the time of this release. Um, we’re releasing it in the first uh of December at the end of the year 2025. And so, if you’re wise in your leadership, now is the time to look back at the previous year to start planning for the year ahead. Now, to be clear, you do not have to wait until January to make important changes.
Uh, January 1 is like it’s just another day, right? There’s nothing magical about that day. And personally, I prefer to make changes early. This is a really important part just of my mindset. For example, I’ll dial in my diet before Christmas. And the reason is I want to start early. Why am I going to wait to get better um when I can begin now? And so what it does is it just frames your mindset of I’m not going to gorge myself now or I’m not going to be lazy now and start to be disciplined later on.
I like to start early and it frames a mindset that helps me move forward with consistent discipline. So the best leaders don’t wait for a date on the calendar. They start early and they start strong. So before you plan next year, what I want you to do is together we’re going to look back. Now at this moment is the time to evaluate the previous year.
You want to look at your wins, your losses, your successes, your failures. Uh the surprising victories, the missed opportunities. And I wish I didn’t have to say this, but I I feel like I have to because uh leaders tend to lie to themselves a lot. But what I want you to do when you look back is tell the truth about what happened.
It’s so easy to make excuses and say, “Well, it wasn’t or there was this or there was this external factor.” Tell the truth because growth doesn’t start with excuses. Growth starts with honesty. Be honest as you look back. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to look at six things every leader should evaluate. Six things.
I’m going to give them to you. Then we’re going to go through them one by one. You’re going to want to evaluate number one, the successes. Number two, the misses. Number three, the patterns. Number four, you’re going to evaluate the people around you. Number five, the priorities. Evaluate your priorities. Number six, evaluate yourself.
successes, misses, patterns, people, priorities, and yourself. Let’s talk about them one by one. We’re looking back to plan the best year as we move forward. Number one, evaluate the successes. Why do you do this? If you don’t know why something is working what it is, you won’t know how to fix it when it’s not.
That’s an Andy Stanley quote. Very, very important. Evaluate why did this work? If you don’t know the reason for the win, the reason for the success, then one day when it’s not working, you’re not going to know how to fix it. Um, here’s what tends to happen. When something’s going well, it’s tempting just to take it for granted or you might even celebrate it and then you move on.
