Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review

by Tiago Forte

A proven, powerful framework for reclaiming clarity on your life, your values, and your goals—from the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Building a Second Brain and The PARA Method.

In our age of hyperconnectivity and information overload, it’s easy to lose sight of what matters most. Weeks blur into months and accomplishments quickly fade into the next obligation. Important decisions get made in reaction to circumstances instead of in alignment with our deepest values. How do we regain our sense of perspective on what matters?

In Life in Perspective, Wall Street Journal bestselling author Tiago Forte distills the ancient practice of the annual life review into a modern, step-by-step method—drawing on nearly twenty years of personal practice and the experience of teaching it to thousands of people worldwide.

At the heart of this book is the ARC Appreciate the Past, Reflect on the Present, and Create the Future. Through guided journaling, gratitude practices, visualization exercises, thoughtfully designed prompts, you will learn how to revisit the year you’ve lived, uncover hidden patterns in your experiences, identify what is most alive for you now, and translate those insights into meaningful projects and plans for the future.

Whether you turn to it as a yearly ritual or a trusted guide during pivotal moments, Life in Perspective is not a book about doing more. It is a book about seeing more clearly—and discovering that the biggest changes in life often begin not with a new plan, but with a new point of view.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Productivity

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 3, 2026

About the author

Tiago Forte is one of the world’s foremost experts on productivity and has taught thousands of people around the world how timeless principles and the latest technology can revolutionize their productivity, creativity, and personal effectiveness.

He has worked with organizations such as Genentech, Toyota Motor Corporation, and the Inter-American Development Bank, and appeared in a variety of publications, such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, and Harvard Business Review. Find out more at Fortelabs.com.

Reviews

[Demetri Papadimitropoulos · Rating 3.75 out of 5]

You Might Be Remembering Your Life Wrong, and Your Old Notebooks Know It
Inside Tiago Forte's “Life in Perspective,” Where Twenty Years of Plans, Gratitude Lists, and Letters Challenge the Stories We Tell Ourselves About Success, Failure, and Fate
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | October 23rd, 2026

During his twenties, Tiago Forte wrote down a goal: passive income exceeding expenses by age thirty-three. Two decades later, he opens the notebook and finds a stranger’s definition of freedom in his own handwriting. What, then, has a goal recorded in good faith actually preserved? Not a failed prophecy, exactly. A record of what freedom meant before he discovered that work could be worth keeping. “Life in Perspective” is strongest when the records of an ordinary life become evidence against the certainty of its current narrator. But after showing how thoroughly people revise their understanding of experience, Forte begins to suggest that experience was always headed toward the right conclusion. A notebook can prove its owner has changed. It cannot prove that change was destined.

Each year-end reckoning arrives with a calendar, a list of accomplishments, and a faint suspicion that twelve months have been badly managed. Forte proposes a less prosecutorial ceremony. It is a recurring appointment with the experiences that busyness has reduced to fragments. The method, called ARC, proceeds through three stages: Appreciate the Past, Reflect on the Present, Create the Future. Readers revisit records, notice what still moves or troubles them, describe a desired life, and translate some of that vision into projects. They ultimately write a letter that a later self can reopen. Forte asks readers to look at what they have lived before deciding what comes next. The records may have other, less convenient ideas.

Mortality enters before the spreadsheets. In the prologue, Forte recounts living in Rio de Janeiro and filming the street in the favela where he was staying when a man with an assault rifle confronted him. The later pages will offer checklists and plain advice about soundtracks. The threat makes the question of how to spend a life urgent; the following New Year occasions Forte’s first annual review. An armed confrontation makes a perilously neat origin story for a system of self-examination. Yet its extremity also keeps the later paperwork in proportion. Forte’s subsequent advice is at its strongest when it remembers that reflection begins with vulnerability rather than managerial ambition.

Early in his thirties, a different reckoning awaits. Turning thirty, Forte abandons the conventional New Year’s timetable and uses his birthday to examine the reviews of his twenties. Lauren and a possible proposal, self-employment and money weigh on him. He prints the reviews and spreads them over his desk, walls, and floor. Instead of scrolling through an orderly file, he finds himself physically surrounded by evidence of earlier expectations. The office becomes a physical argument: the papers do not yield a commanding view of his twenties; they crowd him with unfinished versions of himself. Perspective, for once, means uncomfortable proximity.

The gratitude exercise goes wrong in a revealing way. Forte expects to count his blessings and finds himself grieving. He counts 328 things for which he had once been grateful, ranging from a standing desk and loose-leaf tea to a Peace Corps assignment in eastern Ukraine. The numbers impose an absurd democracy: loose-leaf tea and eastern Ukraine occupy the same ledger, though one promised a calmer afternoon and the other an entirely different life. A list also records what did not happen. The number beside a small pleasure gives it a weight the present might deny, while the numbering itself refuses to predict what will matter. Forte’s observation that gratitude and grief are closely related is earned here by the scene’s resistance to the sentiment he expected it to confirm. His archive has not congratulated him. It has made him answerable to people he used to be.

Reading old reviews also means confronting the mind that remembers them. At the chapter’s opening, memory “edits, compresses, and rearranges”; the verbs are brisk, active, accusatory. Memory is not a damaged filing cabinet; it is an editor working without the author’s permission. Forte then says that reviewing the year means more than collecting evidence: “You are not just recalling your year. You are bringing it back to life.” The second sentence borrows the language of resurrection for an exercise in selective reconstruction. We cannot resurrect the former self; we can encounter traces that complicate our account of that person. The best pages leave that distance open.

In practical terms, the raw material is unglamorous: calendars, photographs, journal entries, saved quotations, reading highlights, completed projects, abandoned goals. Tools ordinarily associated with productivity become instruments for questioning the values that productivity served. A calendar can expose where attention went, but not necessarily where affection belonged. He contrasts cold appointments with warm photographs. Photographs preserve chosen moments; calendars, obligations. One records what seemed worth seeing, the other what demanded attendance. Neither is neutral. The archive is a second, differently biased witness, and their disagreements are often more revealing than either record alone.

Pile up enough records and it is tempting to mistake possession for understanding. Forte admits that his early attempts to document everything were exhausting and counterproductive. He now recommends curating consequential or resonant details rather than constructing an exhaustive inventory. This matters coming from the author of “Building a Second Brain” and “The PARA Method.” Here the more mature insight is that collection is not comprehension. The reader needs enough evidence to disturb a convenient narrative. Only then can the reader begin arguing with the evidence.

Appreciation is Forte’s most carefully handled term. He refuses the suggestion that readers must call a painful year a blessing or pretend that loss was secretly desirable. Instead, he draws on two meanings of the word: recognizing value and the increase of value over time. “What you appreciate appreciates.” A term from the balance sheet becomes a theory of emotional hindsight. Experience may gain value as its interpreter changes. Its weakness is contained in the same grammatical elegance: what gains value for a person may begin to sound as though it was inherently valuable all along. Forte asks, “What was this year trying to teach me?” The question is hospitable to discovery, but its personification assigns the year an intention. An experience may yield a lesson without having been designed to deliver one. The distinction matters most when what happened still hurts.

Past desires are not granted permanent voting rights. Forte asks what feels alive now, rather than merely what once seemed admirable. Complaints become clues to frustrated values; excitement, something worth examining instead of dismissing. An acronym looks permanent on the page; the desires it sorts may be anything but. Desire may change with relationships, work, fatigue, confidence, or simply a better understanding of one’s appetites. That is a more exacting kind of permission than the familiar injunction to follow one’s dreams: it asks whether a dream remains worth following once the person who dreamed it has changed. The book’s gentler questions are therefore not ornamental. They create room for the reader to say that an earlier plan was sensible for an earlier person and is no longer worth pursuing. The longer someone has worked toward an ambition, the harder it may be to admit that reaching it is no longer the point.

Against the usual invitation to picture a better future immediately, Forte makes visualization wait until recollection and present-tense feeling have had their say. In Chapter 9 he returns to Brazil, fourteen years after the confrontation that opens the book, for the launch of his first book in Portuguese. Family, readers, and the language of his childhood converge in an emotionally persuasive scene. Yet he does not present the imagined future as a literal forecast. He imagines relationships and daily rhythms before backcasting into projects. The vision is meant to orient attention rather than function as a legally enforceable promise. The imagined future is useful precisely because it may later be contradicted.

Deep in the method, the lists and exercises finally acquire a reader. After pages of lists, questions, and exploratory writing, Forte asks readers to distill the experience into something a future self can read in fifteen minutes. The raw review is messy and nonlinear; the letter is a shaped account. He compares the difference to a musician’s practice materials and the finished song. The analogy also exposes a danger: the finished song has been edited until its hesitations disappear, even though those hesitations may have been the point of practicing. Its address to the future creates a peculiar asymmetry: the writer knows the immediate stakes, but not the consequences; the eventual reader knows what followed but cannot fully recover how uncertainty felt. That imbalance is the source of the form’s tenderness. It is an act of authorship, made by a person who has already decided which details deserve to survive. The recipient can ask why the writer saved one quarrel, one small delight, one embarrassment, and omitted another. Such omissions are choices, not defects in a perfect record. Its omissions are part of the evidence. The writer is trying to give a year a shape; the future reader may discover that the shape itself has become the most revealing part. A future reader can notice not only what mattered then, but what the writer could not yet imagine mattered.

In the annual letter, writing does more than preserve what the review found. Forte explains that a person can get away with fragments in a private journal because the intended reader already understands the shorthand. Address a future self, however, and explanation becomes necessary. A decision that seemed obvious must be described; a feeling must acquire circumstances; an assumption must survive the test of a sentence. Forte reports that some of his best insights emerged not during the review but while writing the letter, when an attempt to explain a decision revealed that it did not make sense. That is the book’s most convincing account of how writing changes thought: a decision, set down for another reader, becomes less defensible in the very act of explaining it. The first disagreement may already have happened before the envelope is sealed. That is better than a promise of perfect self-knowledge.

Memory science sharpens the problem behind Forte’s brisk chapter title, “Your Memory Is Lying to You.” Forte cites psychologist Daniel L. Schacter’s account of memory’s recurring distortions in the journal American Psychologist. The letter adds another filter: its writer chooses a narrative, and its later reader interprets the choice. The method therefore cannot deliver an unedited life, whatever the book’s language of clarity occasionally implies. It can make the editing visible. The value lies less in retrieval than in the opportunity to dispute the record. A useful review need not be the last word on a year. It may be the first version that invites a serious reply.

Instruction does not always give Forte’s sentences the life his scenes possess. Forte writes in an accessible alternation of autobiographical scene, second-person encouragement, and practical instruction. His diction favors clarity over surprise, and he is at his most affecting when a concrete object carries the argument: the rifle, the spread of paper, a notebook in old handwriting, a letter folded toward the future. Elsewhere the prose leans on familiar vocabulary of transformation, alignment, vision, and growth. Assurances that there is no wrong way to review may help practitioners but flatten continuous reading. Repetition may help a reader perform the exercises; it also makes the book’s intellectual movement feel slower than its chapter architecture promises.

The best scene also puts pressure on Forte’s comforting oppositions. Forte’s four PACE principles favor pleasure over sacrifice, appreciation over criticism, concreteness over abstraction, and emotion over analysis. But the paired oppositions can be too convenient. Analysis and emotion need not be rivals; criticism can itself be a form of care. The thirtieth-birthday scene defeats the opposition: grief initiates the analysis, and the analysis makes the grief more exact. Trusting those scenes respects the reader. When the advice arrives as a reassuring formula, the method begins to sound more certain than the life it proposes to examine.

Reality returns in the form of what Forte calls the “three-week wall”: the first days glow with possibility, the second week sustains momentum, and then emails accumulate, notifications resume, and the newly imagined future fades behind immediate obligations. The antagonist is not a spectacular reversal but an ordinary inbox. Tuesday, with its unremarkable demands, can undo a year’s most beautiful intentions. His response: share insights, check in, revisit the letter. It also reveals a tension within the book’s promise. A yearly ceremony may clarify desires, but the circumstances that frustrate them return every morning. Reflection can be scheduled. Freedom from interruption generally cannot.

Ordinary obligations are not equally negotiable. In his professional chapter, Forte encourages readers to act as the chief executive of their own lives, testing assumptions and choosing priorities with entrepreneurial discipline. Forte acknowledges that professionals must find time they are not paid to spend reflecting, and that freelancers sacrifice billable hours. Those concessions sharpen rather than settle the question of who can afford the ritual. An executive can change strategy; a worker with rigid hours or a caregiver without respite may have little leverage. He understands that circumstances impose costs. He is less searching about the cases in which a lucid review changes one’s understanding of the problem without increasing one’s power to change it.

Precisely when circumstances resist change, a written record may become useful in another way. After job loss, earlier interests may outlast a title. Someone grieving may find that earlier words preserve a feeling not available on demand. Forte reports readers using their reviews through divorce, bereavement, and professional loss. These are readers’ reported experiences, not independent proof of the method’s general effectiveness. A letter written in a relatively ordinary year can become unexpectedly useful in an extraordinary one. The book calls the practice a kind of insurance for the inner life. Insurance usually promises a payment. Here the return is less predictable: a reminder that the person in crisis has not always been identical to the crisis.

Old goals are the conclusion’s best argument against treating goals as sacred. Forte rereads a failed 2014 course on habits and recognizes that he had been teaching something that did not reflect his own interests. The old ambition to be financially free by thirty-three likewise reveals a mistaken assumption that work was chiefly something to escape. He now finds fulfillment in it. Marriage and fatherhood enter the story, though the latter was never among his enumerated goals. Success becomes difficult to measure. A goal missed may have become irrelevant; a goal met may have been based on an impoverished idea of happiness. His strongest examples demonstrate that a goal can be useful even when its original premise collapses.

Under the river metaphor that closes the book, learning from events begins to look suspiciously like being led by them. At first the image is exact enough. A person in a boat can steer, pause, or accelerate but cannot command the landscape, the weather, or the current. Agency has limits without disappearing. Then the metaphor grows more ambitious. The same current that limits the boat now seems to know where the boat ought to go. Tributaries converge; the life becomes a single current; scattered experiences are said to point toward what the person needs to learn. A river’s physical direction is not evidence that a human life possesses an equivalent destination, much less that every detour was necessary to reach it. Forte’s imagery makes the inference feel continuous even though it crosses a considerable distance. An analogy about navigating limits has become a promise about the current’s wisdom. Observe how the image changes the scale of responsibility: the navigator can choose a stroke of the oar, but the entire watershed supplies the destination. It is a comforting redistribution of power, not a demonstrated account of cause.

Little reveals the river’s ambition more plainly than Forte’s conviction that “everything happens at the right time.” Forte acknowledges that his rational mind resists it, especially in view of war and suffering. That hesitation is not a footnote to dismiss. Earlier, Forte has explicitly refused to rename tragedy as a disguised blessing. The river may be understood as a chosen attitude, a way of loosening fear rather than an argument about cosmic design. Still, personal consolation presses toward general truth. Crystal L. Park’s work on meaning-making in Psychological Bulletin offers a useful distinction here: the effort to make sense of events is not identical to the successful discovery of meaning. Forte’s best evidence establishes the first undertaking, not the last certainty.

One manual for annual reflection need not settle a philosophy of history. Nor is its encouragement merely an embarrassment: a reader dreading self-examination may need permission before precision. The usefulness of a ritual does not depend on its settling every question it raises. Forte’s book is good at turning an intimidating question into manageable acts, and sometimes excellent at revealing what those acts uncover. It less often preserves unresolved implications. That combination earns “Life in Perspective” 79/100, or 3.75/5 on a quarter-star scale: a genuinely worthwhile work whose formal intelligence and emotional usefulness outpace its originality of expression and the rigor of its ultimate consolations. Its best pages teach us to expect uncertainty.

Some of the most useful words in an old notebook are the ones that no longer seem true. They preserve a horizon of possibility that the writer could not see beyond. Forte understands this when he allows the annual letter to become an object for another year, another reader, another interpretation. An old page may preserve an enthusiasm the present reader has lost, or a fear that has since become almost incomprehensible. A younger self plans; an older one reads with surprise. Neither owns the entire story. Somewhere in a drawer, a letter waits for the person who will know more than its writer, and who may have the grace to disagree.

[Dan · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

As someone that has struggled with a journaling/reflection habit, I really liked this book. The author lays out a framework to help you think about the past year — to try and get get deeper — and lay out a step-by-step guide to think about the future. Annual reviews or reflections are always difficult to me because of how scattered my thinking is and I liked how this approach was more grounded. In all honesty, there is also a part of me that is nervous because some of the approaches and questions to reflect to will require me to tap into emotions, memories, etc that my stoic self may not want to revisit. But I am also excited to see what comes out and the positive outcomes across all facets of my life.

The author provides checklists at the end of each chapter that helps you remember key points and has a website with templates that will help you more. I have already started to sketch out how I am going to integrate this into my 2027 planning efforts.

[Kellie Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given the topic (annual review) and the author’s prior work (productivity and digital systems), I expected Tiago Forte’s book Life in Perspective: The Art and Power of the Annual Life Review to describe a tactical and analytical approach. Instead, reading the book was an immersive experience. The inclusion of the word “life” in the title and the subtitle is an important clue about process that Forte presents. Much of the book describes a framework for evaluating all aspects of our life over the past year and in the present to determine how to plan the next year.

Throughout the book, Forte emphasizes the importance of tuning into emotions and feelings to make decisions about the future. He states that “Emotions aren’t the opposite of good thinking. They’re the foundation of it.” At first, I felt he was overstating the role of emotions. However, the book includes advice about rational decision making, with emotions as part of the equation.

To create the optimal conditions for the review, he advises us to avoid approaching it with a judgmental eye. It should be a pleasurable process that pulls us forward. We should appreciate what we accomplished and overcame, instead of criticizing ourselves. I was pleasantly surprised by his instruction to write on paper and find physical artifacts that represent accomplishments. (I am a paper note taker.) Finally, on the topic of emotions, he warns against overthinking and the optimization mindset.

He states that the annual review takes about eight hours and we should be willing to devote the time. Based on his descriptions of the various components of the process, I will not complete my review in eight hours. I am willing to devote the time, but expect it to take two to three days. Maybe subsequent years will not take as long.
This annual life review is a “three-part ritual” that follows his ARC framework: Appreciate the past, Reflect on the present, Create the future.

The review of the past year requires us to collect a vast number of materials, artifacts, and records. Most of us have a lot of digital records. Beyond our traditional records, he introduces the “resonance log,” which we likely will not have for year one. It is not the same as a journal. He advises us to use a dedicated paper notebook for the log. In it, we jot down things that strike us as intriguing or worthy of future thought- things that cause feelings of surprise, interest, confusion, or awe. It seems like a lot to keep track of, but I am willing to experiment. I hope I don’t misplace it!

Forte’s emphasis on the present is the most unique aspect of his annual review framework. Most reviews gather data from the past, present hard numbers about the present, and plan the goals and objectives for the future. He asks us to tune into the present and notice what gives or takes away energy. He describes several tactile ways to surface our current state of being, including journaling about what we do not like, mapping (mind map style) what excites us, and answering reflective questions. I admit it seems like a lot! But the exercises set the stage for creating the future.

The instructions for creating the future include developing a future self-portrait (exceptionally specific visualization exercise) and eventually translating the insights into projects that get us to that future self. The term “project” seemed odd amidst the more conceptual material. But I appreciate his goal- turning dreams into actionable projects.

I accept the overall concept of Forte’s life review framework. It would take tremendous commitment and effort to fully implement. I quickly lost count of the number of reflective prompts, diagrams, charts, visualizations, artifacts that the process includes. If I dedicate the time, it will be fun. Maybe four hours a day over a few weekends. This framework will not work for everyone. However, the mindset the process evokes is refreshing. Even those who will not go through the review process can benefit from reading the book.

[Stephanie Redivo · Rating 4.75 out of 5]

This book landed at the perfect time of year, just as everyone starts contemplating their goals for January. The author gives us a roadmap, not only for creating the future you want, but also for having the patience to pause, appreciate your past, and reflect on your present before you build what’s next.

The main framework is the ARC method: Appreciate the Past, Reflect on the Present, and Create the Future. What I loved is that the book gives you in-depth prompt questions for all three. As humans, we naturally want to sprint straight to the future (hello, New Year’s resolutions), but two-thirds of this book focuses on the past and present. That makes it unique among the methods for reflecting on your year.

I also learned about reflective perspective, the habit of deeply examining your experience, not to fix it, but to understand it. The author sees it as the missing link in our relationship with technology, change, work, and, most importantly, ourselves.

I really appreciated that the book takes you through a preparation stage, too. We all want results yesterday, and this book gently makes you slow down and get ready for each stage of reflection. The author estimates up to eight hours of prep. Yes, hours. Consider it stretching before the marathon.

Chapter 7, “Being present enough to let your life shape you,” was my favourite. It made me think about what is happening in my life right now. When I do a reflection, I usually cover the past and the future, which means I skip the present entirely. Oops.

Over the last few years, I’ve also taken more interest in the Acknowledgments, since they offer a sneak peek into the author’s world. I loved that he thanked his younger self for embarking on this transformation.

Overall, I give this book a 4.75 out of 5. The missing 0.25 is purely personal: I like my books to stay under 250 pages, and this one clocked in at 275.

[Susie Minahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

" A sense of perspective is the antidote to the plague of information overwhelm that has defined the modern age."

That was one of the lines early on in the book really resonated with me. This book provides structure on how to do a comprehensive annual life review. I have started doing annual reviews and goal setting at the end of the year (my favorite time to do this!), but i was very excited to read this book and gain new tools on how to structure and go deeper. I am a very analytical person and maybe have been trapped in the idea of continuing to optimize my life, but this methodology is a little more based on intuition and life dreams. I have time set aside next month to go through this process and I am really looking forward to the new perspective I might gain!

If you are looking for more tools in your tool box on how to live more of an examined and fulfilling life by asking the right questions, I highly recommend reading this book. You can tell it is written from the heart and I sure Tiago's words have and will continue to touch people all over the world!

Note: Advance Copy Received.

[Jason Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The missing first step in every annual review

I've run weekly reviews for years using David Allen's Getting Things Done, so I came to this book skeptical that I needed another review method. Chapter 2 changed my mind. Forte's ARC method runs in a fixed order: Appreciate the past, Reflect on the present, then Create the future. The order is the point. Giving yourself credit for what worked before you plan keeps next year's plan from becoming a reaction to this year's misses. My own system starts from what's still open and never stops to appreciate. That one step is what I'm taking away.

It's practical, too. He's honest about the time it takes (about eight hours) and gives real options for spreading it over a few weeks or doing it in one concentrated day. I'm planning to run my December review using his method exactly as he lays it out.

One quibble: the tie-in to anthropology's rites of passage felt loose and didn't add much. The method stands on its own without it.

(Read through an advance copy from the First Look Club.)

[Lisa Gray · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

It’s coming up on the time of year when people start thinking about making New Year’s resolutions. My own therapist asked me the other day if I wanted to do anything to reflect on the past year. I think we all know reflecting on our lives and making changes and goals for the future is a good thing to do. But how?!? Well, lucky for you, Forte has perfected this process, and walks you step by step through his method - appreciating the past year, reflecting on the present and creating a new future. He has a very clear roadmap with lots of great prompts and even downloadable forms on his website. I read the book in order to review it for y’all but I’m already noodling on how & when I can go through these steps more thoroughly. I really do think it would be useful. This is great for therapists to use as a background formula to guide your clients through a yearly review, or to recommend for clients who really want to make changes in the new year.

[Sandee Priser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most annual reviews focus on what happened during the past year, whether goals were met, and what should come next. Forte reframes the process as one of exploration and perspective, encouraging reflection that incorporates the present moment, personal meaning, and insights that often emerge outside conscious planning. Rather than a purely analytical exercise, the review becomes an opportunity for curiosity, gratitude, and discovery.

What sets the book apart is the flexibility of Forte’s ARC approach. Having tried a variety of personal and professional year-end reviews, I found this framework both adaptable and engaging. The range of prompts and exercises allows each person to shape a review experience that fits their own goals and style, making reflection feel both meaningful and sustainable. Life in Perspective is a practical guide for anyone seeking a more thoughtful and rewarding way to close one year and begin the next

[Rick Janiszewski]

Inspiring, Practical, and Ready to Begin
What a great way to approach each year of life: with a life review. Life in Perspective by Tiago Forte is a wonderful compass for considering your past, present, and future on an annual basis.
As I read, I grew more and more excited to sit down and begin the process. The idea of honestly considering where you are, where you’ve been, and where you want to be is truly magical, and I can’t wait for the start of the year to create my first annual review.
So many of the prompts already have me thinking and reflecting. I’ve even reached out to friends to join me on the adventure.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will give you practical steps to conduct a life review and the reasoning why to do it. I love the idea of breaking the review into 3 pieces (past, present and future) and I intend on completing the review. I’ve always looked to the future and made sure the present is accounted for, but I think it’s fair to say that I’ve never looked at the past year in the way he presents. I love the idea of incorporating a soundtrack during the review – that would never have crossed my mind. I’m so happy I read this book and am looking forward to doing the life review.

[Glitter Me · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic book, it had poignant insights on memory, grief, and reflection. The review process recommended is rather intensive. Amongst other things, eight hours is suggested in order to complete it. Without knowing you will be reviewing your year this way before it’s actually started you might not be able to curate all the information required for a complete overview. If you manage to get this done, I do think it would be unbelievably valuable.

The intro had quite a bit of filler.

[Diane W. Kinsella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally! A year-in-review process that does not feel like navel gazing, is a simple and easy-to-remember process, and provides a grounded/anchored way to create the future one wants. Wow! I love the methodology of ARC [Appreciate the Past, Reflect on the Present, and Create the Future]. There are help mnemonics for setting oneself up for success throughout. I may actually be able to do this and arrive in 2027 with intentionality!

[Lisa Sansom · Rating 4.75 out of 5]

I'm not typically a reflective person. I get stuff done and move on. What I really appreciated about this book was the clear process and the "checklists" that allowed me to do the things, but also reflect at the same time. The book was inviting and friendly, and although I'm not nearly done the book or the "annual life review", I feel hopeful as I'm starting.

[Mary]

This book was easy to read and included good examples, but I didn’t find it particularly useful. It felt long and similar to other books already on the market, and I wouldn’t want to invest the time required to follow the process
I received a free copy of this book for review. These opinions are my own.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could not have released at a better time in my life. Threes days before I headed out on a two week sabbatical - post filing for divorce after 30 years of marriage. I used this book to not only do a life review for the last year but the last 30 as well. The steps translated easily into a broader scope which is what I needed and wanted to do.

[Marykeeley8 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this book! So full of thought-provoking questions that provide an incredibly useful roadmap for guiding the process of an annual life review. So many useful tools that incorporate creativity and provoke insights. Forte is an encouraging and motivating voice whose real examples illuminate the experience.

[Madison Bidwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking the time to do a life review is one of the best things you can do for yourself. This step by step guide is super helpful for anyone needing some direction. Especially with the end of the year, now is a perfect time to look back and do a year end review.