Planning for the End of Year Blues

Hello, and welcome to The Travelling Introvert. Today, we're gonna talk about the end of year blues. It's that period of time towards the end of the year when Spotify brings out

their wraps if you're into Spotify. I do not have a spot well, I don't use it the way they want me to, so I don't have a wrap. But people start looking at what they've done during the year, what they've listened to, what they've read, what they've accomplished, and all of these things. And along with that is can come lamenting, can come that dreaded comparison. I've definitely seen posts where someone's like, oh, congratulations on reading all these books and on doing this and being so achieved. All I did was actually get out of bed every day and I'm happy. And it's one of these times of year that really can bring out both the worst and the best in people and also people's mental health. And honestly, this is one of the reasons that I've tried to shift when I do my yearly review or my yearly planning not to necessarily be at the end of the year when everyone else is doing it.

I know that maybe if you have a job that's kind of where that happens because you're doing performance planning and all of that sort of a thing, but that doesn't stop you doing personal planning at a different time. And what I found is that doing planning at a time that feels a little lighter in the year, maybe there's more sunshine out, that you're generally in a happier state of mind, you tend to be more positive and forward looking and give yourself more grace rather than at a time of year when maybe there's less sunlight, you're not feeling as happy. Other things are are vying for your attention because this also tends to be the time of year when lots of people are visiting or have time off or there's holidays and there's social engagement and there's just so much going on that it can make it extremely difficult to prioritize yourself without guilt or just even have the time to review and look back at what you've done and what you're thinking about. And so this is the reason actually why I created a tool that helps you sort of track what you've been doing over the year but and also why I try and do a review not around this time of year. There's other things that I wanna be doing and you also kind of might get sucked into the Black Friday stuff. A lot of sales were going on, a lot of shiny objects, and you're picking up things, and it's overwhelming and all of these things to do. But if you've already made a plan before then, you will then only pick up things that are useful towards your plan moving forward rather than changing your plan because of the shiny thing that you have picked up. And so having said that, if you are planning around the end of the year, a lot of people tend to get sort of the end of year blues.

And so try and think about a different way of planning or reviewing or maybe even putting it off until maybe January or February and starting your your time then when you've got a better idea of what your world might look like. You're probably sleeping better, eating better, drinking better, all of that good, so that sounded like I was, like, drinking better. Drinking water? Better. But if not, if it comes to the case where you have to do some planning now, I highly recommend the bingo method. I did not create this. I've seen this online, but I used it last year. I've used it with people who are not sort of in the same line of work as me, and it's been a wonderful thing. So the create a bingo card.

There's lots of templates online, and you pick there's 24 hot things that you have to fill in. 12 should be personal, 12 should be business or career career related, and then randomize them. You get a randomizer online and stick them on a bingo card. And it doesn't have to be big things. It could be I think I had one that was like sell $10 worth of tools because I wanted to start making tools this year. So I wanted to set something that was hopefully obtainable, to sell a certain amount of tools. Some things could be lofty. It could be make sure that my parents set up their, like, end of life stuff It's really important and really good to get done, but isn't necessarily, like, a goal that people would think of as a New Year's resolution.

And so having these goals randomly put on a bingo card and maybe you give yourself a prize for getting a line or two lines or whatever you do for a full house, it's motivating in a really interesting way. Whereas a a target that you wouldn't normally think about, oh, well, I need this line so I need to go and do this thing. There's more about that and I do, bingo planning sessions. There will be one for introvert day on the 2nd January. So, I hope you join me. And if you've missed that, I will put some of my instructions in a blog post soon. Have a great rest of your week.