ever.

Here’s my annual review of the year like no other, 2020, 

As always, Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything. and the source of most of my happiness. Even though we were in lockdown and in varying degrees of restrictions, I spent loads of time with Mike and my family this year. I have been working from home since March and so removing the long commute from my day and working reduced hours gave me precious time to spend with those I love. Every minute with our loved ones is precious and, as we were in and out of lockdown, this time has become even more precious. This time together was spent at a slower pace as we weren’t trying to pack so much into 2 short days at the weekend. They say everything has a silver lining, for me this was definitely the silver lining for 2020, more quality time with loved ones and less rushing and racing around trying to get everything done. I will be bringing this slower, less stressful, more peaceful way of life with me into 2021. 

I didn’t see my friends as much I would have done in previous years and as much as I would have liked. I have missed them and look forward to the day that a night out or a weekend away becomes the normal thing to do again.

I hope you and your loved ones remained safe during 2020, we have more work to do to ensure this in 2021. Here’s hoping we get Covid 19 under control and return to the freedom to see our family & friends that we had pre 2020. 

There is no truer saying than health is wealth.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health and over the past few years, for many reasons, this awareness has been brought to a deeper level. 

Without all elements of our health nothing else matters. Spending time to learn what health means to us and how we can improve & optimise our health is time well spent. As we are all unique, what works for one person may not work for another and so it’s important to understand what works for you, what optimises your health, what makes you happy and what brings you joy.  

With more time at home this year and more time on my own I learned a huge amount about myself and what supports my physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health. The more I learn about myself, the more I accept myself which goes a long way to keeping my mental health strong and stable. This is not work that a personal trainer or anyone else can do for us, it is inner work – work that that can only be done by ourselves, at our own pace and in our own time.

I had more time for exercising this year and have loved walking and running around the beautiful countryside where I  live in Knockaderry. This gives me time to listen to my favourite podcasts and audio books which is also a great way to strengthen & stabilise my mental health. Towards the end of 2020, I started learning about nutrition and macros and have developed a new found respect for food and my relationship with it. This is thanks to Munro Fitness and Jason Munro for his fact based learning, no nonsense, just do it attitude and support. Gratitude to my friend Vicky Baker who introduced me to Jason and Munro Fitness. 

I regard learning a key element in keeping my mental health strong and stable. I love learning and the more I learn the less I realise I know! This year I learned loads and gained more clarity about who I am and what I want from life. I learn from many different sources and in many different ways including, 

  • Books – my goal this year was to read 2 books a month, 24 in total. I didn’t reach this goal but did read 20 amazing books and learned so much from each one. I’m currently finalising my blog post on my ‘Top 20 books of 2020’ and will share it with you as soon as it is finished. 
  • Podcasts – I started listening to more podcasts this year. My top 6 podcasts are Untapped by Natalie Sisson, The Mindset Mentor by Rob Dial, Online Marketing Made Easy by Amy Porterfield, The Jocko Podcast by Jocko Willink, The Brendon Show by Brendon Burchard & The Marie Forleo Podcast by Marie Forleo.  
  • Mentors & inspirational people online – there are so many people that I follow online that that I learn from in all areas of life. Including all of the above whose podcasts I listen to, I learn from everyone I’m connected with online (& offline). Everyone is inspiring in their own way and everyone has something to teach us. 
  • ‘Launch Your Damn Course Accelerator’ by Natalie Sisson was the first online course I have ever taken. This was a huge learning curve for me and pushed me far outside my comfort zone. In saying that, I loved this course so much I went through it twice!! 

Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual health is a journey and just like any other journey, it’s important to keep learning and keep moving forward no matter the pace!!

Here’s to a healthier year for us all! 

Every year I learn more and more about personal finance and every year I wish personal finance was a subject I learned in school, it certainly would have saved me much trial and error. Learning about personal finance at a young age would set up young people for a healthy and prosperous relationship with money. 

Just like health, finance is a journey of which learning & understanding are constant companions. 

Even though my earnings were down this year, the time I gained was far more valuable than any income. Where and with who I spent this valuable time meant more to me than anything money can buy. How ironic is it that money of which we spend so much of our time earning cannot buy that time back or any of the most important things in life – for me being relationships and health!

I have listened to the audible version of Tony Robbins excellent book ‘Money Master the Game – 7 Simple Steps To Financial Freedom’ many times and with each listen I continue to learn more about financial freedom. Tony is a master when it comes to finance and in this book he not only shares his own wisdom but also leverages the wisdom of many of the world’s finest financial advisors to share their advice, insights and experience. Tony’s book is written in an easy to understand format for all levels of financial understanding which is why I like it so much. I listened to this book again this year and learned more about and moved a few steps closer to financial freedom which is my long term goal. 

If you want to learn more about and improve your personal finance I highly recommend this book. It’s not a quick read but it is totally worth the time.

In 2020 everything changed dramatically for me in terms of my work, writing, business & brand. 

Lean is a business philosophy that I follow at work & in my personal life and that I write about on my blog ‘The Art of Positive Change’. Similar to previous years, this year I again became even more aware of the power and necessity of a Lean culture/strategy in business. 

In terms of my day job, I moved to a 4 day week in January to achieve a better work/life balance and give more to my writing. After March, due to the pandemic, I moved to a 3 day week which I am currently on. This meant I had more time for writing etc which is where I spent most of my free time. This focused time resulted in the following, 

  • I wrote and launched my very first e-book. This is a huge milestone for me as I have wanted to write an e-book for many years. You can download my e-book for free here ‘A-Z of Effective Change’.

 

  • I published more blog posts this year than I have ever published since I started blogging in 2012 which resulted in my blog views being higher this year than the previous 3 years combined.

 

  • I created and launched my first online course which was a Masterclass on ‘How to Create Your Personal Vision’. Gratitude to all the fabulous girls who attended, you all made it so enjoyable. Learning how to create, launch and promote an online course was a huge learning curve for me and took me way outside of my comfort zone. Thanks to Natalie Sisson and her amazing course  ‘Launch Your Damn Course Accelerator’ for making it possible. If you are interested in launching your own online course in 2021, sign up for Natalie’s course, I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

 

  • I joined Natalie Sisson’s 10K Club which is a business mastermind club for female entrepreneurs designed to get you to hit 10K months! I have only been in the club 2 months but am loving every minute of it. I have been following Natalie online for about 10 years and am thrilled to finally get to work closely with her. The group of entrepreneurs in the club are all so talented, passionate, inspirational and supportive, it’s a wonderful club to be a part of. If you are a female entrepreneur and want to bring your business/brand to the next level check out Natalie’s 10K Club. 

Before the pandemic hit, Mike and I spent a fabulous weekend in the beautiful Inchydoney Island Lodge & Spa which was lovely and so relaxing. In January, I went on my annual ski trip with my friends Karin, Shelly and Ailbhe. The fresh air and the excellent company on and off the slopes was food for the soul!

Staycationing was the thing to do in 2020 and I spent many weeks staycationing with my parents in my hometown of Kilfinane, I enjoyed this time at home with my family immensely.  

I look forward to the day we can travel the world again, in the meantime we can enjoy the beauty & company on our doorsteps and no matter how far we travel from our homes ensure we all stay safe and keep those we love and the world at large safe.

Travel and Photography are a big part of my life and 2020 was to be a year of an epic travel trip! I was due to join my friend Katie Anderson and other Lean enthusiasts on Katie’s ‘Lean Study Trip’ in Japan for a week in May. I was then to spend 3 weeks travelling around Japan. My summer was to be filled with editing images, creating a Travel Photography book on Japan and adding Japan Fine Art Prints to my portfolio. As all of our travel plans did, my travel plans went on hold and are still, for the foreseeable future, on hold! 

Japan, like all of our holiday destinations, will be there when the world becomes safe again. 

I had also planned to launch a new Travel Photography website in 2020 but those plans also went on hold. I didn’t renew the hosting of my current Travel Photography website which was a hard decision to make but it is 7 years old and needed a lot of work to upgrade it. I’m looking forward to working on my new Travel Photography website when the time is right. 

I have been supporting 4 main charities for many years. Year on year I try to give more to each charity whether this is monetary support or volunteering my time. This year I gave more to charity than I have done in previous years as more was needed due to fundraising efforts being impacted by Covid 19. 

That’s it, my 2020 in review.

As with all annual reviews, looking back and reviewing my year brings pride in what I have achieved but also many lessons learned and things I would like to do differently that I will bring into 2021. 

Want to carry out your own annual review? You can download my free ‘2020 Personal Annual Review’ template which will walk you through the 3 simple steps I use to do my review. It’s so useful to learn from the year gone and bring these learnings into the New Year to make it your best year yet!  

Thank you for reading my blog posts and your kind words during 2020, I really appreciate your support. I hope whatever 2020 brought you that you can build on & learn from it to make 2021 your best year ever. May 2021 bring you and your loved ones health, happiness and prosperity.

Thanks for reading, stay safe,

Siobhain

x x x

Note: The system I use for my annual review is a work in progress and evolves year on year. When I first carried out my annual review I started with a template used by my friend and inspiration Chris Guillebeau. If you are interested in starting your own annual review, here is Chris’s guidelines on  How To Conduct your own Annual Review. 

My previous annual reviews can be found below,

Annual Review 2013   Annual Review 2014   Annual Review 2015   Annual Review 2016  

Annual Review 2017   Annual Review 2018    Annual Review 2019

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Annual Review 2019

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In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese for ‘Self-Reflection’. Hansei allows us to review & reflect on our goals (personal and professional) to evaluate what worked so we can build on the successes and evaluate what didn’t work so we can adjust and change direction.

I have been carrying out an ‘Annual Hansei/Review’ for many years and find it hard to believe this is the 7th year I have published this review online. See Annual Reviews from past years at the end of this blog post.

A large part of me didn’t want to do this year’s Annual Review as I would prefer to look forward to 2020 than to look back at 2019. Parts of 2019 were amazing, and parts were beyond sad. My uncle and one of my best friends passed away in Oct/Nov and everything else that happened in 2019 paled into insignificance.

Losing people you love is hard for many reasons and even if someone has been ill it is still so unexpected and completely unwelcome. It is an inevitable destination for us all but still yet so incomprehensible. 

And so, with trepidation, here is my Annual Review for 2019. As always, Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything. and the source of most of my happiness.

Lean is a business philosophy that I follow at work & in my personal life and that I write about here on my blog. 

I had 3 ‘Lean’ highlights this year,

1. I travelled to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia on two trips to teach (and learn) Lean Principles & Leadership to the 2018 & 2019 classes of Riyadh Airport Future Leaders. These groups of young and inspirational Future Leaders taught me more than I could ever teach them. I am grateful to all at daa International for this opportunity esp. my friends Debbie Kearns for looking after me so well and all of the Riyadh Airports Future Leaders for welcoming me to their beautiful country and sharing their knowledge with me.

2. I wrote an e-book on ‘Positive Change’  All going well I will be launching it early in 2020. The e-book is a compilation of blog posts from a blog series I wrote in 2019/2019, you can view the blog posts here ‘The A-Z Of Effective Change’

 3. I am fascinated by Japan and all things Japanese and in 2020 I am finally getting to tick Japan off my ‘to visit’ list. I have booked a place on Katie Anderson’s ‘Lean Study Trip’ in May 2020 and will be sharing the journey with you here on my blog and through social media

Similar to 2018, in 2019 I became more aware of the power and necessity of a Lean Culture in business. Respect for & development of people is truly the only way to grow and sustain businesses. Lacking these people focused elements and treating people poorly will ensure your company is one that people cannot wait to leave and are in no hurry to join, leaving your company moral on a downward spiral with your profits following closely behind.

In terms of Travel and Photography, my friend’s Karin and Paula enjoyed a few days skiing in the Italian Alps in February. I’m not the best skier  but the fresh air and the excellent company on the slopes was food for the soul!

 I visited Riyadh with work twice in 2019. My blog post on ‘The Top 5 Reasons To Visit Saudi Arabia’ was my most viewed blog post of 2019. I cannot recommend Saudi Arabia highly enough as somewhere to visit and now that it has opened to tourism, there has never been a better time.

My Mom and I spent 2 fabulous weeks on the islands of Malta and Gozo in September. I would highly recommend both islands as places to visit, you can read more about them on my blog posts, 

The Top 5 Things To Do in Malta

The Top 5 Things To Do in Gozo

 I enjoyed working with my gorgeous family and friends on photo shoots this year, it is always a joy to work with those you love.

Like most things in life, the more I learn about social media the more I realise I don’t know. Social media changes every day and so there is always much to keep up to date with.

In 2019 I continued to post about Travel and Photography and Positive Change on my blogs,

‘The Photographer’s Guide To Travel’

‘The Art Of Positive Change’

Blog posts on ‘The Art Of Positive Change’ were categorised into 3 areas of interest, 

  1. Thoughts On Change – my thoughts on both personal and professional change
  2. Tools Of The Change Trade  – useful tools I recommend for personal/professional change 
  3. Book Reviews – reviews of books I love

Throughout  2019 I continued to post daily positive quotes to various social media platforms which helped me learn more about posting, scheduling and outsourcing on social media. I created ‘The Quotes Store’ on Flickr where you can download albums of these positive quotes for your own use.

I continued to work with the brilliant cartoonist Andy Kefford who created the cartoons of ‘Pinky the Positive Pig’, the star of my 26 part blog post series  ‘The Complete A-Z Of Effective Change’ of which my new e-book is based. I look forward to sharing our new writing project with you later in 2020!

I love writing on my blogs and I learned over the past couple of years is that not only do you need to build skills to write content, but you also need to find the time to think about, write, edit, publish and market this content.  I struggled to find enough time for writing last year (as I did in 2018) and so this is a real focus area for me for 2020.

I have always been aware of the importance of physical and mental health. 2019, for many reasons, brought this awareness to another level. 

Keeping our physical and mental health in peak shape is required for everything else in our lives to function. Working to look after our physical and mental health should be the top priority in our lives and a daily practice to ensure same. 

I wish you and your loved ones excellent physical and mental health in 2020.

In 2019 I continued to improve my financial habits by learning from Tony Robbins book ‘Money Master the Game – 7 Simple Steps To Financial Freedom’.  Tony is a master when it comes to finance and in this book he not only shares his own wisdom but also leverages the wisdom of many of the world’s finest financial advisors to share their advice, insights and experience. Tony’s book is written in an easy to understand format for all levels of financial understanding which is why I like it so much.

Like all habits, my financial habits are a work in progress. 

 

It’s nice to give back. I have been supporting various charities for many years. Year on year I try to give more to each charity whether this is monetary support or volunteering my time. This is something I will continue with and build on in 2020.

That’s it, 2019 in review, albeit a little less detailed than previous years.

 Here’s to 2020, may the New Year (and the new decade) bring you and your loved ones health, happiness and prosperity,

Thanks for reading,

Siobhain

x x x

Note: The system I use for my Annual Review is a work in progress and evolves year on year. When I first carried out my Annual Review I started with a template used by Chris Guillebeau. If you are interested in starting your own Annual Review, here is Chris’s guidelines on  How To Conduct your own Annual Review and his  Annual Review Template.

My previous Annual Reviews can be found below,

Annual Review 2013  Annual Review 2014  Annual Review 2015

Annual Review 2016  Annual Review 2017

Annual Review 2018 

 

 

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ANNUAL REVIEW 2017

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It’s that time of year again, time to look back reflecting on what last year brought us and time to look forward and plan for the unknown future. Time to be grateful that we are still here to experience and enjoy life, time to carry out the Annual Review.

In the Lean/Continuous Improvement world we carry out ‘Hansei’ which is Japanese (反射) for ‘Self-Reflection’. Hansei allows us to review goals (personal and professional) and reflect on how they went to see what worked so we can build on the successes and see what didn’t work so we can adjust and change direction.

I have been carrying out a ‘Hansei’ or Annual Review for many years now and find it hard to believe this is the 5th year I have published this review online. Time really does go very fast! See Annual Reviews from past years below,

Annual Review 2013  Annual Review 2014  Annual Review 2015  Annual Review 2016

As always Mike, my family and my friends are my reason for everything. By far the most exciting thing that happened to my family this year was my younger brother Declan and his beautiful wife Aoife welcomed my gorgeous niece Ayla Danaher to the world, a wonderful addition to our ever-growing family.

Here goes, in no particular order, my Annual Review for 2017.

2017 was a big year for me in the world of Lean. I continue to work for and enjoy my role with daa. This year saw us implement Hoshin Kanri (Lean Strategy Deployment) for the first time which brought new learnings every day in terms of our Lean journey.

For my personal goals it was also the first year I used the principles and structures of Hoshin Kanri to set and monitor goals and objectives. In terms of planning, organising and changing direction when required this brought the process of goal setting to a whole new level.

One of my goals was to share information and learnings from the world of Lean. I did this by designing, creating and launching my new website ‘‘The Art Of Positive Change’ in March. This took way longer than I had anticipated but it was worth the wait as I now have somewhere dedicated to sharing information on Lean, Simplicity and Positive Change and the immense benefits they bring to our businesses and personal lives.

Another goal was to write and publish a blog post a week (52 in total). I didn’t reach this, completely underestimating how much time it takes to create blog posts and edit them. I did manage to publish 24 blog posts which is more than I have published in any previous year. So while I didn’t reach my goal I’m definitely improving in this space.

Also in March I started working with the brilliant cartoonist Andy Kefford creating a new character called Pinky, aptly named by my 7 year old niece Miah. Pinky is the star of my 26 part blog post series ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’. You can view all of the published blog posts here.

The Complete A-Z of Effective Change

This year I was reminded how much I love Travel Photography and so I will be working more on this in 2018. If you are new to my work you can view my Travel Photography images here on my website ‘www.siodanphoto.com’ and read my Travel Photography blog posts on my blog ‘The Photographer’s Guide To Travel’.

In terms of travel near and far, Mike and I enjoyed weekends away in Edinburgh, Killarney and Kilkenny, my parents and I spent a few days in London and later in the year my Mom and I spent 10 days in the amazing city of Dubai. Earlier in the year I dusted off my skiing skills and joined one of my best mates Karin Hennessy for a few days skiing in fabulous Pila in the Italian Alps.

Following a trip to Abu Dhabi with Mike in 2016 I created and published my 8th Travel Photography book ‘The Photographer’s Guide To Abu Dhabi’ in September complimenting the blog post I wrote on this beautiful city ‘The Top 5 things To Do in Abu Dhabi’.

I worked with some of my family and friends on photo shoots this year which I enjoyed immensely. It’s always a joy to shoot images of family and friends,

My Travel Photography Fine Art prints and my Fine Art Catalogue are now displayed at my friend Michelle Quilty’s newly opened business, The Tea Cosy in Ardpatrick. This makes me very proud and gives me itchy feet to do more Travel Photography exhibitions – watch this space!

Social media continues to provide a steep learning curve for me that twists and turns at an exponential rate.

I have been using social media for online marketing for many years, however 2017 was the first year I created a social media strategy as part of Hoshin Kanri (Lean Strategy Deployment). This allowed me to focus on clear goals and objectives and ensured I tracked the correct metrics and used these metrics to change direction when required.

Just like the world of Lean and Continuous Improvement, the only way to definitively know if you are improving is to have ‘fact based’ metrics. I currently track 13 metrics across 9 social media platforms. Each one of these metrics increased in 2017 which means I’m moving in the right direction!!! In saying that, growth is slow –  slow but steady!

Tracking and evaluating metrics may sound like a lot of work but just like metrics in business, when you get used to setting, tracking and using valuable information from the metrics, they can become quiet addictive and it really is the only way to measure improvement accurately!

If you’re not using metrics to measure performance in your business maybe 2018 is the year that you start, they really are a game changer!

Throughout most of 2017 I continued to post daily inspirational quotes to various social media platforms which helped me learn more about posting, scheduling and outsourcing on social media.

Like most things in life, the more I learn about social media and online marketing the more I realise I don’t know. Social media changes each and every day and so there is always much to learn.

In terms of health I welcomed 2017 with open arms as 2016 saw my Dad go through his second heart surgery. As I wrote in my annual review last year – there is no greater pain than watching someone you love and adore battling an illness. My Dad’s surgery and subsequent recovery has made me intensely aware of and grateful for every breath I take and every day my family and I spend illness free.

I take both my physical and mental health very seriously as I firmly believe the popular Irish saying ‘your health is your wealth’.

Knowing what nurtures my mental health and knowing what challenges it allows me to make decisions to protect it.

To keep my mind and spirit active and healthy I read as much as I can (see my Top 10 Books of 2017 here), meditate (not as much as I would like) and journal (again not as much as I would like).

I try to eat healthy but do have a rubber arm that can be twisted quiet easily when it comes to biscuits and savoury treats. Exercise has always been part of my life but I find I need to work much harder as the years go by. With this comes an immense respect for what the human body can achieve when we put the work in! This has always been a work in progress area for me and will continue to be a focus for 2018. 

Every year my goals include understanding more about personal finance.  In this quest, I re-read Tony Robbins book ‘Money Master the Game – 7 Simple Steps To Financial Freedom’. Tony is a master when it comes to finance and in this book he not only shares his own wisdom but also leverages the wisdom of many of the world’s finest financial advisors to share their advice, insights and experience. Tony’s book is written in an easy to understand format for all levels of wealth which is why I liked it so much.

I have always known this but 2016 made me more acutely aware that no matter how much you earn or how much is in your bank account it doesn’t make you happy, make you a good person or heal you when you are ill and I continued to be very aware of th throughout 2017.

Just like my social media stats I monitored income, spending and savings much more than I have done in any previous years. Like many people I am not what you would call ‘good with money’ and I need to work much harder on this than I had previously anticipated.

It’s nice to give back. I have been supporting various charities for many years and year on year I try to give more to each charity whether this is monetary support or volunteering my time. I continued to support these charities in 2017 and also found new charities to support. This is something I will continue with and build on in 2018.

That’s it, 2017 was like most years, full of ups and downs, twists and turns.

Thank you to everyone who shares this journey with me, each and every one of you have a made a positive impact on my life. A special and heartfelt thank you to my boyfriend Mike, my family and my friends for making each year better than the last, you are the reason for it all.

May 2018 bring you health, happiness and prosperity,

With love,

Siobhain

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Note: The system I use for my annual review is still a work in progress and evolves year on year as my own life evolves. When I first carried out my annual review I started with a template shared and used by Chris Guillebeau. If you are interested in starting your own annual review, here is Chris Guillebeau’s How To Conduct your own Annual Review. This is a great read and highlights how powerful planning and reviewing can be.

Chris’s updated annual review template can be found here – Annual Review Template, I used this initially then changed and modified it over the years.  Chris is a very inspirational guy which is why I follow him on social media and I travelled all the way to Oslo a few years ago to attend his celebration of visiting every country in the world.

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