Cycles – ElPropósito2 min de lectura

A year-end review

Another year is ending, and with it a long list of goals, dreams and ideas that came up along the way. I hope what we wished for came true, and that whatever we couldn’t achieve at least taught us something. At the close of a year as good as 2024, it’s worth asking three key questions:

What did I/we do well?
2. What did I/we do wrong?
3. What could I/we have done better?

Those three questions make up a short lessons-learned review that can help us improve next year. Why close the year this way? Let me explain.

What did we do well?

Start with all the good things we harvested, day by day and hour by hour. This first step isn’t easy, because it asks us to recall everything that went right, and our brains like to conserve energy. It takes more effort to see the beauty of a painting and take in the artist’s message than to spot its flaws. Mistakes simply grab our attention more readily than successes do. Remembering the good matters because it shows us which strategies worked. That’s why we begin with what we did well.

What did we do wrong?

Owning our mistakes is hard, and it’s essential to moving forward. This is where we list every cost that brought no return, not even a lesson: wasted time, other people’s time we wasted, resources we misused and so on. It’s one of the most strategic parts of the review, because it’s where we see our weaknesses and gaps. In many teams, when this step is done honestly, it produces the best options for future results.

What could we have done better?

It’s easy to judge the past with what we know today, and nothing is more revealing than looking back with hindsight. Everything we could have done better points to our ability to anticipate what’s coming. When we answer this question thoughtfully, we often find that we had the information all along and simply didn’t see the best decision clearly.

As one cycle closes and another opens, this short review is vital. It can surface exactly the information we need to start a new chapter with a clear mind and a rare chance to keep our eyes on what truly matters.

Happy New Year. May 2025 bring you health, plenty of work and many blessings.

Warm regards and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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