Ask what you’d do differently if you could redo the last twelve months. That answer is a plan, not a regret.

Looking back has two settings and they feel almost identical. Regret runs the year again and stops at the pain; a plan runs it again and keeps the instructions. The same memory produces either one, depending on whether you end up with a verdict about yourself or a list of specific moves. Only one of those is any use next month.

Write three things you would do differently, each concrete: start earlier, ask sooner, say no to that, train twice a week. Drop anything that is only a feeling about who you were. Then put one of the three into the next fortnight.