Summer Reflections #1

Journalling Insights: Using the Past to Guide Tomorrow (Part 3)

Dec 30, 2025

The past few days, I’ve taken the luxury of holiday time to review my 2024 and 2025 journals. As I write most days, most of my journey has been captured on the pages.

Reviewing my writing gave me a fresh appreciation for having entered so much of what happened. I’ve realised my memory of events is like footprints in the sand—I can look back for a short time and see what has occurred, but before long, the tides of time largely obliterate them, apart from the larger and more impactful moments. Reading back through my journals uncovers those footprints.

The two main areas I captured were:

External events and activities: The cities I’ve visited, conferences I’ve attended, venues where I’ve dined, danced, and drank, the family, friends, and clients I’ve met, fun times with my partner, and so forth.

My internal journey: My emotional state and related conditions at the time, mapping my dreams, navigating and adapting to change, my mind’s journey through reading, reflection, struggling with concepts, and arriving at final insights.

As I read through the pages, I pulled together the lessons and insights from the past years, and then, on a separate page, noted what I want to focus on in the year ahead, both personally and professionally.

For me, a large amount of future empowerment and direction stems from the grounded learnings of the past—what I did well and what I can do better, shift, or simply do more of. It’s not an arbitrary goal-setting exercise but more aligned with who I am—my strengths, weaknesses, innate desires, learnings, and my stage in life.

I have found the last few days enriching and rewarding, and if you don’t currently journal, I’d encourage you to consider practising it in 2026. Five to ten minutes per day or every other day, with a good pen and leather-bound notebook, is a great place to start.

I hope you’re having a refreshing break, and I wish you a happy New Year.

Ray

Mindful Motivation

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