End of Year Reflection - All Things Product Podcast with Teresa Torres & Petra Wille

In this end-of-year episode, product veterans Teresa Torres and Petra Wille compare their personal reflection rituals, built over years of product work and self-experimentation. Both have moved away from rigid annual goal-setting toward values-driven, flexible, and joyful practices. They describe concrete exercises such as listing what went well, the 100-wishes exercise, and decade-level themes. The conversation argues that reflection should adapt to how each person learns and stays motivated, and that patterns across years can guide better future decisions.

01Key takeaways

• Design a reflection ritual around your own learning style rather than copying someone else's template.
• Shift part of your planning from fixed annual goals to values and themes that guide choices over time.
• Use the 100-wishes exercise to surface desires you might otherwise dismiss, then look for recurring patterns.
• Review what went well, not only what missed plan, to build momentum and reveal what actually works.
• Let go of unrealistic expectations you discover during reflection so next year's plan is more achievable.
• Leave deliberate open space in your calendar instead of over-scheduling the year ahead.

02Key sections

Why reflection matters

The hosts explain why an annual look back is valuable for product people who constantly ship, iterate, and make decisions under uncertainty.

From rigid goals to values and themes

Both hosts describe shifting away from strict annual targets toward values, themes, and decade-level intentions that give direction without rigidity.

Concrete reflection exercises

They share practical methods, including reviewing what went well, the 100-wishes exercise, and noticing recurring patterns across years.

Handling a year that didn't go to plan

The discussion covers letting go of unrealistic expectations, building spaciousness into planning, and treating off-plan years as normal.

Public sharing versus private processing

The hosts consider how much of a reflection process to share publicly and how much to keep private to stay honest with oneself.

03From the post

“Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts In this episode of All Things Product, Petra Wille and Teresa Torres dig into their end-of-year reflection practices — the ones they've refined over decades of product work, personal growth, and plenty of nerdy experimentation. They compare how their processes”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.