3 Things to Audit Every Quarter [PERSONAL EDITION]
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Last week, we took a look at a Quarterly Biz Audit. But, as we approach the end of a quarter, it's also really important to take a step back and reflect on your personal life: the progress we've made toward our goals, what’s working and not working in our lives, and our successes/memories. In this blog post, we'll discuss why a quarterly audit is important and how you can conduct one for yourself, including screenshots from my own personal quarterly audits and a walkthrough video below!
Why a Quarterly Audit is Important
I’m obsessed with the idea of reviews and self-reflection. Why? Because they build the muscle of self-awareness in our lives and only through self-awareness can we start to move the needle toward and anti-burnout, de-stressed lifestyle. A lifestyle where we can work less and live more. To do that, we need to have a close eye on things! Abso-fricken-lutely! A quarterly audit helps you:
Evaluate your progress toward your goals
Identify what's been working and what's not
Celebrate your successes
Adjust your approach and set new goals for the next quarter
By regularly conducting a personal quarterly audit, you can stay on track toward achieving your goals, adapt to the changes in season in your life (and make sure your habits, behaviors, and routines adapt with you), keep yourself feeling fulfilled and motivated by recognizing and celebrating your successes and memories, and make sure that you're living the life you want to live—which, isn’t that the ultimate goal anyway?!
So, now that we’ve touched on the “why”, let’s take a look at the “how”!
Conducting a Personal Quarterly Audit
Here are the steps to conduct a personal quarterly audit:
Step 1: Evaluate What's Working and What's Not
The first step of my quarterly review process is one massive reflection on what’s working and what’s not working. I do this in a couple different ways (which you can see in my walkthrough below) because you really never know what’s going to resonate or reveal the most important information. I do an overall life reflection to see “what’s working” and “what’s not working” on a life areas scale. If you know my Notion™ systems at all, you know that these are the core areas that I really build my life, my goals and my behaviors around. So, I start by taking a broad look at that.
Then, using my monthly and weekly reviews, I spend some concerted time reflecting on the routines and mindsets you've developed over the past quarter. Some questoins you can ask yourself when you’re doing this include:
Are there any routines or mindsets that have been particularly helpful or harmful in achieving my goals?
If a routine or mindset is not working, what is the root cause?
Is it a lack of motivation, organization, or discipline?
Once you've identified the issue, this allows you to step into a very actionable, intentional places so that you can work on developing a new routine or mindset that better serves you and your goals! So you can see a sneak peek into my process down below…
Step 2: Reflect on Your Memories and Successes
Obviously, I’m a fan of taking time to celebrate the progress you've made and the memories you've created over the past quarter. You can see those questions included at the bottom of the image above. Sometimes, it’s so easy for us to forget what we accomplished or what wonderful life moments we lived in the last month unless we are consciously reminding ourselves of them.
I do this in my weekly reviews, my monthly reviews, and my quarterly reviews. So, by the time it gets to the end of the quarter, I already have a lot of great memories and successes to pull from. To help with this step, ask yourself:
What moments brought me joy?
What accomplishments am I proud of?
When did I step out of my comfort zone?
Celebrating your successes, no matter how small, can help boost your motivation and confidence as you move forward toward your goals. And frankly, think this is huge for the emotional sides of burnout and stress management. When we don’t feel like we’re accomplishing the things we want OR when we don’t feel like we’re living the life we want, it can really throw us off and emotionally burn us out.
Step 3: Review Your Goals
Honestly, I almost made reviewing and checking in on your goals step 1 in this process, but that’s actually not how I do my review. My goals are the last thing I check-in on. And, it’s honeslty not even a “check-in”, though it might be for you. I personally set quarterly goals, which I’ll show you a sneak peek of my how in just a second. If you’re a yearly goal setter, each quarter is a great time to check-in.
So, take some time to review the goals that you set for yourself at the beginning of the quarter. Ask yourself:
Have I made progress toward achieving my goals?
If not…
Did I set unrealistic expectations for myself? What were they?
Did unexpected events occur that prevented me from working towards my goals? What?
Do I need to work on any habits and routines? What might I change?
Similarly to above, what isn’t working that you can change?
If you did…
What are some wins you can celebrate?
What are the things that are working? How can you lock those things further into your life?
Once you've identified any barriers, you can adjust your approach and set more achievable goals for the next quarter.
As I mentioned, though, I don’t set yearly goals. I set quarterly goals, so though I’m not reviewing my goals, I am using all the information that I’ve gathered from the previous parts of my quarterly review to set goals for the next quarter…
I actually recently made some changes to this process, but I’m really excited about them because it feels a bit more streamlined into my actual Notion systems. Again, to check-out some of the actual process, tune into the YouTube video I shared below..
So, basically, why should you do this?
A personal quarterly audit is a valuable tool for evaluating your progress, identifying barriers, obstacles, and challenges, and celebrating your successes. By taking the time to reflect on your goals, what's working and what's not, and your memories and successes, you can set yourself up for a more productive and fulfilling next quarter. Remember, self-reflection is a key component of personal growth and development and to stress and burnout management.
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