228 Year-End Reflection: What This Year Is Really Trying to Teach You
This week we’re kicking off a short pre-Christmas series designed to help you ease into 2026 feeling clearer, lighter, and far more aligned.
And before you even think about setting goals for the new year, there’s so much power in pausing and looking back. So today, I’m guiding you through a simple end-of-year reflection that helps you recognise what worked, what didn’t, and what your year has been trying to teach you.
We'll be noticing the patterns you’ve been repeating, the things that drained you, the things that energised you, and the moments you’re genuinely proud of - because these are the very things that will shape an easier, more intentional 2026.
Reflection questions from the episode:
- What didn’t go so well this year—and what can I learn from it?
- What am I genuinely proud of? (Including the things I gave myself, not just the things I achieved.)
- What drained me—and what energised me?
- What am I ready to stop carrying into 2026? (Habits, beliefs, relationships, expectations… anything.)
The more clearly you understand the stories, patterns, energy, and choices that shaped this year, the more powerfully you get to shape next year.
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Transcript
So we're coming to the end of yet another year and one of the things I love to do at this time of year is take a moment to reflect back.
Speaker A:It is a great first step in setting us up for what we want to achieve in the new year, but it's also a great way of giving ourselves a bit of time to acknowledge and celebrate, which is something we're not normally very good at.
Speaker A: en the door to an even better: Speaker A:Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Wellbeing, the podcast for women who are done with the hustle and are ready to feel at in their own skin.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Alex Life, therapeutic and fitness coach for busy women who want to do less, live more, and feel good from the inside out.
Speaker A:Every week I'm going to help you to cut through the noise, challenge the shoulds, and find new ways to live and move that actually feel like you.
Speaker A:Hello there.
Speaker A:Welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker A: isodes to get you prepped for: Speaker A:Because what I would you to do before the year has even ended is to get really clear on your goals and your desires for next year.
Speaker A:And not in a pressure filled way, not in a I need to fix myself way, but in a way that is really going to open you up to more of what you want in the new year and is going to open you up to working on how you want to feel in the new year as well.
Speaker A:Now I'm going to keep these episodes short and sweet.
Speaker A:Firstly because December is always busy anyway, but secondly, because what I really want to do is spark reflection and ideas.
Speaker A:And I think that the best way that you can do that is to be inspired by these episodes, but then go away and just take a little bit of time to let them percolate, to let them run through the system so that you can actually then use that to go forward with.
Speaker A:And this doesn't mean that you need to spend hours and hours reflecting and digging and all of those kind of things.
Speaker A:This is just something that you can do for a short period of time.
Speaker A:You know, 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there.
Speaker A:That's going to help you just really get a handle on, okay, what happened happened in the year that just went.
Speaker A:What did go to plan that I can celebrate and what maybe didn't go to plan that I can work on and that I can use this information for what I want to do next year.
Speaker A:Because this is not a performance review.
Speaker A:This is not about getting into all the shoulds.
Speaker A:This isn't about letting the inner critic show up and start running the show and make you feel crappy about what you didn't achieve.
Speaker A:It's about what can we learn from the things that didn't go to plan, but also moving on, looking at those patterns, looking at the things that have shaped your year, and using that as the springboard for what you're going to do next year.
Speaker A:We don't want to dwell on it.
Speaker A:We don't want to spend a load of time worrying about it.
Speaker A:We don't want to spend a load of time thinking, oh, I should have done that better and I should have done this better, and I need to fix this next year.
Speaker A:This is an opportunity to just look for a few clues, to look for, what are the things that I can take away from this year in terms of what I have done well, and the things that maybe haven't gone quite to plan.
Speaker A:Because often what happens is we try something new and either it doesn't work and we blame ourselves, and then we quickly move on to the next and we don't take the time to learn from that, or it does work and we just forget to celebrate.
Speaker A:We completely forget to celebrate.
Speaker A:And I think one thing I have definitely learned is to take a moment to celebrate those things.
Speaker A:Because the more that you do that, the more you are building the case for the things that you want in your life, the more that you are saying, gosh, yes, I have done this and I have achieved this, and I want more of this in my life.
Speaker A:Sometimes when we gloss over it all, it doesn't have as big of an impact as it could do.
Speaker A:So we're gonna really reflect this year, even just for a few minutes.
Speaker A:I don't care if you just do this for five minutes and then you move on with your life.
Speaker A:I just want you to do this because it's an opportunity to learn.
Speaker A:And as I always say, learning is where we grow.
Speaker A:We do not grow if we do not learn something from what we have done.
Speaker A:So that is an absolute prerequisite for any growth that you want to have going forward.
Speaker A:So this is our opportunity to learn.
Speaker A:This is our opportunity to update our internal operating system, I. E. To look at those things, to look at maybe the approaches that we've taken to things, and to say, hang on a minute, do I need to upgrade this?
Speaker A:Do I need to update this do I need to maybe make some tweaks to how I'm thinking about and approaching things that are going to help me to get a better result?
Speaker A:And that's then going to allow us to really put ourselves in a stronger position in the long term.
Speaker A:The more that we can see what we need to learn from, the more that we can upgrade that kind of internal operating system, the stronger of a position that we put ourselves in in the longer term.
Speaker A:So anyway, without further ado, let's get into into this because like I say, these episodes are short and sweet on purpose.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I want to get really laser focused on a couple of questions for you to consider this time.
Speaker A:A bit of journaling.
Speaker A:This would be amazing.
Speaker A:Coming back and listening to this episode again would be amazing.
Speaker A:Just to jog your memory a little bit and to really get you inspired to think about this.
Speaker A:But there's a few questions for you to answer here.
Speaker A:You might even just pause the episode and think about it for 30 seconds and then move on to the next.
Speaker A:That's totally fine.
Speaker A:Literally, whatever works for you.
Speaker A:I'd rather you did it in three minutes than you didn't do it at all.
Speaker A:Okay, so question number one.
Speaker A:What did not go so well this year?
Speaker A:So there are likely a couple of things that didn't go quite to plan.
Speaker A:There are likely a couple of areas that have felt frustrating for you.
Speaker A:There are likely a couple of things that you think, oh, gosh, I wish that I had done that a little bit differently.
Speaker A:We're not here to judge it.
Speaker A:We're not here to get annoyed at ourselves for the way that we did things.
Speaker A:We're here to learn from it.
Speaker A:So have a think about those things.
Speaker A:Or maybe just one thing.
Speaker A:It might just be one, one single thing that you can kind of come up with and have a think about.
Speaker A:What did you learn from that?
Speaker A:So, for example, maybe you tried something that wasn't really aligned with who or what you really wanted to be.
Speaker A:Hindsight.
Speaker A:And often we can see things better in hindsight, can't we?
Speaker A:In hindsight, we look at that and we go, actually, I was trying to force something into my life that really didn't fit, that really wasn't aligned with what I wanted for myself.
Speaker A:And you can recognise that going forward and you can use that.
Speaker A:Maybe it's was something that you had tried before and you tried it again without changing the approach.
Speaker A:And then you, of course you got the same result.
Speaker A:Now that's not always the case.
Speaker A:Sometimes we will do something again.
Speaker A:We'll do it in the same way.
Speaker A:And it will work because we're just in a place where that's going to work better for us.
Speaker A:But often when it doesn't work for us, we have tried something, we've tried it again, We've not changed our approach to it, We've not changed the way that we've done it, and we keep getting the same result over and over again.
Speaker A:So what are those places in your life where maybe the approach is not changing and therefore the result is not changing?
Speaker A:Because again, that's going to inform what you're going to do going forward.
Speaker A:And maybe it's that the thing that you were trying to do was the thing that you didn't really want to do in the first place.
Speaker A:And you can let it go and you can say, actually, why was I even trying to do that?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Or maybe it is actually, I just don't think that I approached it in the right frame of mind.
Speaker A:Or I just don't think I approached it with the right strategy, whatever that thing is.
Speaker A:So it could be something like that.
Speaker A:Maybe you recognize now that you were doing something because you thought you should do it rather than because you really wanted to do it.
Speaker A:And I find that so often with the women that I work with is that they are.
Speaker A:They're doing all these things because they think that that's.
Speaker A:That's the thing that's going to get the result.
Speaker A:That's the thing that somebody's said, you should do this to get that.
Speaker A:And yet when I talk to them about it, they're like, I didn't really want to do it.
Speaker A:It didn't really feel that good to me.
Speaker A:It didn't really feel like it was going to make the difference that I wanted to.
Speaker A:And yet we're plugging away at it because we think we should be doing it.
Speaker A:So maybe it's something like that, or maybe you were trying to shoehorn a change into your life that just did not suit your life or your energy.
Speaker A:And again, a lot of that comes from that should energy rather than that energy of, okay, this is something that feels good.
Speaker A:This is something that feels aligned.
Speaker A:Because that's the thing when we don't make progress on things.
Speaker A:When things don't work for us, it's not usually because we are just lazy.
Speaker A:It's usually because there is some kind of misalignment there.
Speaker A:There's some kind of misalignment in terms of what we truly want for ourselves.
Speaker A:There's misalignment in terms of Our capacity to do that thing or our energy to do that thing, there's some kind of misalignment in terms of our values and it not matching our values.
Speaker A:And because we are told so much from the outside about what we should be doing, sometimes we don't question that.
Speaker A:And so that's why a review can be really, really helpful.
Speaker A:It opens up the conversation for us to have around.
Speaker A:Actually, is that the right thing for me to be doing?
Speaker A:Does that match with my energy?
Speaker A:Does that match with my true goals?
Speaker A:Does that match with my values?
Speaker A:Because if it doesn't match with those things, if there is a misalignment there, it's going to be really, really, really hard for you to carry through.
Speaker A:And so it then becomes a different conversation, which isn't about, well, how can I have more willpower?
Speaker A:How can I force myself to do it?
Speaker A:It becomes, how do I change this?
Speaker A:How do I change my approach to this?
Speaker A:How do I change the way I see this so that I get a better result?
Speaker A:So that I get a result that is more aligned to the things that I want for myself.
Speaker A:So we can learn so much from what did not go well.
Speaker A:And this is a practice that I have done for myself in the past.
Speaker A:I have looked back at some of the things that I have tried to do for myself and I've realized, gosh, it just was not aligned to what I really wanted.
Speaker A:It wasn't aligned to the way that I wanted to live my life.
Speaker A:No wonder it felt so hard.
Speaker A:No wonder I resented it.
Speaker A:So that information could be really valuable.
Speaker A:And we are going to use this as we go forward, by the way, so we will continue to have a conversation about this.
Speaker A:But when you're talking about the things that didn't go so well, remember, it's not an opportunity to beat yourself up for it.
Speaker A:It's an opportunity to ask questions and to get an answer that are going to help you to refine what you do next time.
Speaker A:The second question or the second thing that I'd love you to have a think about is what am I proud of this year?
Speaker A:And we're always flipping.
Speaker A:Skip this one.
Speaker A:We will spend hours and hours ruminating over the stuff that we did wrong, over the stuff that we didn't get over, the goals that were unachieved, and we spend absolutely zero time ruminating on.
Speaker A:Actually, I did that, and I'm really proud of myself for doing that.
Speaker A:And the reason it's important to revisit that is, number one, gratitude.
Speaker A:Because gratitude has been shown to improve the way that we feel about ourselves and to improve the way that we feel about life generally.
Speaker A:But also what it does is it really starts to help us build evidence for the woman that we are creating for the woman that we want to be.
Speaker A:And that is really, really important.
Speaker A:I was talking to a coaching client about this the other week, and I was talking about, we get to choose the evidence that we build.
Speaker A:And what most of us are doing is we are subconsciously building evidence for the things that we don't want in our lives, because we're ruminating on that, we're focusing on that, we're thinking about that.
Speaker A:If we start to focus more, what am I proud of?
Speaker A:What went well this year?
Speaker A:Then we're starting to build the evidence for more of that.
Speaker A:We're starting to bring our focus to more of that.
Speaker A:And it allows us to also then say, how come that thing worked out for me when that other thing didn't?
Speaker A:What can I take from that to apply to these other things that aren't going so well, that are going to make them work better?
Speaker A:We get to, again, take a lesson from that and translate it into everything else, as well as building evidence for the woman that we are creating or the life that we are creating for ourselves.
Speaker A:So, for example, I'll talk about this a little bit more next time.
Speaker A:I'm really proud of the fact that in the middle of this year, I gifted myself time and space.
Speaker A:So, as you know, hopefully know, I did a rebrand this year, and I spent about two or three years before that thinking, I really feel like I need to rebrand, but I was too scared to do that, and I wasn't quite in the right place to do that.
Speaker A:And this year, I said to myself, enough is enough.
Speaker A:You need to do this.
Speaker A:You know, this is the right thing to do.
Speaker A:And because of work I'd already done, like, my nervous system was in a better place for it.
Speaker A:And so allowing myself that space no longer felt scary.
Speaker A:It actually felt really good.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed that time when I gave myself that space.
Speaker A:And it has resulted in a really successful rebrand.
Speaker A:It has resulted in new clients coming through the door, women who have been in my world for many years and are suddenly starting to book sessions with me and things like that.
Speaker A:And also loads of lovely positive feedback from everybody on how the rebrand looks, how it sounds, how it feels.
Speaker A:Everybody's loving it now.
Speaker A:The old me would have rushed that and would have done it too quickly and would have felt a lot of pressure around doing it and getting it out there in the world.
Speaker A:But what I'm really proud of is that I did the work on myself that allowed me to give myself that time and space and to create something that I'm really super proud of.
Speaker A:So it can be anything like that.
Speaker A:What have you given yourself this year?
Speaker A:What have you done for yourself this year?
Speaker A:What have you achieved?
Speaker A:And that's the thing.
Speaker A:It's not just about what you've achieved as a result of that, it's about what you have given yourself.
Speaker A:And that for me, I'm proud of the time and the space that I gave myself.
Speaker A:That's not a result, that's not a goal that I've achieved.
Speaker A:It's just I'm proud that I got to a place in my life, life where that no longer felt scary to do.
Speaker A:So I'm sure you can think of some examples.
Speaker A:I hope you can think of some examples in your own life and that you can really, like I say, use that to build evidence for creating more of that.
Speaker A:A third question.
Speaker A:There's only two more questions.
Speaker A:So the third question you can ask yourself is, what drained me this year?
Speaker A:Where did I feel frictional frustration and what energized me this year?
Speaker A:And this can be really revealing because you can start to look at relationships that are draining you, boundaries that are leaving you feeling frustrated, things you've been doing on autopilot, which you're resenting.
Speaker A:So what are those things that you look back on in your life and you think, God, that really frustrated me, or that really created friction for me, or that really drained me this year?
Speaker A:Because once you recognize those, you can do something about it.
Speaker A:But also, what energized me this year?
Speaker A:Because when you look at what energized you this year, it starts to give you clues as to what you can do more of in the new year so that you have a better year.
Speaker A:Where are the times when you felt energized?
Speaker A:What were you doing?
Speaker A:How did it feel for you?
Speaker A:So for me, again, this is a practice that I've done where I really have recognised in the last couple of years that creating programmes and coaching clients leaves me feeling really energised and excited.
Speaker A:I get really excited about doing those things.
Speaker A:And so what I need to do is I need to do more of that.
Speaker A:I need to create more ways of having more of that in my life, because that gives me energy, that feeds my energy.
Speaker A:So what is it in your life that feeds your energy and makes you feel good so that you can create more of that?
Speaker A:You can have more of that in your life this year or next year, should I say?
Speaker A: I ready to stop carrying into: Speaker A:And I think this kind of goes with the last question as well, because it might be about personal relationships that you need to stop carrying.
Speaker A:It might be about boundaries that you need to put in place and things around that that you need to stop carrying.
Speaker A:What are the things that were draining you that you can stop carrying?
Speaker A:What are the things that created friction that you can stop carrying?
Speaker A:What did not feel good that you no longer want to carry or accept in your life?
Speaker A:Because if we want to create more and better things for ourselves in the new year, we need to clear away some of stuff, some of the baggage, so that we can create that space for the stuff that does feel good.
Speaker A:So that's what I want you to just really spend even a few minutes thinking about what didn't go so well this year and what can I learn from it?
Speaker A:What am I proud of this year?
Speaker A:And like I say, not just about the things you achieved, but the things that you gave yourself, what drained me or created friction or frustration for me this year and what energized me this year.
Speaker A:Again, let us give ourselves some clues as to what you want more of in your life.
Speaker A: m I ready to stop carrying in: Speaker A:What's the baggage that we are leaving behind?
Speaker A:It could be things external to you, but it could be things internal to you as well.
Speaker A:It could be, I'm not going to carry around this idea or this story that I can't do certain things or I'm not worthy of certain things.
Speaker A:For example.
Speaker A:So what are those little mind monkeys that you are going to put to rest that you're going to leave behind?
Speaker A:Take a little bit of time on that and we're going to go more into all of this next week because it's great doing the review and it's great planning for the new year with that.
Speaker A:But we also need to create a little bit of space around that to allow all of those things to flourish.
Speaker A:So we're going to talk a bit more about that next week, how we can rest so that we can get really, truly aligned.
Speaker A:But in the meantime, have a think about these questions and remember, the more clarity you have around what's happened this year, the more powerfully you can start to shape what happens next year.
Speaker A:So I will leave you to contemplate and explore and then I'm going to see you back here again next time.
Speaker A:To step into the next part of this little journey.
Speaker A:Thank you as always for joining me.
Speaker A:If this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to hear it and come connect with me on Instagram at Life Life Edit with Alex for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.
