The Ultimate Quarterly Review: A Powerful Tool for Personal Growth

Where the Road Bends is a newsletter and podcast by Steve Schlafman offering musings on personal evolutions, life transitions, and conscious change. If you were forwarded this email and it resonates, get the next issue delivered to your inbox:

“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
—Peter Drucker

Hello! As someone who values self-reflection and personal growth, I've been conducting annual reviews since 2015. You may be familiar with my passion project, The Ultimate Annual Review, which has already helped over 25,000 individuals from more than 75 countries reflect on their progress and set goals for the future.

But I recently realized that reviewing my life just once a year wasn't nearly enough to truly understand my progress and make necessary adjustments. I discovered that I’d complete my annual review in December, forget about it a few months later, and then let instincts and opportunities guide me.

During my recent Think Week in Asheville, I decided to conduct a quarterly review for the first time. I was shocked by how much I had achieved in just three months, including pivoting my coaching practice, launching my podcast, and updating my website. It was also inspiring to see my goals for the next quarter take shape without much effort. I could easily see where I wanted to go and what steps I had to take to get there.

What I particularly appreciated was how the shorter timeframe made the review much more relevant and actionable. Being able to see tangible progress over three months and break down my goals into smaller chunks gave me a new sense of accomplishment and motivation to keep going.

Overall, this reflection exercise has been an illuminating and empowering experience that I'm eager to repeat every quarter from now on. And I felt inspired to make it available to you.

That's why I'm excited to introduce the first version of The Ultimate Quarterly Review, a powerful template that can help you reflect on the past quarter, gain insights, and set actionable goals for the next three months.

The review process has four steps:

1. Plot your important memories and milestones on a timeline to gain a better understanding of your journey.

2. Capture meaningful reflections, lessons, and insights, such as what you’re most proud of, what changes you noticed, and what lessons you learned.

3. Conduct a retrospective to identify behaviors or beliefs that you want to start, stop, or continue.

4. Determine your intentions, goals and action plan for the next three months.

I recommend taking your time with the exercises, blocking out a few hour-long sessions to complete the review, and creating a distraction-free environment to help you focus. This review process is not meant to be prescriptive, so feel free to move through the exercises in any order that feels right for you. It will probably take you a week to complete, but remember to have fun with it.

Conducting a quarterly review is a powerful and thought provoking practice that can bring you the focus and inspiration you need to move forward into the quarter with more clarity and confidence.

Whether you're a student, founder, creator, or just someone passionate about personal growth, I invite you to try The Ultimate Quarterly Review and unlock your full potential.

As always, don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or comments. I’d love to hear from you with feedback and stories. Good luck!