One of my all-time favourite productivity authors is Leo Babauta of Zen Habits.
He has this excellent idea about setting New Year’s goals, which is: don’t do it. At least not until you’ve taken stock of everything that happened over the last year.
He has a process that he calls the “Sacred Bow” (rhymes with cow) – which is to look at each month over the last year and simply note the major events that occurred.
Then look at all of the lessons you learned and all of the accomplishments that you achieved over the last year.
I did this with clients in The Switch Mastermind coaching group in December, then took myself through it during the winter break… and it was a very enlightening process.
I realised that 2025 was a huge year for me, even if it didn’t result in huge external results.
At the start of the year, when I set goals, I had no idea or plan or intention of bringing my mum (who requires full time care) to live with us for a year. And towards the end of the year, I had no intention of her eventually leaving my home and going to live with other family members in Manchester.
A lot has happened over the last 12 months, including a lot of unexpected challenges and many unexpected accomplishments and achievements.
It makes me wonder how short-sighted it is to start setting goals in the hope that they’ll make you feel better and make your life better… when in reality you’ve already set and achieved and attempted and failed at many goals, and oftentimes we don’t pause to learn the lessons from it, or realise what it’s done for us or how we feel about it.
This is the kind of introspection that leads to us understanding the real reasons for our failures and successes so that we can improve, year upon year.
It’s simply a basic form of what’s known in the Islamic tradition as “muhasabah” – of taking oneself to account.
And it turns out, this dramatically increases our chances of success.
If you want more ideas on how to make 2026 the best year of your life, starting first thing in the morning, you might like to check out the Productive From Fajr program.
The free preview web-class is available now at:
www.mamoonyusuf.com/PFF
