3 Questions to Reflect and Set Intentions for 2023 with Lis Best

Lis Best is an Executive Coach for Women Changing the World and Founder of the Girls Club Collective. We're big fans of Lis and all she does so we asked her to share thoughts about reflecting on the past year and setting intentions for the year to come.

This time of year, I find myself thinking a lot about my rituals to close out one year and enter another. I'm not a huge new-year's-resolutions person, but I do love this portal as an opportunity to take inventory and look ahead. 

I invite you to light a fire, grab a notebook, pour a glass of something festive, and sit down with a few questions to reflect on the past year and what you’re calling in.

 👯‍♀️ WHO are you most grateful for from the past year?

Science has shown that the two most powerful forms of gratitude are gratitude for how something happened and gratitude for people. I’ve made it a practice to start my end-of-year reflection with a list of the people who I am grateful for from the past year - beginning with friends, family, clients, collaborators, and teachers.

Every year, the list of people who helped me make magic over the past 12 months blows me away. I highly recommend taking the time to start a physical or digital list of the people who you appreciate most. As a bonus, you can also think about how to thank them and/or let them know how they contributed to your year.

🏆 What were your biggest WINS from the past year?

I can be so guilty of moving straight from one thing to the next without taking time to reflect on and celebrate the wins along the way. That's why at the end of the year I love making time to create my own personal impact report highlighting my biggest personal and professional accomplishments, reflecting on what I've learned, and putting numbers to the work I've been doing. 

Take some time to create a running list of your 2022 wins - there are almost certainly more of them than you think! Pro tip: You’re almost certainly forgetting something from Q1 of 2022, so you may want to take a peek back at your calendar or your email to jog your memory.

🔮 How do you want to feel in 2023?

Again, I'm not a huge fan of resolutions, but I do love to pick a few words every year that describe how I want to feel - something I learned from Danielle LaPorte’s Desire Map practice.

Instead of starting with goals, start with the feelings you want to have - feelings like radiance, joy, love, curiosity, creativity, for example. Take some time to think about the juiciest, most energizing words to describe how you want to feel in the year ahead, and ideally narrow it down to just a few for maximum impact. Then you can let those feelings be the basis of your other goals, running some of your more practical goals like “run a half marathon” through the lens of whether they align with your feelings. For example, “Will this make me feel radiant? Will it make me feel joy?”

If you’d like even more questions to reflect on 2022 and set your intentions for 2023, you can grab my 2022 Reflection Guide here.