What You Measure Matters: 2024 Annual Report
It's the end of the year, which means it's time to brace yourself for an onslaught of pressure to capture and brag about what you accomplished in 2024 (if it hasn't been hitting your LinkedIn feed already).
I'm a fan of reflection—but only if it feels genuine and supportive, not like another task to complete before you can put up your OOO message and change into your cozy socks.
For the past six years, I've put together an annual report. It's a meaningful practice for me to pause and look back at what I actually did and how it actually made me feel—the highlights and lowlights, the growth, and the lessons learned.
The trouble with an annual report is that it can easily become operationalized: a box that needs to be checked, a let-me-just-fill-out-what-I-did-last-year, a ceremony of accountability.
In the first few years of assembling my annual reports, I tracked the numbers that the online business world told me were important: How many clients did you serve? How much money did you make? And most importantly, how is it all more than it was last year?
Then I realized that I want to grow better, not bigger.
So each year I redefine what I measure. I'm not filling in numbers on a template. It's richer than that.
It starts by asking myself: What really mattered this year?
Because success is about how you're living in alignment with what matters to you.
Coaching questions for you:
To uncover what mattered to you this year, ask yourself these questions:
What are you proud of from this year?
What's something that surprised you?
What was hard, and how did you handle it?
What's a moment you'll remember forever?
What movies, music, podcasts, books, or activities got you through?
