So here you are in the new year. Congratulations by the way. Regardless of anything else, you made it to 2019. The new year is a great time to really look at where you are in your life. I’m a huge supporter of people reflecting over their lives and taking stock some time to time. In psychotherapy, the therapist and client look over the client’s life approximately every 6 months, not just to see where the client is at, but also to make sure that what they are working on in therapy is still helpful. Taking that idea outside of therapy: this is a great time in the year to see if what you’ve been doing and what you have going on right now is still working for you. Are your coping skills still helping you or are they getting in the way? Are there other things you could be doing to improve your life? What things are working for you and what do you have on lock? In this piece, I want to show people how to do their own life reassessments so they can start to really look at where they are and then make moves to live their life with more intention, purpose, and satisfaction. These are open-ended questions for a reason. Answering them with 1 or 2 words isn’t really gonna get you much out of this. Answer the questions like you are having a conversation with someone. That should help you answer with enough detail to really make the best use of these kinds of questions. This is the kind of effort that really could set your new year off right.

(Important reassessment tool: Mindfulness strategies. Finding the techniques that best fit their needs can go a long way in helping people gain more self-knowledge and become more self-aware. Deeper, clearer awareness is priceless in a world that purposely tries to create confusion. This post here will help you find the right mindfulness strategy for your needs.)

Self and Identity

This section focuses on who you are as a person. Your inner self. How you see yourself and how you want the world to see you. And what it means to be you. Many people kind of coast through life, not really actively or intentionally thinking about who they are beyond who and what society and the people around them say they should be. While you’re reading the mindfulness post, I also really suggest checking out my piece on socialization here as a helpful starting point to learning what socialization is and how it influences each part of our lives.   

Questions to Help You Reflect

• How would you describe your gender and gender presentation/expression (gender presentation/expression is how your gender looks on the outside by way of your clothes, body language, etc.)?

• Do you have any gender-related concerns?

• What are some of your strengths?

• What are some things you would like to improve about yourself?

• If you could wake up tomorrow, and all the barriers/obstacles are gone and there was nothing holding you back, what would you want going on in your life? How could you get closer to that point in this life?

• What are 3 things you could do tomorrow to get you towards where you want to be?

Family/Home Life

This section focuses on your family (biological relatives and chosen family) and your life once you close and lock your front door. For many, one’s family is their foundation. It is your first set of relationships and, for many, your most long-lasting. It’s a good idea to reflect on what family means to you and the kind of family you want for yourself. Think about what would create a safe and satisfying home life for you and the people you care about.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• How would you describe your average day outside of work/school?

• How would you describe your home life?

• Who would you consider to be your family today? In sessions with clients, I’ve had clients document each person’s name, who they are to them, and the quality of the relationship with each person to get a better sense of the client’s family. Feel free to do the same with yourself while answering this question.

Your People

This section focuses on your squad, your social circle, your social support system, and the other people around you. It’s important to take an intentional look at the people and the relationships in your life. The people around you have a huge effect on your mental health, stress levels, sense of happiness, life satisfaction, and your decision making. A solid support system lifts each other up and creates safer spaces for each other in an oppressive world. Humans (with some rare exceptions) generally are social. Mental health wellness depends on some level on the kinds of people we keep around us.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• What social supports do you have in your life? Include: family, friends, sexual, romantic, etc. partners, professional/school contacts, any trusted medical and mental health providers, your religious community, any social groups you are a part of, etc.

• What are the significant relationships in your life? What about each relationship makes it important to you? What do you love about each relationship? What parts could be improved? How would you go about telling them this?

School/Job/Career

This section focuses on the time you spend at school, at work, caregiving, doing volunteer/charity work, and any other kind of work you do in your life. Including any and all the work you do, legal or otherwise, paid or unpaid, on and off the books, etc. Especially in this capitalistic society, the kinds of work we do become more than a title, they become part of our identity. Any unhappiness, lack of satisfaction, conflict, etc. in this area of your life can feel even worse because it is so tied up with our sense of who we are and our ability to eat, pay bills, and provide for our loved ones. And if everything is going well, celebrate that and look to your future. What are ways you can grow and improve in your work?

Questions to Help You Reflect

• What kind of student/worker are you?

• How satisfied are you with where you are in this area of your life?

• Any issues learning new information or managing your work load?

• Any interpersonal issues with professors/bosses or fellow students/co-workers? If you are experiencing harassment at your workplace or school, check out my suggestions for documenting it and protecting your mental health in this piece here about deescalating conflict in White-dominated workplaces as a Black person.

• How do you set and maintain firm boundaries at work/school?

• Do you do any volunteer work? What kind of volunteer work would you be interested in?

• Have you lost your job recently? Check out my piece here on making unemployment a time for personal growth and healing.

• What are some new skills you want to learn? How else can you grow or add more love to the many kinds of work you do?

Health

This section focuses on your mental and physical health and overall wellness. In this “wake up and grind” kind of society, many people are constantly pushing themselves more and more without stopping to check in with their bodies and minds. This isn’t a solid longterm game plan and will get expensive eventually with the terrible healthcare we have in this country. Taking care of your body and mind as you go is working smart. Whether your goals include finishing school, paying your bills, and/or moving us closing to revolution and decolonization, it won’t be possible to achieve if you aren’t investing in yourself now.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• How often do you go to a Dr for bloodwork and a checkup? When was your last appt?

• How often do you get tested for sexually transmitted infections? When was your last appt?
• How much do you sleep every night and what is the quality of your sleep (on a scale from 1-5, 5 being the best quality)?

• What is your diet like? Take at the very least 5 days, maybe even a week or 2, and document what you eat everyday (as best as you can), and how you feel on a scale from 1-5, 5 being the highest. Are you happy with what you find? What would be your ideal eating habits?

• Do you exercise? What does exercise look like for you? How long is each session? How many times a week?

• Do you have a history of disordered eating, (including any binge eating and/or going without eating with the purpose of losing weight)? What techniques/strategies are you using to eat in a healthier way? Which techniques are working for you? Who do you call for support when under a lot of stress?

• Are you prescribed medication? How often do you take it as prescribed?

• How often in the last 2 weeks have you felt sad, down, hopeless, not feeling pleasure in most things, and/or not interested in things you used to like/love doing? How often have these feelings stopped you from doing what you needed to do and/or have influenced your decision-making? Do you know the signs and symptoms of depression? See my depression piece here for more info.

• How often in the last 2 weeks have you felt anxious, keyed up, on edge, irritable, worried uncontrollably, etc.? On a scale from 1-5, with 5 being high? It might be helpful for you to track these feelings throughout the week: 1) day, 2) time, 3) brief description of the situation, 4) how you felt, and 5) the intensity from 1-5 with 5 being the most intense. How often have these feelings influenced your decision-making or affected your behavior or your ability to do what you need to do?

• How often in the last 2 weeks have you felt angry, in a rage, tense/agitated, irritable, etc.? Again, this is something that might be useful to keep track of for at least a week: 1) day, 2) time, 3) brief description of the situation, 4) how you felt, and 5) the intensity from 1-5 with 5 being the most intense. How often have these feelings influenced your decision-making or otherwise affected your behavior or your relationships with the people around you?

• What is your pain level today? And how has it been for the past week? On a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the most painful. How often has pain stopped you from going about your day?

Sex and Sexuality

This section focuses on sexuality and sexual awareness. The stigma and socialization built around sex and sexuality makes this area complicated for many people. There’s always the social expectation and pressures for everyone to play certain specific roles and play by certain rules in mandatory cisgender heterosexuality. Everyone is pushed to be cisgender, allosexual, and heterosexual. Any difference from that: people who are transgender, non-binary, intersex, asexual, gay, bisexual, queer, etc. is punished, held back from participating in various parts of society, killed, etc. And the people who are actually cishet are still forced to play by certain strict gender and sexual expectations for life to keep their privileges…or face their own consequences. Finding your true allosexual or asexual self is so hard in a world that tells you that anything different from what’s expected either doesn’t exist or isn’t even human. To live as you are is revolutionary. To begin to learn yourself and to unlearn socialization is life-changing.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• How would you describe your sexual orientation?

• If you have sex, how satisfied are you with your current sexual activity?

• If you have sex, how satisfied are you with the quality of the sex you have?

• If you have sex, do you experience any pain during sex?

• If you have sex, have you experienced sexually compulsive behavior, meaning sexual behavior that is difficult to control and that has started to negatively affect other areas of your life like your health, your job, etc. (in ways that are not directly connected to the stigmatization of sexuality and/or bigotry)?

Substance Use

This section focuses on a very, very common coping skill for many people. Let’s be real and honest here. Drug use, legal or illegal, isn’t a problem by itself from a physical and mental point-of-view. Drug use only becomes a problem when your use starts to become chaotic and starts to negatively impact other areas of your life. If you want to learn a little more information about drugs, substance use, and how to know if it has become a problem for you, check out my Drugs 101 piece here.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• What substances (legal and/or illegal) do you use at this time in your life?

• When did you first start using each substance?

• When was the last time you used each substance?

• How do you ingest each substance (swallowing/eating/chewing/drinking, smoking, vaporizing, inhaling/snorting, injecting, through the skin via a patch/liquid, etc.)? Is there a healthier/safer/less damaging to your body way you could try using instead?

• How much do you use of each drug? And how often a week?

Spirituality

 This section focuses on the place that spirituality has in your life. One’s spiritual beliefs and/or religious/spiritual community serve as an important coping strategy, social support, and source of deep connection for so many people. Your spiritual beliefs, assuming you have any, should lift you up and give you a sense of meaningful purpose. It would be concerning if your beliefs or community was becoming a negatively stressful part of your life. Like any other area of your life, it is worth reflecting to make sure that you are getting what you need.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• What kind of spiritual beliefs do you hold?

• How satisfied are you with this area of your life?

• Are there any struggles you have in this area of your life?

• Any interpersonal issues with other members of your spiritual community?

• Are you interested in any other spiritualities/religions? What kind would you be interested in?

Self Care 

This section focuses on your relationship with yourself. Self care is a word that’s becoming very popular on social media and in progressive spaces, but many people are not exactly clear on what self care really means and what it actually looks like for them in the real world. That’s how you have people drinking lemon water, but only getting 4 hours of sleep every night, for example. Self care is all the ways you can take care of your mental and physical health. For a deeper explanation of what self care is and how it can help you grow, check out my post on self care here.

Questions to Help You Reflect

• When and how do you find time for yourself?

• How do you nurture, grow, and maintain your relationship with yourself?

• How do you set boundaries with others and with yourself to take care of your mental and physical health? Check out my intro to setting boundaries piece here for more basic information on what boundaries are and how to set them. Here is a 2-Part series on how to set boundaries with family members as a way to protect your mental/physical health from toxic relationships with loved ones (Part 1 here) and as a way to make your closest relationships even stronger and more fulfilling (Part 2 here).

• What do you like to do for fun?

• How do you relax?

Any time is a great time to take a fresh look at your life, but the start of a new year motivates a lot of people to take some time and reflect. I personally like to give myself space to check in on my life every 6 months. As y’all know by now, I am huge on self-awareness, self-reflection, and maintaining a healthy, solid relationship with yourself and those around you. Taking steps to live your life as intentionally as possible in a society that is constantly pushing you to check out and live only according to how we were all socialized is beyond a power move…it is life changing. Taking realistic and compassionate assessments your own needs and walking in the spirit of that truth is something I want for all of us.

Thanks for reading and thank you for reading for an entire year. It has been a pleasure to write for y’all. The next piece covers taking breaks between romantic relationships for personal growth.