The Leadership Pause That Makes Every New Year Easier
By Suzie Thoraval
A reflective review helps you see your progress, realign your energy and plan with more clarity
“Without reflection, we go blindly on, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.”
Every December, my kids eagerly await their Spotify Wrapped. Since 2015, Spotify takes all the music we’ve listened to that year and tells us about it. My kids love seeing how many hours they spent with their favourite artists, the moods that defined their year, and the little insights Spotify pulls together in such a clever, playful way. It’s joyful. It’s revealing. It helps them see themselves with fresh eyes and remember the year that was.
I also look forward to my own end-of-year rituals. I love news retrospectives. It’s always interesting to remember the big stories, the small moments, the breakthroughs, the reminders of what happened in the world and think about how that changed things.
I also love making photo calendar Christmas gifts that help me look back on the good times during the year. It’s a visual record of what shaped my life across the year.
These retrospectives help me to process the year that was and remember it all at once. It swells in me a sense of gratitude for a life well lived and reflection on what I can learn for next year.
Why its helpful for leaders to look back before they look forward
Leaders can also benefit from closing the year with a deliberate pause and look back. Leadership carries constant inputs: decisions and complexity. It’s easy to lose sight of what actually happened in a year and the progress you have made.
In addition, the natural biases in our human brains can shape the present through:
Recency bias, so that we remember recent events more vividly than earlier ones and
Negativity bias, which means difficult moments carry more weight than positive ones.
These biases can distort our view of a whole year if we are not conscious of it. In the absence of an annual reflection, business and disruption in November and December can overshadow months of progress, growth and achievement.
Without stopping to reflect on the year as a whole, leaders can enter a new year feeling underprepared or dissatisfied, even though the full picture might tell a very different story.
A short moment of structured reflection brings that fuller picture back into view. This simple habit of looking back is part of having Adaptive Stability — it helps you see the patterns that shaped your year so you can step into the next one with clearer priorities and steadier energy.
What the research says
A Harvard Business School study found that reflection strengthens learning and improves future performance. Positive psychology research shows that noticing progress boosts mood, confidence and motivation. Neuroscience tells us that how we close an experience shapes how we remember it.
Reflection is not always comfortable
Sometimes reflection might feel uncomfortable or even indulgent. It can surface decisions that still feel unfinished or reveal habits you haven’t yet shifted. That discomfort is normal.
It’s also a sign that reflection is doing its job. You might also be thinking that reflection might not lead to action. But if you are intentional with the reflection, it can become powerful and inform resets, rhythms and choices for the year ahead.
James Clear’s reflection habits
Each year, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, writes his Annual Review. His Annual Review answers three questions:
What went well this year?
What didn’t go so well this year?
What am I working toward?
He notes that ‘basically, my Annual Review forces me to look at my actions over the past 12 months and ask, “Are my choices helping me live the life I want to live?”’
The reviews he does are full of data that help him to visualise the impact he had during the year. He looks at things like where he travelled to, new restaurants he tried, which audiences he spoke to and more. He looks at what didn’t go well, like consistently writing, like how his workouts went and other points associated with his office.
Clear’s reflection is personal. I encourage personal reflection for your own leadership practice. Leaders can also use these questions and methods to facilitate a team discussion.
So how do you close your year well?
A practical way to begin is to create your own ‘Leadership Wrapped’. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It simply gathers the essential elements of your year into one place.
Many leaders find that this process helps them feel grounded, aware and ready for what comes next.
What questions could facilitate my ‘Leadership Wrapped’?
Your Leadership Wrapped might include:
Meaningful achievements you’re proud of
A few moments that taught you something important
Lessons you want to carry forward
Surprises that revealed something valuable
Patterns in how you spent your time and energy
Decisions that shaped your leadership
Rhythms that supported your wellbeing
You can do this by yourself or with your team.
Teams often find it uplifting and clarifying, especially when the year has felt demanding. It helps people reconnect with purpose and appreciate their contribution to the whole.
What do I reflect on?
Ask yourself:
What stands out as significant this year?
Where did I grow?
What shaped my energy and resilience?
What do I want to maintain next year?
What needs to be released or adjusted?
What do I want the next year to feel like?
A reflective close to the year
Reflection creates a sense of completion. It gives shape to experience and allows you to begin a new year with steadiness, clarity and intention. Every year holds insights that are easy to miss in the moment. Looking back helps you carry forward what matters most.
What does your 2025 teach you about how you want to lead in the next one?
