Hello and welcome to the aligned achiever podcast.

I’m your host, Siobhan Barnes, and I’m coming to you today with the final episode of 2024 so as I was thinking about putting together this episode, I was thinking about what would be the most helpful and beneficial support for you as we are in December and looking at closing out the year, and it really is around the topic of how to make the most out of the last few weeks of December and to close out strong. 

 

I’m a big believer that before we set new intentions for the new year, that it’s really important to do a review and to take a moment to pause and take stock as to what worked in 2024 and what didn’t. 

 

Now, you might be listening to this in the future, and maybe you’re in January, February, or maybe you’re in the middle of next year, or whatever year I am, you know, still recording this podcast on and these principles are still the same. 

We can hit reset, hit refresh, start anew again at any given time. Obviously, with the Gregorian calendar, it makes natural sense to be talking about this come December, because we all feel like at the start of a new year, that’s when we can have a fresh, late and new beginnings. But, you know, do this at any time that works for you. 

I’m quite lucky, and that my birthday is towards the end of May, so I feel like I get a really nice, balanced kind of check in because of, you know, the natural laws of what happens when you are working in a society that does follow the Gregorian calendar. And then I tend to be quite a reflective person. 

 

For my birthday, I like to do a review. So I wanted to share with you the structure that really supports me. 

 

Now, before we dive in and I talk you through this structure, you might want to grab a piece of paper and a pen so that you can jot down your answers as we go along, but just know as well, if this feels like too much at the moment, you’ve got big projects at work to close out, or you know you’re still running around trying to complete your to do list and the million things that you’ve got going on, just know that this episode is waiting for you, and here to support you. I want this to be practical. 

 

I want this to be tangible and to really help you. 

 

And in this episode, I’m going to be sharing with you some of my own experiences around this process to be very transparent, because I’m here with you in it. I am a very imperfect human that’s trying to do my best and fumbling forward. So I’m very happy to share that with you, just by way of letting you know that you know, if you grapple with something similar, or you feel like you can’t feel the way you feel, just know that you’re you’re not alone. 

And I actually have this experience recently when I was speaking to somebody, and I was talking about some of the things that I see as a coach, and I said, “you know what, like, one of the greatest privileges that I have in this role as coach is that I get to really hear the true voices of women and what they’re struggling with.” You know, I work predominantly with women around their careers, around their professional lives, their aspirations, and all the other stuff that comes with it. So much of the work I do is beyond career and strategy and execution, it’s really,  deep, meaningful stuff as to who you are like, Who do you believe yourself to be like? What mindset challenges do you have? And you know, there’s a lot of aspects that are at play. 

And you know, I was speaking to this person and saying, we think that in the future, like all these high flying C suite people have it all figured out, and we don’t, you know, people don’t. And obviously I’m not going to share the exact clients details and what they go through, but that was a really big eye opener for me in that there’s no final destination. 

 

There truly, truly is no final destination. 

 

And it doesn’t matter what your title is. You know, we’re all just people at the end of the day, right? These titles, these roles that we assign to ourselves. They’re just temporary. They’re just labels. And what I care about most in closing out 2024 is really getting to the heart of who you are and redefining what really matters for you, so that in 2025 you can create aligned achievement towards your metrics of success, to what matters to you and your values and what really matters.

And I think giving yourself that permission from the get go is a really important frame that I want you to go into this with, because if you have goals and dreams that don’t fit the mold of traditional aspirations, or the things that we, quote, unquote, should be going for. Just know that that’s perfect, and that actually, I see you, and I think that it can be hard to be rebellious or to go against the grain. So I see you, and I’m excited for you. And with that, before we get into goal setting for 2025 which will come in the new year. Let’s dive in.

 

Okay, so if you are a person like me who has a planner, or several planners, it might be a nice idea to get that out. And if you don’t, you might want to get your Google Calendar out, your Outlook calendar, whatever it is that you use, Apple calendar, and to just maybe jog your memory as to what went down this year. 

 

So the first step I like to do when I’m doing an end of year review is to quickly glance through, I have a paper calendar, and then I use the Google Calendar for all the meetings.

 

But I like to go through and just mark out, okay, what were the key milestones? What were the key things that happened? Because it’s so easy to forget, right? So January, what was a highlight? What was a low light? February, etc, etc, and you keep on going. 

 

And if that feels too tricky, then just cast your mind’s eye back to this year. And I’m gonna ask you the first question, which is:

 

What are the good things that you experienced in your past year? What are the good things that you experienced?

 

Now for me, as I reflect back on some of the good things I experienced this year, there’s so many good things. I always go to my family holidays, those for me are such a highlight. My husband and I have made the commitment that summer holidays for us are an opportunity for our family to go on an adventure together. As our kids get older this feels really, really precious, and the summer holidays is one where we prioritise trying to go away for a longer period of time. 

This year, we went to France, and we got to explore a different part of France that we hadn’t been to before. We got to do a lot of hiking, biking. We went to a wine region, managed to taste some beautiful wine, just did some sightseeing, just a beautiful, wholesome trip, lots of farmers markets, and that, for me, was a real highlight. Another highlight was on the health front. I continued to show up at the gym, so shout out to pherform. I loved all my gym sessions there. It really, really is my happy place. And I’ve realised that actually, you know, this anchor habit of health and fitness that I started two years ago now is well and truly ingrained. 

I remember being on a trip at Easter time and messaging my friend and, you know, the gym that I go to has an at home program if you can’t make it to the gym. So if you don’t go to the gym, you can follow along, and, you know, you can do your own workout. And I remember sending her a picture going, oh my gosh, who am I? I actually want to go to the gym on my holiday, which was so different to who I was in previous years. So it’s just kind of funny to take stock on that. 

On the work front, I managed to live out a dream, a dream intention of working on a leadership development program with Lululemon, which was just phenomenal. So for any of the participants that might be listening, shout out to you. Working with you was such a joy this year. I loved the group facilitation. It was one of the highlights, and really has drawn me deeper into group work, which is also a highlight. 

I would say I tested out the launch of a new offering called the Pivot Pathfinders Collective, which has been really fun. I’ve also been creating content for that, and it’s just been amazing. We have some fantastic founding members, and I’m just really excited about that offering, and we’ll share more with you in future, if you’d like to hear more, and I’ll pop it into the show notes, but yeah, that’s just been really, really phenomenal. 

And I obviously have to mention, if you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll be seeing that I’ve been posting a lot with my colleague, co-peer, friend, Elaine Champion. We’re running a retreat in Hong Kong in January called The Pause Retreat, and just collaborating with her has been so much fun and just really, really great. So I’ve really, really enjoyed that. That’s been a really fun highlight to kind of have a colleague again and like to collaborate and brainstorm and create something beautiful. And yeah, it’s just been really fun. And there are many, many other things, but those are some of my examples. 

So bringing this back to you, what are some of the good things that really worked for you this year? They might be big, they might be small. Doesn’t matter, like you get to write them down, so just taking a moment of those.

The second thing you’ve done, after you’ve identified the good things that have happened for you in 2024 is to just let yourself go to where the challenges were.

 

So what were some of the challenges this year, the things that didn’t work, what felt sticky or uncomfortable or didn’t go according to plan?

 

For me, there certainly were a few things that didn’t go according to plan. I had a certain plan for how I wanted the year to look in terms of my offerings, but intuition callings took me in a different direction, all good things, as you’ve just heard. There’s a lot of things that I’m celebrating, which is fantastic, but there were certainly challenges in that, in navigating, okay, well, if I’m not doing what I thought I was going to do, how am I going to prepare and plan? 

And I know, for me, I’m kind of giving away the next section in terms of lessons, but one of the lessons I’m learning is how to balance that need for a plan and a structure, versus, you know, knowing that the plan and the structure is just a guide and that there is room for flexibility and changing and adapting and shifting if needs be. 

Another challenge that I faced this year, for example, was work, life balance. It’s been a really busy season with my kids doing a lot of sports. So weekends are full on. There’s Friday night rugby, there’s Saturday netball, there’s Sunday rugby, and I’m talking like the whole day, like, you know, morning practice, afternoon games. So it’s been quite intense. So whilst that’s been beautiful and I absolutely love supporting my children, the challenge has been that there practically has been less time with my husband, less time to see friends, although a lot of my friends also have kids in the same age group. So I’m grateful that we can hang out on the Netball sidelines or the rugby pitch sidelines and catch up, but it’s been more challenging to have some of those, like fun, you know, just let your hair down, type of catch ups. But, you know, we’ve made that work. 

Some of the other challenges have been around some personal things at home, you know, systems of support that weren’t necessarily working, but thankfully, that has been changed, and that’s given me a lot of bandwidth and space. 

So letting yourself go to what are some of the challenges that you face this year, you might think of challenges in your personal life to begin with, and then secondly, challenges in your professional life, if you want to break them up into two and have a little bit of structure as to how to think about those challenges. Oftentimes, figuring out the challenges is quite easy, because our minds could be hardwired to look at the negative, but really let yourself have this space to really think about what’s not been working for you, because if you don’t get honest, then you don’t know what you need to change. 

 

The third part that you’re going to do as you review your year is to think about the lessons that you’ve learned. How have you learned and grown? What are the lessons that you’ve learned and perhaps are still learning right? 

 

I believe that we’re here to live this paradox that number one, you know your whole and perfect just the way you are right and just who you are right now is enough. And the paradox is that we’re also here to learn and grow and develop. So there is a paradox there for a reason, and so letting yourself get honest with what that lesson is, and letting that lesson not be something that you beat yourself up over or make yourself feel wrong about, but really taking that as fuel and kind of like this guide post for next year, so you know what you want to look out for and what patterns you want to interrupt and break. 

So this year, some of the lessons that I learned were that I still have a tendency to over give and over prioritise others, over and above myself. And I know that sounds so like, Oh, what a problem. A little bit like, oh, woe is me. But what that has meant is that I’ve made life more difficult for myself because I have those tendencies to burn out, right? I think I can keep on going, and then I feel like I can crash. So that’s a lesson for me to be even more the word that’s coming to mind is like more greedy, or like more empowered to take up more space to pause.

I just said right in the last section that the weekends are really, really full. So I find it hard to give myself permission during my working week to give myself more time to rest, but that is something that, practically I can do, and, you know, will make me more productive. I’ve seen the benefits of that, but, you know, that’s something I’m learning to grapple with, and that’s a lesson that sometimes rest is the most productive thing and doing less is more. 

One massive lesson that I’ve learned around this actually, that’s just, you know, dropping into mind right now, is that oftentimes I think I need to be at my desk to get the right answers, to be productive, to get stuff done. And when I go for a walk, particularly in the trails and the mountains, as I’m recording this, it’s like the most perfect time of year. For those of you in Hong Kong, you’re probably nodding your head like the weather has been sensational. I’m talking like 20 degrees and not the same level of humidity, so it just feels gorgeous and bright blue skies. But you know, when I’m out hiking and I’m in the mountains and I’m in nature and I’m not listening to air pods, and I’m just connecting to my voice and, you know, looking like a bit of a weirdo asking questions and talking to myself, that’s when the answers drop in, and that is actually productive, because I’m switching to a different brain wave and a different wavelength. 

So think about that for you, like, what are some of the lessons that you have learned and are still learning?

I shared with you a couple of examples. I feel like there’s lots that I’m still leaning into, but I just wanted to give you some examples, so that you can see what might be playing out for you, and write out your list and let yourself go there. That’s perfectly okay. 

And I encourage you to write this down somewhere that is visible, and keep this piece of paper wherever you’re jotting your answers down before you do your 2025 year planning, so you know what to look out for. 

 

Okay, final thing section four of your year in review, and learning from 2024 is to just write down who or what you’re grateful for. Who or what are you grateful for? 

 

So I’ve got the usual characters, like in terms of, you know, my husband, my children, grateful, they’re all healthy and well this year. I’m particularly grateful for the community of friends that I have around me. I feel like that has been something I know I just said, like, I don’t have so much time for that sort of stuff, but I feel I get that through the gym. Like, that’s partly why I love showing up, and that power of community is so, so important. But just the times that I do have to connect, I really treasure that, and I’m really, really grateful. And, you know, certain people have come into my life, Elaine, being one of them. And it’s just, it’s just magical, right? Like, just to know that there are women in my life that are there to support me and have my back. And it’s really, really great. 

So I’m very, very grateful, obviously, grateful for family and extended family and so many things, the roof over our heads, the life that we have here in Hong Kong, the support that we have, the ability to travel again, lots and lots of things to be grateful for. 

So what is it for you, and letting yourself really, really go there, so that you can just sit in all the wonderful things that are there? 

 

You know, so often we don’t realise that we’re grateful for something until it’s gone.

 

Right? There’s someone close in my life who is going through a lot of challenges medically, and you know, she’s grateful now for the fact that her body works and she can do all the things and things look the proper way. But, you know, come next year, when things change, you know, things are going to look different, and all of a sudden, you know, we might complain about, you know, for me, I’ve had three kids, my belly has changed, and it’s like, well, you know what, I can digest my food. My core is not that, not really there. I’m building it up. But you know, it allows me to function every day. It allows me to stay upright, and, you know, all these beautiful things. 

So we think we need to worry about these things like a flat stomach, or like having full hair, or like, being a certain size. And at the end of the day, we’ve got working bodies that are healthy and strong, and that is the most important. So take a moment to take stock for what you are grateful for. 

 

Okay, those are the four sections for your year end review, and there are two elements that I want to pull apart from this to support you with next year. 

 

So I’m not saying you have to do your 2025 planning, but I want to support you with two things to pull out. 

 

Number one is around your mindset, like the story you tell yourself, who you think you are.

 

That is something that I would encourage you to have a look at, because I want you to go into 2025 embodying your fullest, most actualized self, who believes that you can create aligned achievement and you can go after those goals that you set on paper.

 

Secondly, with that mindset to support you to make a decision on what is important to you next year.

 

So often we go through transition and change, and we can be unsure as to which direction to go in, and we can look to outsource that. You know, we might speak to a mentor. We might want to work with a coach, which is fine, or we might say someone else knows more than me, and I really want to support you with insourcing that wisdom. And you know, working with a coach can absolutely be like that, because, you know, we’re asking questions rather than telling you what to do. 

 

But these are the two pieces I want you to pull apart from your review. 

 

So step number five is once you’ve gone through those four sections of the Year in Review, so you’ve you’ve kind of had a look, and you’ve set out clarity on what are the good things that worked in 2024 you’ve looked at your challenges, you’ve looked at your lessons, you’ve looked at your gratitude. When you get to the mindset piece, I want you to just take a moment to look back and say and identify rather, are there any negative thought patterns that you regularly felt in 2024 right? 

Maybe it was I’m not good with money, or I’m not nailing this professional working mum role, and I’m not good at any of the things, or I need to work really hard to get that next promotion, or I’m not cut out for creating wealth in my business, whatever it is, right? What is that one core mindset that you’ve believed about yourself this year and then turning it around to ask, Is it really true? Is it really true? Some of the things that you tell yourself, is it true? 

Sometimes you might be like, yeah, that is true. But is it true all of the time? Can you say with 100% conviction that all of the time, that’s how you are? 

I’ll give you an example. So for me, one of the challenging mindsets that I still grapple with is I’m not ready yet. You know, I’m not ready yet. And I feel I’m not ready yet because I feel like, oh, you know, I put so many blockers in terms of the criteria I need before I can take that next step. So going into corporate is a classic one. I don’t know if I shared this on the podcast. Actually, at the end of last year, I was deeply seriously considering a master’s program in Organisational Psychology, because I don’t know if part of me, like loves psychology, and it was always a dream to study psychology. But I never did that, I followed a different path when I was younger, which is totally fine. It led me to where I needed to go. So I was like, should I get back and study the psychology thing? And, you know, oh, if I want to work with corporates, then maybe I need to have, you know, a masters. They need to see that I’ve done the training, etc, etc. 

And the thing is, this opportunity with Lululemon came out of nowhere. Now, when I say that, it was an intention. I had an intention of, I would love to work with corporates, not just any corporate but like an organisation where they really understand the power of coaching and want the support to, you know, women’s leadership as a passion project. If you’ve been following me for any time, you know that that’s true. 

And I set that intention, and I actually didn’t take a lot of action around it. I spoke to a few people about this intention. And I was like, you know, thinking about the Masters as the opportunity. And through a colleague who I have been with and spent some time with, you know, she actually put my name forward very, very kindly. This is the power of, you know, sponsorship. And, you know, having people in your corner. And, you know, I was just put forward to be somebody, a provider, and I thankfully got the got the job, and that experience, I’m not ready yet, and that mindset was kind of blown this year, because I didn’t need to do the master’s program and spend however many years and however many hundreds of 1000s of dollars on more education. Rather, I just needed to back myself, trust that intention that I had. And, you know, obviously when the experience came around, show up fully to it. And I really did, and I loved it, and I would do more of it. 

So I share that with you by way of example. So my new mindset this year, and actually I started leaning in towards it towards the end of this year, when I launched the Pivot Pathfinders Collective, which is this community space to help women navigate pivots and transitions, was that I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, and I’ll figure it out as I go. I have enough to get started. So can you see how my old mindset I’m not ready yet. I’m playing with how I might change that. 

So I share that with you by means of example, because sometimes we think it’s not going to happen for us, or that it’s going to be really difficult. But what is it for you? What’s that story that you keep telling yourself that you really are done with and that you really want to change in 2025 and how might you flip that? How might you turn that around into a positive?

And I’ll give you a hot tip here. So often when we do this work, we’re told that we just do the negative, right? So rather than I’m not ready yet, it’s, I’m ready now. But I’ll tell you what, if you got me to say I’m ready now, I would have said I don’t believe that. There’s probably about like a 5% conviction rate in my body, right? Maybe my pinky feels that, and the rest of my body is like, no. 

So if you have one that you don’t feel like you can turn around, you might say something like, I’m choosing to embrace the fact that I don’t need to be ready to get started, right? Or I build the belief that I can get started right now and not have all the answers. So that becomes more believable, right? That’s something that your mind and your body can get behind because that feels more true. So that’s a hot tip. When you’re doing any kind of mindset rewiring work, don’t, don’t change the statement to something you absolutely don’t believe, because your body’s just going to reject it. Your mind’s going to reject it. Think about how you might phrase it appropriately. 

So that’s step number five, and that’s a really, really important one. And I’ll tell you this mindset, identity, work is so important. This is a part of the work that I do in all of my coaching, whether that’s one on one, whether that’s in the Pivot Pathfinders Collective, whether that’s, you know, we’re going to touch on this in the retreat as well that Elaine and I are running. It’s really, really important. And your thoughts and beliefs about who you are impacts your behaviour, which impacts your actions, your results, and then it feeds into one another. So please don’t underestimate this. Don’t skip step number five.

 

Then the final step, step number six is to support you in making a decision, right? What are you going to say yes to going forward and what are you going to say no to?

 

This is really important, because another lesson I learned this year is that I can have a tendency to say yes too much and underestimate how much time things take, and how long it’s gonna really take to come to fruition, and that’s what caused the stress and overwhelm. 

 

So as you wrap 2024 take a moment to think about what really matters. 

 

So looking back at this year, what really did matter and what didn’t matter, right? 

And then from there, what are you going to say yes to, and what are you going to say no to? 

So for me, as I look back on 2024, what did matter the most was that I was present and there with my kids, like that’s very, very important to me. That’s one of my core values. And partly why I have a business, and my selfish Why is to have the freedom and flexibility to be there for them, but my altruistic, why? Like? Why I do it for others is that I really want to support women, to remember who they are and to feel like they can go after the life and career that they want that matters to them. And so what won’t have mattered is me hitting my perfect goals, right? Like me hitting those perfect ideas of what I wanted to offer and whatever financial goals I had. But what matters most is my impact on the women I did serve this year, and the fact that I learned, grew and made progress. That’s what really matters. 

So next year, what I’m saying yes to is more time for contemplation, reviews, stepping away from my desk, getting into nature, getting into the mountains, to hear my own intuition as to how I want to build this business and what it needs. 

And I’m saying no to pressure of, I need to make my business look a certain way, right? I need to hit this milestone or this income goal in this month, because I only have control over how I show up. I can’t control the outcome in terms of, you know, who signs up, etc. 

So what does this look like for you, right?

Like, if you look back on this year, what really mattered, what didn’t. And next year, what will you say yes to and what will you say no to? 

So maybe some other examples are, maybe you’re saying yes to a personal retreat for yourself. Next year, maybe saying yes to, you know what? I am going to spend that money on that gym membership because I don’t want to do it alone, and I can’t follow the YouTube videos, even for the life of me, I need to be in community. Maybe you are saying yes to prioritizing the fact that your relationship matters with your significant other, and you’re going to go to couples counselling, right? And maybe you’re saying no to doing too much for everyone else. Maybe you’re going to say no to making other people happy. Maybe you’re going to say no to trying to do it all at the same time again. These are all examples. 

I’m not saying these apply to you no matter, no matter what I say on this podcast, and for that matter, no matter who you listen to, please, please, please, just take the information you receive and filter it through your own mind. 

Does this apply to you? Is this helpful? Does it resonate? And if it doesn’t leave it behind, right? You are your own person. You know what matters. You know what resonates, and I invite you to trust that. 

All right, so I’m gonna close there and just say that no matter what happened in 2024 no matter what happened to you, whether it was a great year, maybe a really hard year, you made it, you’re here, you’re still standing, you’ve shown up, and maybe you’ve survived. Maybe you’ve really thrived. No matter where you are on the spectrum, it’s all good. Life is not going to be consistent and the same the whole time, saying mentioning this in the Pivot Pathfinders the other day, like what we really want to build and cultivate when we’re navigating through life where there are a lot of transitions and a lot of change, and there’s certainly plenty more change coming, right? Like it’s really about us building those skills of adaptability and resilience that really, really matter. And you’ve done that, you’ve shown up this year. 

 

And so my hope and intention is that this episode has served you to to be able to make sense of 2024 to take those lessons from the year, to celebrate those wins, and to really make a call as to that mindset that you’re going to let go of and no longer let you know, hold you back, and you know to get clear on some decisions around what you’re saying yes to and what you’re saying no to for the new year. 

So I’m going to close here in this is the last episode for 2024 I’ll be back in your ears in 2025 and as we wrap, I hope that you’re have a relaxing winter season or summer season, no matter where you are in the world, whether you celebrate Christmas or some other celebration or not, I hope that you get some rest and opportunity to rejuvenate as you close out the year. 

And please remember, as I say, every episode, remember that you are here for a reason beyond merely hustling, grinding and merely surviving. You matter. 

 

Thank you so much for being here.