The Year in Review

Laying in the corner of our office we have these big sheets of paper. Really big. Like if you spread your arms apart as far as they go you could hold the opposite corners. Most of the year the pages are rolled up, collecting dust in the corner, but every once in a while we take them out, put them on the table, and roll them flat. This has become one of my favorite Lux Virtual traditions.

On one of the pages we have written down what we’ve accomplished in the past year, and on another page we write our goals for the coming year. It’s so encouraging to see that the goals we had last year (in large part) turned in to the accomplishments that we wrote down this year. Even though our goals are not something that we post up on the wall or look at every day, I think the writing them down a year ago was instrumental to us accomplishing them. Writing a goal on a sheet of paper must rewire your brain just a little, so that when you encounter a fork in the road your subconscious mind tilts you toward the choice that will bring you closer to that goal.

Creating those goals for next year is also very inspiring, as it helps us look beyond the day-to-day concerns of managing projects and focus on the vision of where we are going and who we want to become. There’s a creative energy in brainstorming about where we see ourselves in 6, 12, and 18 months from now; new possibilities reveal themselves, connections between projects, clients, and ideas that we’d never noticed before pop into focus. If all you do is dream about the future you’ll never get anywhere. But every once in a while, if you have the means, I highly recommend it.