To my current theme of year-end review and new-year goals, I’m adapting some ideas from an article by Ernest R. Stair in the January 2012 issue of Toastmaster magazine (to read the full article, you’ll need to return to the link later in January — unless you’re a Toastmasters member).

Stair’s thesis is that you can’t get a real sense of achievements if you look at them through the perspectives of others. An example of a particular telling question that reveals the wrong way to look at achievements (and a question I can see myself asking) is: “How will my job title sound at a high-school reunion?”

Instead, Stair suggests a set of the “right” questions to ask. I’m adapting them here, not as questions, but as prompts to apply to the year we’ve nearly completed:

Thinking about the year just completed, give one or more storied examples of:

• Times you’ve learned from your mistakes.
• Times you’ve refused to quit.
• Times you’ve let someone else have all the glory
• Times you’ve taken criticism gracefully
• Times you’ve made someone’s day

Your responses to these prompts, says Stair, “succeed in highlighting the true you, as you rise to great heights turning ordinary moments of your everyday life into events of extraordinary significance.”