9 Powerful Reflection Questions for 2021

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Is often we're asked to reflect on what was the thing that you won? What was the thing that you did that was most successful? That's usually the question people ask, but I think asking a question on happiness is even more important, even more powerful, because we want to do more of what makes us happy. Hey, everyone.

Welcome back to On Purpose.

I'm sitting here in the bedroom I grew up in. My parents laughed as I record this because I just got into London for the holidays. I am here to be with my family and I'm so lucky to be here. I feel so grateful that I could get in to see them. And as I sit here, it's been a really interesting 24 hours that I've been back now as I'm recording this and it's been really fascinating because I've been doing a lot of reflecting. I've only been here once in the last two years and everywhere where I'm walking I'm noticing the nursery that I went to, the school that I went to, the bank that I opened up, my first bank account. I'm noticing where I used to sit and meditate when I first started practicing, where I would read. I've got all these books that I'm surrounded by right now, books that I grew up on that changed my life, that formed the way I think it put me in a very reflective mood. It's so important at this time of year to reflect. It's so important at this time of year to take some time out, to look back. And the interesting thing with us when we're reflecting is that we don't usually make as much time as we'd like. We may say that we want to reflect this Christmas or this holiday season. We may even try to take an hour out and then get distracted by Instagram or TikTok. Maybe you've been really good for it and you've made some great progress and really put some time aside. But what I wanted to share with you today was a plan, questions, and a plan of how to really reflect on how this year has been. I'll share some of my reflections as well as I go along. And I'm hoping that all of you, after listening to this episode, which is going to be around 30 minutes long, I really hope that you can take out around an hour. An hour is all it will take. Take an hour to really reflect on these questions and give yourself the time to do that. Because what I find is that the world moves so fast. The next thing you know, it'll be January 1st. We'll be busy with the next thing, the new thing. And then all of a sudden, we've forgotten about this year and I've started to notice how much my memory is erased of years gone by, how you lose the details. And then you have to really try and search. And when you find it, you're like, wow, some amazing things happened that year. But by then, you don't even have the full depth of your memory to understand it, appreciate it, recognize it. So one of the first questions that I would ask myself when I'm reflecting is, what made you feel most happy? And I'm going to share with you a really clever way of doing this. I hope this is going to help you. And I just did this. And so I think you'll love it, is I went onto my photo album, like my photo reel on my phone, my photos app, and I scrolled back to January 1st. Now I don't take pictures of everything. I'm actually terrible at documenting things because when I'm not creating for work or not thinking about an idea, I'm pretty much not on my phone. And so I don't even take that many pictures. But still, I look through on my phone from Jan 1st until today, and I was amazed to see how many beautiful things happened this year. And I don't even take pictures of everything. So if you're someone that takes pictures of everything, you're going to love this. And if you're someone like me who doesn't take pictures of everything, I promise you, you're still going to love it, you're still going to appreciate it, because even with the few memories you have, or maybe you have memories of things people sent to you, it's incredible. It's beautiful to see what you captured and what was there with you. And so I want you to do that right now. When you go to Photos app, I want you to look from January 1st and I want you to ask yourself, what were the things that made you the most happy? Right. What were the things that made you the most happy? That's what I want you to focus on. And what I love about this question is often we're asked to reflect on, you know, what was the thing that you won? What was the thing that you did that was most successful? That's usually the question people ask. But I think asking a question on happiness is even more important, even more powerful, because we want to do more of what makes us happy. So when I think about what memory or what happened this year that made me feel the most happy, what made me feel the most happy was the quality time I spent with Radhi this year. We found that in the last two years, we spent more time together than ever before, and we deeply appreciated it. When I went through my Photos app, I literally found just pictures and pictures of us being silly, taking fun selfies, messing around. It just made me so happy. It brought me so much joy that me and her have had so much quality time. And especially in the last month, we haven't seen each other as much. She came back to London a bit earlier than I did. I was traveling a bit before that, and when I looked at that, I thought, wow, that makes me so happy. I'm so joyful about the fact that we actually for once got really quality time together. And whether it was us on a hike or whether it was us when we were trying out a new experience, we had a lot of amazing experiences together this year as well. So that was really, really Special. And I'm just so grateful that we, we got to have those. So what made you most happy? Now, I don't want you to just ask yourself that question. You're like, I figured out what made me most happy. So what with what made you most happy, I want you now to ask yourself, how will you make more time for that this year? How will you continue to water that? It's almost like you're looking at your garden and you see that the plum tree or the rose bushes are growing beautifully. The question is, how do I not forget to water that just because it's going well? So often things are going great in our lives and we're not conscious of it, and then they don't go so great. Next year, let's use this as a reminder to say, continue to do this. Continue to spend time with this person. It brings you joy. Continue to value it, to be grateful for it. Now, the second question that I want you to answer is, what made you unhappy this year? Right. What was it that took Joy away from your life this year? This is a really important question to ask. And this one you may not find in your galleries. Maybe you didn't take pictures of these times, but maybe you have them in your journals. Maybe they come up in your conversations. Maybe they come up when you're talking to a loved one or a trusted person in your life. What was it that took energy away for me? There were times this year where I was completely a follower of my schedule. And I feel that there were times when I wasn't being as creative as I wanted to be. I wasn't as reflective or thoughtful as I wanted to be. I was just following my schedule because there were so many things being filled up, and I just kept doing whatever was in my schedule, and that didn't make me happy. I didn't like living a life that felt like I wasn't focusing on what my priorities were. I didn't feel like living a life where I wasn't getting time to be creative and thoughtful and reflective how I wanted to be. I wasn't feeling happy about the fact that I couldn't focus on that, which was important to me. So it's really important to analyze that because that has been one of my biggest takeaways this year. And that simple takeaway of what made me unhappy this year has made me understand. Now, notice something really interesting about this question. It's very easy with this question to say someone or something else, like, I wasn't happy because this person broke up with me. Or I wasn't happy because this happened. Look for your own choice or your own learning in that. So I'll give you an example. I could say that the problem was the people creating my schedule, but the real challenge is I wasn't being focused enough, I wasn't being selective enough, I wasn't being curated enough. That's really where the ownership and the responsibility lies. When we make decisions about who to.

Date, who to see, what job to.

Take, are we being as conscious, as aware as we possibly can to. To make the right decision for ourself, or are we just accepting whatever comes into our life or being carried away? It's so important. So now it's not just what made you unhappy and write it down. It's actually saying, well, let me look at what is it about that? How did I end up in that situation? When you get lost, you don't just.

Get mad at your gps.

You wonder, why did you get here? How did you end up here?

Maybe you didn't charge your phone.

Maybe you had an old version of the app. Maybe you weren't driving a car you were used to driving. What is it that you can take responsibility for? Not to judge yourself or to beat yourself up, but to use it as an opportunity to say, this is something that I'm not going to allow me to affect me again. So the third question is, what was the biggest lesson you learned? Now, this question, obviously it takes hints from the first two, but really try and ask yourself, what's the biggest lesson? And imagine you were on a podcast. Imagine you were on on purpose, and I asked you that question. Give the question that gravitas. You listen to the podcast, you hear the answers that our guests give.

If you were on the show and.

I asked you, what's the biggest lesson you learned in the last 12 months? How much would you care about that answer? How much would you think about it, knowing that millions of people are going to hear it? But more importantly, you're saying, this is the biggest thing I learned this year. And I've been thinking about that, to think about how to share that with you as well. Like, how do I tell you what's the biggest lesson I learned this year? Not the most recent lesson, not the immediate one that comes to mind, but what's the biggest lesson I learned this year and the biggest lesson I learned this year? And sometimes it's the same lesson you learned every year. So you have to really push yourself. The biggest lesson I learned this year is your schedule shows what you care about, what you do with your free time, what you do with your mornings, your evenings, your weekends shows what you care about. And if you're like, well, I don't care about any of that on my schedule, then let's try and change that. Now, we all have to work. So everyone has to go to work. And we may not love what we do for work, and we may have tried, or we may be trying to shift, but that sometimes is out of our control. But what are we doing with our evenings and weekends? Does it really show what we care about? So I realized that what I really care about is creativity. What I really care about is impact. What I really care about is helping people find their purpose. And I want my schedule to reflect that. And yes, everything I do is dedicated to that. But there are some things that are more dedicated to that than others, and I want to review that. So that's the third big, big question to ask yourself. Now, the fourth question is an interesting one. What is something you wish you did more of? What is something that you didn't make time for, but you wish you made more time for? What is that one thing that you're like, you know, next year, this has to be part of it. This is something that I know I need to prioritize. Notice how it's not judging yourself or beating yourself up for not making time. It's recognizing, this is important to me. This is a priority me, and I want to make time for it next year. Now, when I think about this, it's dedicated, creative time. I would love to have one of my work days be a day where I read and learn more and scribble and doodle and practice and play and just allow my mind to be fully expressive and creative without even wanting to create something. Often I'll write and journal to record a podcast, or I'll write and journal for my own spiritual practice, or I'll be creating something for a book that I'm working on. But I want to just create to create, whether anyone sees it or not, hears it or not, finds it or not, even if it never goes out. And that's really important to me. So that's something I want to make more time for next year. What's something you want to make more time for next year? It may be that you want to work out more. Maybe you want to exercise more. Now, about this. You want to make sure that you're not just saying you want to do more of it. You're actually saying, well, realistically, how often can I do that for me, it may be once a month, right? For me, one day, once a month dedicated to being fully creative is realistic. What is it for you?

This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Every January, we hear the same message. New year, new you.

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And the fifth question is, what's something you want to do less of? What's something that you did a lot this year? Are you like, I definitely don't want to do a lot of that next year. Like that's something I need to pull back on. That's something I need to let go of. And for me, this came to me probably in the last three months and for me the answer was tv. I think I've spoken about this a few times, but for 10 years, pretty much. I didn't watch TV. I watched movies in. In theaters or at home, but I didn't really watch TV religiously. And I found during the pandemic, I watched TV a lot of evenings, and that's not like me. And I started to realize I didn't enjoy it. I didn't enjoy myself anymore. I didn't feel like my mind was the place I wanted to live in. And I found that when I was deep in books or deep in ideas, that I feel more connected to myself. And so for me, that's something I want to do less of. And I started doing less of it in the last three months because that.

Helps me transition over to next year.

Because I haven't been doing it for the last three months. So I feel pretty confident that I won't let it bleed into next year. It's really, really powerful, right? What do you want to do less of? Another question that I want you to ask yourself is, what was your biggest success this year? Right now we're getting into that work, that professional, that purpose. What was your biggest success this year? And do you know what I want you to do? I want you to trace that success back to when it started, when it actually started, even as a connection. So I'll give you an example. One of our biggest successes this year for me and Radhi was that we launched Sama Tea, something we'd been working on for about a year and a half. And launching Sama Tea was a huge success. So many of you have subscribed, so many of you have joined the community. If you haven't yet, you can head over to samatea.com and join us. Be a part of our tea membership and our tea community. It's been so beautiful to have all these amazing real flavors out there in the world with functional benefits and adaptogens. It's been incredible and it's been such a big success. But listen to this. We launched Sama Tea this year in fall. Let's go back to when we started with the idea for Creating Sama Tea. January 2020. Now let's go back to when I met our partners, our business partners in starting the tea company. That happened around three years ago. And now let's go back to when me and Radhi got married and discovered we both love tea. That was five years ago. And now let's go back to when we started dating and we realized we love tea. That was eight years ago. And now let's go back to when I first was introduced to Tea by my own mom when I was really young. That's probably like, I don't know, it's a long time now. How long ago was that? Maybe like 25 years ago. Maybe more so in one sense, Sama T has been under construction for 25 years. In one sense it's been under construction for 8 years. In one sense, it's been under construction for 5 years. In one sense it's Been under construction for 3 years. And in another it's been 18 months. Now you tell me how long it's been under construction. It's fascinating, isn't it? When you look at how long your biggest win, biggest success this year has been under construction. It teaches you patience. It teaches you consistent build. It teaches you connection of ideas. It teaches you growth. It teaches you commitment. It teaches from learning from, from every part of your life. I never once believed in my life that Radhi and I would have a tea community and tea company. It wasn't part of the vision, it wasn't part of the journey that we thought of. But it's one of the most beautiful things we've had happen to us this year. It's one of my biggest, biggest successes. But I want you to look at when that journey started. Because what that teaches you is that you can start another journey this year. When you realize that one of your biggest successes was years in the making, years in construction, you'll be inspired to start a new one again. Our desire for things to happen this year now achievable three months, targets, results, blocks us from starting something new because you think, oh well, this may take five to ten years. Well, let's look at it this way. If in five to 10 years you achieved your purpose and your goal, wouldn't that be the best thing in the world? Wouldn't that be amazing? Wouldn't that be absolutely incredible? Wouldn't you love that? Well, it's possible. It's really, truly possible. So that's what I want you to do with your biggest success. And now I want you to ask yourself what is a moment that you felt you failed? When did you feel you failed this year? My moment that I felt I failed this year when I realized I was working on a project and 11 months went by and I realized it was meant to be finished in 11 months. But I realized at 11 months that me and the person I was working with on, we wanted it to be different things. And that felt like a failure because I wasted 11 months trying to make it work, not realizing that we were both trying to Build something totally different. And I felt like a failure. I did. I felt like, God, I just wasted 11 months. Now I've got to carry on working on this and I've got to carry on building it, and it's just set me back. But guess what? Something amazing happened. I got another client that inspired me for content for that other project, and I got that client exactly at the 11 month mark. So that project is now going to be a million times better than it would have been in the last 11 months, because I've met someone who I'm working on and that directly impacts that project. So it's fascinating. If I would have finished that project in 11 months, it wouldn't be as good as it's going to be now. How amazing is that?

Like, genuinely, it's mind blowing to me.

Because I wanted to finish that project in 11 months and it would have been good. It would have been really great. But now it's going to be phenomenal. Look for the blessing, look for that crack. There's a beautiful Rumi quote where, you know, the light enters through the cracks. The crack is where the light enters when something's cracking. When something's breaking. Look for that light, look for that genuine moment of inspiration. And you'll find it, you'll see it, and it will be better than what you imagined. It'll be better than what you expected. It will be phenomenal. The next question is, what is something you want to learn next year? This is a really beautiful question to ask because we often focus on goals and I want you to focus on growth. Instead of goal setting. I want you to focus on growth setting. Goal setting is, I want to be an author next year. I want to start a podcast. Okay, but what's your growth? I want to learn to be a writer. I want to learn how to set up a podcast. Learning how to build a podcast is better than launching a podcast. And you may say, well, part of learning is launching. Sure it is. But at least you want to learn and plan and prepare. So focus on growth setting, not goal setting. What is the growth you want to have next year? When I think about my next year and the growth I want to have, one of the biggest things I want to learn is I want to go back to public speaking school, drama school. These are things I did when I was growing up. And I want to go back. I want to explore different parts of myself and different ways of expressing my purpose. I loved poetry and spoken word growing up. I want to go back and learn that art again. And Allow myself to be even more fulfilled by being more poetic with my words and being able to share ideas and messages. That's what I want to learn next year. And I'm sharing that with you all to be accountable to it. I'll keep you updated and I want you to keep me updated. I'm going to keep you accountable because you're in the on purpose community. And if you've joined the genius community, you'll be even more accountable. So really think about that. And now the final question I want to ask you is what is your favorite way to refuel? We rarely reflect on how did we best rest? How did we best refuel? How did we best feel energized? And to me, time and time again, it comes to the exercise I did. Working out more and doing a lot of strength training. I did a lot more weight training this year just for strength, just to build genuine inner strength as well. And that to me did wonders for how I felt. I was doing a lot of cardio for a long time, playing a lot of tennis, but I really found that the strength training changed how I felt about my body and my mind and everything else. So that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 questions. And those nine questions will be how you reflect for this end of this year. And the simple answer to those nine questions will help guide you to your best self. So I want you to make some time between now and the end of year to just reflect on these nine questions. I've shared with you my answers. I've shared with you my thoughts. And I really, really hope that you will make some time. And don't miss next week's episode. It's gonna be really powerful. I'm excited. Thank you everyone for listening to on purpose. I'm so grateful to you for being.

A part of this community.

We have one more episode until the final episode of this year and a couple more episodes actually. But I just want to say thank you to you and how grateful I am to each and every one of you who have left a review. We have now 17,000 reviews. If you have not left one, it would mean the world to me if you go out and leave a review. This one was from Lacey. She says, can't stop Listening. Five stars. That's amazing. That means the world to me. And then this one from Tiff says you are truly inspiring. I love listening to you, especially on my way to work and even throughout the day. You have made me realize so many important things that have helped me to start a more Healthy lifestyle mentally and physically. I appreciate this one. This one is from Tati. I just think there's something about Jay's energy that feels genuine and his voice and tone has become a place of comfort. Not to be creepy or anything.

Lol.

I gravitate towards his authenticity. That means the world to me. Tadi, thank you so much. You know, it's one of those things that none of us are perfect. We're always trying to figure it out. I'm always trying to show up the best I can for you and I appreciate that you notice that I'm trying and that's all I ask for is that. Just know that I'm trying my best.

Ritual says today's episode was so powerful.

I love you, Jay. Thank you for your mindfulness and constant support, my friend. Thank you. This was from Christina Gray. I was feeling stuck. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Now I understand I wasn't celebrating myself enough and or celebrating too much. Consistency is key. A podcast a day keeps the anxiety at bay. I love that. Well, Nicole, Maddie, Mel, Hanye, thank you so much for all these beautiful, beautiful reviews. I'm so grateful and I will speak to you soon next week. Thanks, everyone. Bye.

Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most to focus on and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to how to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist Dr. Steve Poulter to unpack shame, anxiety and the emotional emotional, pain men were never taught how to name.

Part of the way through the valley.

Of despair is realizing this has happened.

And you have to make a choice.

Whether you're gonna stay in it or move forward.

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Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Walley.

And I'm Hari Kondabolu.

It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.

Being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that, or am I just depressed? Health Stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

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