⚗️ A weekly ritual that changed my life, and a template to create your own.

The secret to aligning your daily actions with your long-term vision is introspection. It took me more than twenty years to realize that.

Hola amigos 🤸 this week I have something juicy for you: I’m sharing my weekly reflection ritual, the practice that has driven the most significant changes in my life through the years, helping me transform intention into action.

I made a Notion template that you can download here if you’d like to implement it in your life, or use it as a guiderope to create your own. You don't need notion for this practice, pen and paper or any other notetaking app will do.

This twenty minutes or less Sunday ritual will allow you to build the road that drives you towards your vision, and maybe after some time practicing it you might find out you want to re-shape the vision itself.

This is always a good sign: re-invention.

Last issue we talked about why the most efficient way to reach your goals is reflecting on why you’re not there yet. This week I want to expand on that superpower: reflection.

What is a weekly reflection ritual?

Simply put, it is the practice of reflecting on what is working and what is not.

And most importantly, why.

How to create your own weekly reflection ritual

This can be done in a notebook, on my Notion template, on a notetaking app like Evernote, or on any introspection medium that you like. or on any introspection medium that you like.  The important piece is that you do it consistently every week in order to start getting the transformational benefits. You need "data" in order to start seeing the patterns. (ps. that's the transformational part).

Every Sunday I pull out my review, I ask myself a couple of questions, and I journal for twenty minutes. This is my weekly review, in a nutshell.

You can download the template to follow along my questions and prompts, but the idea is that you experiment with it and make it your own.

I've divided these questions into three parts: past, present and future.

On the past section I pull out my to-do list and see what I achieved this past week. I ask myself one simple question: did I do the things I said I was going to do, or not? Then I journal about how I felt in the past week: what got my best energy? What tasks where hard to start? What tasks felt transformational?

Then I move on into the present section, and I ask myself: how do I feel right now? This section is about the direction I'm aiming towards, am I walking the right path? Am I walking my own path?

I reflect on my pact, a small list of actions that I commit to doing consistently trusting that they will bring the biggest growth leaps.

(The Notion template has as a whole section with instructions on how to craft your pact).

Finally, I move into the future section where I transform these insights into action.  I use a simple Plus Minus Next chart and quickly jot down my highs (plus), my lows (minus), and the next steps for the upcoming week (next).

The last part of the review is looking at my "next" column, and scheduling those next steps into my calendar.

And that's it! After going through these three sections you should have a better sense of how your last week went, how your emotional landscape looks like at the moment, and where you want to go next.

All under twenty minutes, once a week.

Where the magic happens: patterns.

So how can a simple twenty minute practice once a week work so miraculously? Because it works holistically: all three parts work together to reveal the changes you need to implement in your life.

The past section works with the what: what did I do? The present inspects the why: why am I doing it? and finally, the future puts it all together into action: the how. How am I getting there?

You see potential growth loops, and the only thing you need to do is: reflect.

I read this somewhere: you can't grow what you can't keep track of. My way of seeing it: you can't grow what you don't pay attention to.

After a few weeks of "data" something incredible will happen: you will start to become aware of patterns. This is when the magic begins: you gain the power to create your own growth loops, and use them to live a more mindful, intentional life where every day is a step towards your vision.

I hope this ritual infuses your life with purpose, I've been doing it for years and playing around with formats and questions, and as I've said it is the single most powerful introspection practice I've cultivated through time.

In my pre-nomad life when I was a bullet journal freak I had so much fun doing these reviews on my journals, so if you're more into analog journaling feel free to use the Notion template as a guide.

If you do want to use the template and you're new to Notion I have a blog post on instructions on how to navigate the template here.

Next week we will dive into my favorite moment of the year: the annual review ritual. Stay tuned!

Thank you for reading! See you next time 🎱