Your Money Story Deserves a Year-End Reflection
Money is one of the most emotionally charged aspects of our professional and personal lives — and one of the least examined in a reflective way. As the year winds down, many people look at financial outcomes: how much they earned, saved, spent, or donated. Those numbers matter. But on their own, they don’t tell the full story.
This post is not about budgeting for January or setting new financial goals just yet. It’s about understanding what this year revealed — beneath the totals, the balances, and the line items. Your money choices reflect your priorities, pressures, habits, fears, and values. When you look at them with curiosity instead of judgment, they become one of the clearest mirrors of how your year actually unfolded.
💡 Why Money Is Such a Powerful Lens for Reflection
Money is where intention and reality collide. It’s easy to intend to save more, spend less, charge more, or feel calmer about money. It’s harder to see clearly why we made the choices we did in real time — under stress, uncertainty, opportunity, or fatigue.
Reflection helps you move beyond “Did I hit the number?” and into more useful questions:
What patterns showed up repeatedly?
What conditions influenced my decisions?
Where did I act with intention — and where did I react?
This kind of review doesn’t just support better financial decisions next year. It strengthens awareness and agency — capacities that matter far beyond money.
🌊 A-Flow: A Practical Lens for Financial Reflection
In my coaching work, I use a simple framework I call A-Flow: Awareness → Acceptance → Actionable Choice. It’s my shorthand for the internal movement that allows people to shift from judgment to agency. Rather than asking, “Did I do this right?” A-Flow invites different questions:
What did I notice?
What did I accept without judgment?
What choices did I make as a result?
This lens is especially useful when reflecting on money, where shame, avoidance, or urgency can easily block learning.
🧭 A Meaningful Financial Review: Four Questions That Matter
As with last week’s post, these questions are not about perfection. They are about learning, empowerment, and intentional choice.
🌱 Question 1: Where did I grow in financial A-Flow this year — awareness, acceptance, and intentional action?:
This is not about perfect numbers. It’s about increased empowerment through learning. Most meaningful financial progress happens through three linked shifts:
Awareness: At what moment did you see your financial reality more clearly — spending patterns, savings habits, income variability, debt, or the moments where money triggered stress or avoidance?
Acceptance: Where did you put aside judgement, guilt, or avoidance and acknowledge your financial concerns authentically (This is where I am right now)?
Acceptance reduces shame and restores choice.Actionable Choice: Where do you feel you made progress in intentional action? Here are some areas to consider:
Gaining knowledge about financial literacy and empowerment
Saving or protecting money
Spending with clarity and purpose
Stabilizing cash flow
Charging appropriately for your work
Matching income to spending with greater empowerment
🦋 Question 2: What were your most transformative financial experiences this year?
Transformation usually comes from specific moments, not annual totals. Think about a real moments when a lightbulb went off for you:
A conversation with a mentor about financial empowerment
An unexpected expense
A decision to invest — or not
A financial boundary you set
A realization that a cost wasn’t sustainable and/or necessary
A risk you took, or deliberately declined
Then ask:
What did this moment teach me?
How did it change how I think about security, sufficiency, or value?
Did it shift my mindset toward greater discernment or intentionality?
These moments quietly shape how you relate to money going forward — often more than any spreadsheet.
Question 3: Where did I gain deeper awareness of my money Dragons — and what helped lessen their impact?
Money has its own set of Dragons — internal stories that influence how we decide under pressure. Some common ones include:
The Scarcity Dragon: “There’s never enough.”
The Avoidance Dragon: “I’ll look at it later, I have plenty of time.”
The Comparison Dragon: “Everyone else is doing better than I am.”
The Security Dragon: “I can’t take any risk.”
The Worth Dragon: “My value is either something I must justify — or something I assume should be unquestioned.”
The Urgency Dragon: “If I pause to reflect, I’ll lose momentum or opportunity.”
This year, where did you notice these narratives shaping your choices? More importantly, what helped lessen their blocking impact?
Better information?
Slowing or speeding up the decision?
Separating facts from assumptions?
Asking for advice?
Reframing your personal worth narratives?
✨ Question 4: Where did I experience joy in my financial life?
Joy and money are rarely discussed together — but they should be. Joy is instructive, not indulgent. It points directly towards personal alignment. Think about moments when:
Your spending aligned with your values
Your giving felt truly meaningful
You invested in your own learning or growth
You chose simplicity over complexity
You held a boundary you felt proud of
You created stability where there used to be stress
Ask yourself:
When did money support my life instead of complicating it?
What choices felt grounding, affirming, or freeing?
What does that tell me about how I want to relate to money going forward?
Why This Reflection Matters
Most people are never taught how to reflect on money without judgment. We’re taught to focus on outcomes — or to avoid looking altogether. An intentional, non-judgmental review builds financial agency. It shifts the question from “Was I good or bad with money?” to “What did I notice, accept, and choose?” Over time, that clarity leads to more grounded decisions and greater self-trust. This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about understanding your patterns — and choosing with intention.
Next week, we’ll turn to another closely connected lens: career development — not titles or milestones, but how your professional identity and direction evolved this year.