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.
- 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
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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,
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