Making resolutions is an age-old tradition, the reflection of what has passed and the visioning of what is to come. New Year's Eve is always a good time to identify goals for the coming year. Most of us do something like this every December 31st or at the very least, take pause to reflect on our accomplishments or our losses as the calendar moves forward into a new year.

Among the standard laundry list of wishes, to-do’s and goals, we often end up asking ourselves how can we make the most of the next twelve months? What we can do better, differently or what needs total elimination from our lives in order to make it more satisfying. But for others, the questions can be much deeper, more spiritual.

How can we best serve the world with our unique gifts and talents? Can we begin to repay, in some small way, those who have been so caring and supportive during the past year-during our entire life?

These were some of the questions that came to mind about five years ago, when my close friend, guru and yoga instructor, Ren, decided to create a new way of sharing her end-of-year eulogy with her students—questions that went beyond the more traditional tick sheet of goals and lamentations.

She called it New Year’s Naikan. (Naikan is a Japanese word that means “inside looking” or “introspection”). Through Naikan, we develop a natural and profound sense of gratitude for blessings bestowed on us by others, blessings that were always there but went unnoticed—the simple pleasures we often overlook. In this way, Ren started a tradition within her yoga studio that has stayed not only with me, but also with her students, and friends, ever since.

Practicing Naikan on New Year’s Eve was a way of eulogizing the current year and facilitating personal development for the coming year.

The idea was a simple one. Each New Year’s Eve, students and friends would congregate together at her home studio at the same time—find our own quiet little spaces within the meditation sanctuary to get comfortable in—and reflect on the past twelve months of our lives for the final twelve hours of the year. We would spend this time in silent reflection of our own Naikan questions.

It was powerful and it was transformational. What we discovered about Naikan during those moments was that it had the power to initiate enormous personal change in our lives—if we let it.

Seeing With The Mind’s Eye:

Developed by Yoshimoto Ishin (1916-1988), a devout Buddhist of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Japan, Naikan is a structured method of self-reflection. A more poetic definition of Naikan is “seeing oneself with the mind’s eye”. It is a structured method of self-reflection that helps us to understand ourselves, our relationships and the fundamental nature of human existence.

Aspiring to make such introspection available to others, Ishin developed Naikan as a method that could be more widely practiced. Practioners of Naikan claim that it helps people identify with themselves and their relationships on a deeper and more meaningful level.

The practice of Naikan is based on three fundamental questions:

1. What have I received from (person x)?
2. What have I given to (person x)?
3. What troubles and difficulties have I caused to (person x)?

A related fourth question, "What troubles and difficulties has (person x) caused me", is purposely ignored in Naikan.

Why?

Naikan presupposes that we're all naturally good at seeing answers to this fourth question, and that too much focus on this question is responsible for much of one's misery in day-to-day life, or in other words, it creates unnecessary suffering within the mind. There are many forms of Naikan practice, all focusing on these three questions, but for our practice, we were encouraged to broaden our questions and assign one for each month of the previous year.

Suggestions for New Year's Naikan Reflection:

Not sure where to start? Here are some basic questions that you can either use as is, or tweak to suit to your own experiences.

Listed below are many Naikan-related exercises you can do to begin the New Year. In our own quiet reflection, we can experience a different kind of New Year's celebration. We can celebrate the gifts of our lives. We can toast the kindness others have shown to us. We can get drunk on the love we have received. In short, we can make this practice as personal to our own experiences as we like.

Some ideas:

1. Reflect on specific family members, or other people in your life who have supported you during the past year. How have they benefited you?

2. Do Naikan reflection on someone with whom you've had trouble, discord, or stress during the past year.

3. Make a list of things you've received this past year without providing any compensation or consideration.

4. Make a list of important services that were done for you during the past year.

5. Reflect on ways you caused trouble and difficulty to the people over past year.

6. Reflect on your lying and stealing for the past year. Yes, even this.

7. Reflect on your speech this past year. In what ways have you spoken critically, harmfully, or inappropriately about others. What was the result of this to others?

8. Reflect on ways you mistreated objects during the past year. How attentive or inattentive were you with your belongings or others?

9. What have you learned this past year?

10. Create a list of all the people and objects that helped you to grow this past year. Personally, professionally, and spiritually.

11. Write thank-you letters to those who have cared for you and served you this past year.

12. Forgive yourself for not reaching any of the goals you might have set for yourself and reaffirm to focus on them in the New Year.

As an additional New Year's exercise, try making a list of five of the most important people in your life. For each person, reflect on the three most important things they have done for you or given to you. Notice how many of these things were important, not just in their own right, but had led to other wonderful experiences and opportunities that may not otherwise have occurred. Then ask yourself, "What can I give to this person, or do for this person, in the coming year?"

In the spirit of paying-it-forward, try to select something that you feel would be important from their perspective rather than your own.

Make A New Goal:

When you complete your list, make it your goal to give each gift or service you’ve listed in the coming year. Add this goal to your other goals but here’s the kicker—place this goal on the very top of your list. What could be more important? It may not pay off your debts, or make amends for the troubles you have caused, but those who have supported us deserve some act of gratitude, some tangible sign of appreciation, a few moments of our undivided attention.

Although I no longer am able to participate in person in New Year’s Naikan with Ren, I make a point of going through this practice each and every New Year’s Eve. It is my way of being honest with myself and taking something deeply profound from this experience—this gift that she gave me so long ago—and using it to create powerful new intentions for the New Year.

I encourage you to use these tools to approach the coming year mindfully. With gratitude, with intention and most of all, with humility.

Happy New Year to all!