Your Year in Music: A Review

by Cari Cole

Today I want to talk about the benefit of a yearly review and outline the process for you. This might bring up notions of corporate culture and assessments from a boss, but really, doing this for yourself will force you to learn from your victories and mistakes as well as allow you to maximize the new year like never before!

Your Year in Music Review Process

1. Schedule a Date in December – Make a date with yourself for your review. Anytime in December is perfect for your Year in Music Review, but the first week of December is ideal because you aren’t totally swept up in the holidays yet. Set aside a few hours and remove all distractions to do your yearly review.

2. Create Space – Create a space to work that feels good. If there’s any way you can actually get away to a private spot or a meaningful place for you, do that! You want to feel comfortable, safe, and hopefully inspired.

3. Prepare Your Tools – You’ll definitely need a notebook and pen. You may want posterboard or a roll of paper to spread out with. If you’d like your guitar, keyboard, or other instrument with you to revisit songs, you can choose to have that option as well, though the focus will be writing.

4. Overview of the Year – Start jogging your memory of what happened this year by writing out the name of the month and jotting down a few bullet points of the major things that happened. You’re focusing on music, but you don’t have to limit yourself to that. Personal and other life events will obviously have influenced what you accomplished in your career. Sometimes, the lessons you need to learn aren’t how you handled business, but how you didn’t handle your personal affairs.

5. Solidify Your Successes – Now go back month by month and pull out your biggest successes. What did you kick ass at this year? Choose at least 6 moments (or choose one for each month and do 12). Now analyze these triumphs. What worked? What were the things that you did differently than usual and also note if there were any other personal or special circumstances that helped your success. Make sure to write down how you felt after each victory.

6. Find Your Failures – Now do the same for the not-so-good moments. What failures and disappointments did you face this year? Analyze what happened. What didn’t work? Was there something going on in your personal life that interfered? What can you do differently next time? Write down what you felt after each failure. You also might want to write down what you learned from each failure. Identifying what you learned is a powerful way to grow and even benefit from hardship.

7. Learn From Both – Now take what you’ve got and make two lists titled “Success” and “Failure.” Put the actions and circumstances that led to success in the first column and those that led to failure in the second column. Now you’re really staring at it – the truth of your actions.

8. Remember the Feeling – But that’s not enough! I know, I know, this process is a little harsh, but don’t just focus on the bad, focus on the good too! To get the most of this, we need to connect actions with feelings. Now pick out the feelings you wrote down and add those to the title. (Around “Failure” add – embarrassed, grumpy, upset, disgusted, etc. Around “Success” add – happy, proud, playful, giddy, glowing, etc.)

9. Connect Action with Feeling – Look down at the list of actions and now connect them to the feelings. Not warming up your voice = embarrassed. Selling out your fave local venue = giddy. Take the time to let yourself feel each of the emotions as they connect to an action. This way, you start to physically associate unhelpful behaviors with unpleasant feelings. And better yet, you associate smart behaviors with good feelings! You’re training yourself to do the right thing for your mood and your career!

10. Burn Your Regrets – Now in a safe space, light fire to the failures section. Release those actions and feelings that caused you grief. Say, “I release my failures, they’ve taught me well and I’m ready to move on to my success.”

Now breathe! And laugh. You’re done!

I know it’s a lot and it will take a few hours of your time, but it’s worth it. You need to first process your experience through your brain and intellect and then process it through your body and feelings. The burning connects the review to your soul and makes it a ritual. You’ve been cleansed and can now think and feel clearly for the new year.

Once you’re done, you can start thinking about all you want to manifest in 2014! It’s possible. You’ve got a road map right in front of you.

If you want more tools for turning failure into success and manifesting what you want in your life, consider joining my Mind Over Music Monthly Membership Circle for 2014. You get a live group session with me every month with specific methods and assignments on how to change your mindset to create a career and life that you love. Sign up now to get in for 2014 (monthly or yearly subscription!) We’re giving away a 31 Day Joyful Mindset Experience to members!

Share your feelings after going through your review in the comments below.

©2013 Cari Cole, Vocal Mag, Inc. All Rights Reserved.