Image Credit: Madhuri Gupta
Following on from my blog post on 5 Reasons to Prioritise Your Quarterly Review, here are 4 Steps to your Quarterly Review.
We don’t control how fast time goes yet we can absolutely control where we spend our time.
- Where did you spend your precious time over the past 3 months?
- Did you move closer to your goals?
- Did you move further away from your goals?
We spend so much time learning from the outside world yet our greatest learnings happen when we take notice of and reflect on our own lives.
Nothing will teach you more than your own life, isn’t that worth giving some precious time to?
Here are the 4 simple steps for your quarterly review,
💙 Step 1 – Grab a notebook and pen
Henriette Anne Klauser’s book Write it down, Make it Happen outlines the science behind physically writing down your goals, giving them a higher chance of success.
One of the most powerful ways to track your goals and reflect on them is daily journalling. If you have been journaling over the past 3 months, your journal will be an invaluable source of learning.
I use Moleskine journals for physically writing and reflecting on goals. Moleskine journals are beautiful, hard wearing and in my humble opinion the best journals in the world!
If someone were to ask me where to start with any change in their life I would say buy a notebook and a nice pen and write down your goals – it’s so simple yet so effective!
I also use the following online tools yet paper and pen will always be my favourite! ❤️
The Asana App is super easy to use, is highly organised and is an excellent project management tool. I have been using the free version of Asana for years and it suits just perfect.
All of the Google Suite tools (Docs, Sheets & Slides) are also my go to for online documentation
💙 Step 2 – Categorise the areas of your life
I use the Wheel of Life to categorise my life into Sense of Self, Relationships, Health, Work, Finance, Fun/Experiences, Environment & Contribution – you can use these or create categories of your own.
Life can be very busy and so it’s important that your goals have clear and defined categories in which to sit – this also makes reflection so much easier.
💙 Step 3 – Reflect and learn
Reflection and learning can go as deep as you want to go, below are a list of simple questions if you are just starting out with reflection.
Reflection question 1 – what went well over the past 3 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.
Take your time with this, work through every area of your life, focus on the small stuff first – as it’s the small stuff that is really the big stuff!
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 3 months. Even just one gratitude a day over 3 months is 90 things to be grateful for, wouldn’t that be something really lovely to look back and reflect on?
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?
The only person who has control over your life is you and the only life you can control is your own. Keeping that in mind, all success in your life starts and ends with you.
No-one is going to improve your life for you, no-one is going to set and reach your goals for you, yes, it’s all on YOU!
Did you work hard at something and then reap the rewards?
Did you make sacrifices to improve 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.
What brought you joy and happiness over the past 3 months?
When were you at your happiest over the past 3 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.
Are you happy with where you spent your time over the past 3 months?
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 3 months?
Are you happy with where your time was spent over the past 3 months?
Are you fully enjoying every minute of your days, weeks, months?
Reflection question 2 – what didn’t go well over the past 3 months?
What happened that you didn’t enjoy?
Challenges and obstacles are a normal part of life.
No matter how much we plan or try to control our lives, there are times when things just don’t go our way. Acknowledgment and acceptance of this fact is the first step to turning challenges into opportunities.
Acknowledging when things don’t work out takes bravery and courage and also an understanding that it is completely normal.
How can you acknowledge and accept what doesn’t work out for you and understand this is all part of your path?
What obstacles got in your way?
Looking back at the past 3 months, were there obstacles that got in your way?
Did you get in your own way?
Obstacles 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 and if you can’t eliminate them, how can you think differently about them?
We all have compete control over our thoughts and just reframing things in our mind can turn obstacles 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.
What didn’t bring you joy and happiness in the past 3 months?
Happiness and unhappiness go hand in hand, no human life is devoid of unhappiness just like no human life is devoid of happiness.
When were you at your unhappiest over the past 3 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 joy away and working to avoid, eliminate or understand more about this.
Where would you have liked to spend more time over the past 3 months?
Think about all of the key areas of your life from your Wheel of Life – did you spend too much time in some areas and not enough in others?
How balanced is your life in terms of where you spend your time?
Reflection question 3 – what did you learn in each area of your life?
The only way we grow and evolve is by learning more and by turning these learnings into action that propels us forward.
Answering the questions below will support you to turn your learnings into action.
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 is Wealth – 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?
Fun/Experiences – What did you learn about fun & experiences? How can you bring more fun into your life? What experiences have you enjoyed? What experiences have you not enjoyed?
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 – Celebrate your progress
It’s so important to acknowledge and celebrate how far you have come.
Even if your life is really challenging at the moment, you are here, you have got here safe, you have made it through the first 3 months 2026!
Whatever the past 3 months have brought you, you are worth celebrating!
Do you celebrate and learn from your success?
Yes – great, keep celebrating every single success, no matter how small! Look out for the small successes, they really are the big things!
No – when are you going to start celebrating your success? You deserve to celebrate yourself, even if you don’t yet believe it.
I wish you health and happiness as you look back at the past 3 months and even more health and happiness as you look forward to the next 3 months.
I write a weekly newsletter on all things positive change, download your free ebook ‘The A-Z of Effective Change’ below and you’re all signed up!
Thanks for reading 🙏
Siobhain
x x