New Year’s Yoga Journaling Practice

Review, Reflect, and Visualize: A New Year’s Yoga Journaling and Meditation Practice

As we move towards the start of a new year it’s a great time to take our yoga practice beyond the mat and onto the page with a yoga journaling and visualization practice.

An end of year/new year journaling practice helps us reflect on the year that has been and set some aims and intentions for the year. Using this reflective exercise of Swadhyaya (self study) along with some meditation and visualization can help you to step into the new year with clarity, purpose, and mindfulness.

For a brief introduction to the year end journaling practice and a guided visualization watch the video below.

Scroll down further to find some detailed journal prompts that can guide you in your reflections and journaling, along with an outline to create your own guided meditation and visualization to help you to review, reflect, and step into the new year.

(Want to skip straight to the guided visualization? Forward to 3:40 and get comfy!)

A New Year’s Yoga Journaling and Meditation Practice

Practical Journaling Tips:

Use any journaling tools that work for you. Write in a notebook, sketch or draw, find a template online, create a spreadsheet – what methods help you to reflect and put your thoughts down?

Write freely as thoughts come, or organize your thoughts around a timeline (e.g., month by month) or around your goals or lifestyle practices (e.g., yoga, movement, meditation, rest, study, travel).

New Year’s Journal Overview:

There are more detailed journal prompts below, but if you prefer to have a less structured journal process, there are 3 key areas you might focus your journal on are:

1. Reflection:

Celebrate achievements and milestones from the past year. What are some lessons you’ve learned from your yoga and personal growth practices this past year?

2. Integration:

Explore how experiences from this year can inform and deepen your yoga practice. What are some core values or insights you gained over this past year?

3. Looking ahead:

Set intentions for the coming year. How will you sustain or develop your practice, maintain energy and authenticity, and live in alignment with your goals this year?

Areas of focus might include what you’ve accomplished this past year, what you’ve learned, steps you’ve taken, experiences that stand out to you, and then of course beginning to reach forward into the new year with ideas, intentions, and curiosity.

Journal Prompts for New Year’s Yoga Journaling Practice

Reflecting on the Past Year

1. Growth on the mat:
How has your yoga practice evolved over the past year? What have you learned about your body, mind, and spirit through your practice?

2. Mindfulness in daily life:
Reflect on moments when mindfulness helped you navigate challenges this year. What were these moments, and how did they impact your experience?

3. Lessons learned:
What key lessons or insights did you gain from the past year, both on and off the mat? How have these lessons shaped your approach to life?

4. Celebrating wins:
What are you most proud of accomplishing this year, whether in your yoga or meditation practice, relationships, or personal growth?

5. Releasing the old:
What habits, thoughts, or patterns are you ready to let go of as you move into the new year? How might releasing these bring you more clarity and peace?

Setting Intentions for the New Year

1. Vision for your practice:
What is your vision for your yoga, meditation, or movement practice in the coming year? What steps can you take to deepen or sustain your practice?

2. Cultivating balance:
What areas of your life feel out of balance? How can mindfulness, yoga, or conscious living practices help you restore harmony?

3. Intentions for inner growth:
What inner qualities (e.g., patience, compassion, courage) would you like to cultivate more fully this year? How can you incorporate these into your practice and daily life?

4. Creating rituals:
What small, meaningful rituals could you introduce to bring more intention and mindfulness into your daily routine?

5. Living your values:
How can you align your choices and actions more closely with your core values this year? Reflect on ways yoga philosophy or ethical principles can guide you.

Blending Reflection and Intention

1. From reflection to action:
Looking back at this year, what practices or lessons would you like to carry forward into the new year? How will they support your growth?

2. Word or theme for the year:
What word, phrase, or theme encapsulates your intention for the year ahead? How can it serve as a mantra or touchstone for your practice and life?

3. Setting goals:
What are three specific, mindful goals you want to focus on in the coming year? How can your yoga, meditation, or movement practices support these goals?

4. Service and connection:
How can you use your yoga and mindfulness practices to give back to your community or strengthen your connections with others this year?

5. Embodied intentions:
Imagine yourself at the end of next year, reflecting on the person you’ve become. How does your yoga and meditation practice guide you to embody this vision?

Integrating New Year’s Meditation and Visualization:

Watch the video above or on our YouTube channel and join me for a guided New Year’s meditation and visualization practice. Or, create your own!

Your New Year’s meditation and visualization might include three areas of focus:

Reflection:

Begin with a mindfulness meditation focusing on the breath. Reflect on three things you’re grateful for from the past year and three things you want to release.

Renewal:

Shift focus to a visualization meditation. Picture yourself in the coming year, living in alignment with your aims and ethics. See yourself embodying these qualities.

Mantra:

As you close your meditation you might begin to focus on your word, theme, or mantra for the new year. Recite this mantra three times at the end of your meditation as a Sankalpa or intention.

New Year’s Yoga Journaling and Visualization Practice

I hope you have enjoyed this New Year’s yoga journaling and visualization practice and found it useful. You can return to this visualization any time you wish to do some reflecting on the past and visioning for the future. It’s particularly useful paired with your journaling practice to step into your future with clarity, purpose, and mindfulness.

Wishing you all a new year of peace, joy, and ease, always.

If you’d like to watch more video discussions and join us for some free yoga practices, visit our YouTube channel here

If you’d like some support this year in developing your yoga practice, your yoga teaching, or your yoga business, join us for yoga training or one-to-one yoga coaching