Most folks aren’t good at reflecting. Holding the mirror up to yourself and to what’s happened in the recent past is hard work — and it can be damn uncomfortable. But it’s necessary for growth and progress. If you read those first few sentences and thought, “Hell, that’s me.” And you also had the thought that you would like to get better at moving yourself forward, just know that it makes sense that you aren’t great at reflecting. You likely weren’t ever taught how to do it, or if you were, you weren’t given a good system for taking what you’ve learned and molding it into a productive plan for moving yourself forward.

How about we change that?

Let’s start by acknowledging it’s great that you do want to go forward. Packmule coach, Jordan Wilcher, has a banner hanging in his garage gym that says “Comfort is a slow death.” No truer statement has ever been stitched on a flag. Avoiding stagnation and making forward progress requires discomfort. It’s commendable that you’re walking yourself into that.

Then, let’s give you a process to review the year in hunting and fitness that just happened, recalibrate based on the perspective you gain, and re-launch yourself into 2026. It’ll be the guide that walks you through what’s necessary to improve your fitness and lifestyle so that you’re dialed in for your 2026 hunting schedule.

All you have to do is answer some simple questions then do some simple planning.

Process First — How to Go About Answering the Questions

There’s never one right way to do most things. You could kill a buck by setting up a stand close to a bedding area. You could kill that same buck by still hunting through an oak flat. What matters is that you have a strategy and a process for getting it done. Reflection and planning are no different. There are a number of effective ways to do it. That said, there are some principles that help you get the best answers.

First, give yourself time and multiple sessions with the questions. You might get everything out on the first go, but it’s often the case that you gain context, go deeper, and gain better answers by thinking, then writing, then living, then thinking, then writing again. 

Second, don’t try to think and write about the questions when you’re in a bad mood. You’ll likely have a hard time finding the good things that happened, and you’ll over weigh the negative aspects of your 2025. 

Third, be objective, be real and honest, but don’t beat the piss out of yourself over the things that you didn’t do well or that could have gone better. I heard a quote the other day that says, “If beating yourself up was a good way to change your behavior, wouldn’t you be perfect by now?”

Now, let’s reflect.

Review: Answer These Reflection Questions

Answer the following questions in as much detail as you can. Take your time, it’s not a race. You want the clearest picture you can muster.

1. What were your three biggest hunting and training wins this year? Why do you think they happened?

2. What were your three biggest hunting and training challenges this year? Why do you think they happened?

3. Did you accomplish your goals this year? If yes, why do you think you achieved them? If not, what do you think held you back?

4. Is there anything that fell off of your radar that you wish hadn’t?

Recalibrate: Highlight and Reframe

Take yourself a look at the wins and why they happened. Highlight those highlights for yourself. Take stock. Let them sink in. You’ll draw on these to figure out what you need to do more of in 2026.

Now, have a look at your challenges. Your first inclination is likely to give yourself a good shellacking. I’ll ask you not to do that. Instead, reframe them as data points. They are simply points that illustrate what did not work. 

As you highlight and reframe, you might find that there was a lot more to highlight and a lot less to reframe. You also might find the opposite to be true. If there are more highlights, great! You have a solid image of what fires you probably need to dump gas on. If there are more reframes, great! You have a clearer picture of what is worth changing.

We’ll have a closer look at that.

Note the Bottlenecks

There will likely be a pattern running through your reframes. That pattern is a bottleneck that limits your progress in multiple areas. You might have to pull your vision back to see it. But it’s there. Let’s look at an example.

We’ll say that you noted consistency as a challenge, with training and nutrition. When you step back and examine, you see that consistency was a struggle because you didn’t schedule things well. So, while consistency was the struggle, scheduling was the bottleneck. Rather than thinking, “I need to figure out how to be consistent,” you think, “I need to dial in my scheduling so I can be consistent.” That tiny shift in focus makes all the difference. You note the problem and the solution by taking perspective and finding the true bottleneck.

Note What’s Working

Now, it’s time to note what you should likely sustain. Look back at your wins and the reasons for them. The reasons hold the keys to what’s been fruitful for you and should stay present in your training and hunting process. But before you commit to them for another year, it’s helpful to take a look at 2026’s big picture.

Life During the Next Year

Next, you take a look forward at the big events you already know are coming in the next year. This allows you to gain a realistic perspective while setting priorities. For example, if you know that you are moving in May, have three weddings to attend in June, and are flying to Turkey in July for hair transplant surgery, it doesn’t make a ton of sense to set overly ambitious training goals for that quarter of the year. 

At the other end of the spectrum, if you know that you have a 15-day mountain backpack hunt coming up in August, then it’s a silly thing to fill up May through July with frivolous shit that detracts from your hunt training. Of course, it’s necessary to communicate with everyone else in your life to make sure that you’re all on the same page — compromise is part of the deal. But it ain’t smart to add in inessential events that detract from what you’re trying to accomplish outside of your necessary compromises.

Once you have a good picture of your year, you can set your priorities for eliminating bottlenecks, sustaining what’s working, and preparing for your hunts.

Re-Launch: Planning Your Process

Bottlenecks are listed and you know what’s working. You’ve set the big picture to scale so you know what’s coming. It’s time to make it all fit together.

Start by looking again at what worked in 2025. Which of those things need to stay exactly the same? Which do you need to do with more frequency and/or volume? Which do you need to evolve to fit your 2026 hunts and goals?

Then, examine your bottlenecks. Which would kill the most birds with one stone? Make an actionable plan for eliminating that bottleneck. Let’s return to the consistency and scheduling example. In the example, scheduling was the bottleneck that killed your training and nutritional consistency. To eliminate the bottleneck, you schedule all of your workouts for first thing in the morning before anything else can get in the way. Or you look at your schedule for the week each Sunday and plot your workouts in the open spots before those slots can fill up. When you schedule your workouts, it’s not only more likely that you’ll consistently get them in, you’ll also be more driven to eat to support all of your hard work. The trickle-down effect makes you more mindful of your nutrition, causing you to focus more on preparing well to eat well.

Next, look again at life during 2026. Reference what you’ll sustain and the bottlenecks you’ll eliminate within the context of what’s coming up. Yes, we already looked at goals and hunts in the first step, but bouncing back and forth as you gain more context helps you get truly dialed in. You refine your plans and ideas through this process. That makes it far more likely that it will fit into your life and work for you.

Win the First 90 Days

Winning the first quarter of the year sets a positive trajectory that carries momentum through the rest of the year. Here’s how you do that.

Settle on a handful of simple, actionable, and measurable things you’ll do to sustain what’s working and eliminate your bottlenecks during the first three months of the year. For example, setting the plan to schedule your workouts for the week every Sunday morning for the first 12 weeks of the year. It’s simple; it’s actionable; it’s measurable — and it eliminates a bottleneck.

Act AND Evaluate

Pay attention as you take action to evaluate whether or not what you’re doing is truly moving you forward. Now, you have to give your actions enough time to work. It’s unlikely that you’ll need to bail on a part of your plan after a few days. But it’s not unusual to modify the plan after a few weeks of learning. Don’t get attached. Don’t beat yourself up if things aren’t going to plan. Review. Recalibrate. Re-launch.

Make Learning The Highest Priority

I was recently on a call with a Packmule Apex client, and we were talking about how to think about success vs failure. I mentioned that the easiest way to keep our heads on straight is to make learning the highest priority. It keeps us objective and it limits how much we beat ourselves up when things don’t go exactly to plan. So, when you put your plan into action, focus mostly on what you learn from what you’re doing — when things go well and when they don’t work out. This keeps your mind on finding the best path forward instead of beating yourself up over what didn’t work out.

Review, Recalibrate, Re-Launch

Do what most hunters, and most people, never do — take the time to honestly reflect on your 2025. Take perspective on the year to come, then make the plan that guides you to continue to do what’s working and eliminates your bottlenecks. Act, evaluate, and make learning the highest priority. Do all this and you’ll have a solid, actionable, and adaptable hunting fitness plan for 2026.

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