Pausing and Reflecting – 2019’s Biggest Wins and FAILS!

I’ll start off by warning you that this may get a little deep, which these sometimes do. Nothing like the end of one year and the beginning of another to make a person really stop and analyze life. December is when we tend to reflect on the year that we had, the good, the bad and what we maybe could have done better. But now it’s January which is the time we look ahead, set our goals and light that fire for what we’re gonna do. It’s an exciting and hopeful month but it can also be tough.

We start out with these high expectations we set for ourselves then a lot of us burn out on them and quickly lose that momentum. That is why I’ve learned from past years that while it’s important to set my goals and intentions for the year, it’s equally important for me to also take it easy on myself. Maybe I’m still in recovery mode from the holidays but January is now a time for me to be a little bit kinder to myself. Then when February rolls around, I usually feel a little more prepared to really dive into my goals. It’s also a time for me to pause and reflect on the past year. What were my wins last year? Where did I fail? For more details on my biggest wins and fails of 2019 click on the Coffee Chat below.

The Wins

I’m decided I’m going to start this off on a positive note by discussing what I feel are my greatest wins of last year and they all deal with personal development. For the past few years, I felt like I’ve been stagnant. I stayed in the same space emotionally and it was a big year for me to break out of some old patterns that I was in.

1. Overcoming Confidence Issues

I have been totally transparent about this with all of you but confidence issues are something that has plagued my entire life. To help with this I decided it was time for a therapy ‘brush-up.’ I hadn’t been in therapy on a regular basis in a few years and confidence is something that I can absolutely work on there. My belief in myself this past year has blossomed. It’s led to so many powerful changes that have allowed me to be a better leader, wife, mom, daughter, sister and friend.

2. Practicing Self-Compassion

One of the other things my therapist wanted me to work on was really being more compassionate with myself. For years I used criticism as my driving force. I implore others to be kinder to themselves yet my own negative self-talk was out of control. I really had to be aware and monitor myself. I realized that I needed to make that shift towards being compassionate to myself. I’m still working on the self-compassion thing but awareness is half the battle.  

3. Acceptance

This was also a big one – acceptance. Acceptance of what makes me different as a human being and as an influencer. And I got to say that this community, all of you specifically, have helped with this so much. I see Get Your Pretty On as a movement, as a mission. I feel like the mission has always been about a few key things that are central to who I am. I want to be inclusive. This should be for every woman. I believe personal style and feeling good in your clothes and feeling confident is not reserved for a certain subgroup of women in this world. It is for everybody, every body, every budget, everyone. No exceptions. I want everybody to feel good in their clothes. Style and confidence go hand in hand and that is a part of my core mission.

4. Being Open With My Feelings

I feel like vulnerability has been the key to unlocking relationships whether it’s with my family, with my friends and with you all. Being more open with my feelings and being more vulnerable has been a huge win for me this year. Along with that is being more direct about my needs from others. And this goes across the board from being more direct with Craig about things that I needed from him to being more direct with my team. I needed to really focus on being clear about expectations and asking for what I want instead of expecting people to read my mind.

The Fails

I struggled with identifying these, not because I’m afraid to admit to failure, but because they were reframed as learning opportunities. Trust me, as mentioned above, I am the first person to admit to my flaws and shortcomings. But reflecting over the past year there were definitely some notable missteps.

1. Ignoring My Health

I ignored a health issue that I had for two months. The funny thing is that I feel like I do take really good care of myself. I work out three times a week. I try to eat right 80 percent of the time. I try to do all those things to keep my body healthy. However, I got really busy and did a lot of traveling and I largely ignored what my body was telling me. I’m just now starting to get some answers. It’s something autoimmune, which I suspected all along, but letting it get to a certain point where it went from being a smaller problem to being a bigger problem is something I regret. In 2020 I’ve got to make taking care of myself a better priority.

2. Too Many Directions

I threw my energy into too many different directions and expected results in all of those. Instead, I should have focused on a few key areas. If you’re juggling too many balls at once, eventually one of those balls is going to drop. It’s important to prioritize and then go at it with laser focus. I’m doing a much better job of that this year and focusing on a much smaller set of things. And we’ll see how that goes.

3. Trying To Do Everything

I thought I could do it all on my own and that I could do it better. I didn’t ask for help and I didn’t delegate. I may have missed out on some opportunities because of this, but I’ve realized that there’s nothing wrong with asking for help. Delegating it’s a weakness, it’s empowering others to rise up whether it’s with my family or with my team.

4. Revenue Goal vs. Impact Goal

As I mentioned, I start off the year goal setting both personally and professionally. With any business, the first goal set is usually a revenue goal so you have something to work towards. However, I realized the problem with setting a revenue goal is that it doesn’t drive me, it doesn’t light a fire under me for the coming year. I’m a person who gets complacent and satisfied sometimes with enough. I learned that what I’m passionate about, what truly motivates me is an impact goal. How many women’s lives can I change? What is the impact that I can create? Where can I volunteer? Where can I donate? What can I do with the money that’s coming in to use it as a vehicle for impact and change? And making that shift made all the difference for me.

5. Bangs

Just being 100% honest but I totally regret getting bangs last year. I liked them for about two weeks tops and then proceeded to spend the rest of the year wishing they would grow out faster. I’ve learned that I will never ever, ever, have bangs again.

My One Word

I know, the one-word thing is super trendy right now and everybody’s doing this when setting their intentions for 2020. Nevertheless, my one word for this year is gratitude. This past year in therapy, one of the things that I realized is that I had a lot of anxiety. I’m an anxious person. Good anxious energy drives me and pushes me in new directions. But it can also wear me down and make me really, really tired. One of the things my therapist challenged me to do was shift from anxious thoughts to grateful thoughts. So now anytime anxiety, fear, worry, whatever pops into my head I stop and shift that to gratitude instead. I list off all of the things that I’m grateful for every single day. This has truly been lifechanging for me.

I’m going to leave you with this final thought that my therapist also shared with me, “you can ruminate on bad things or you can ruminate on good things. The choice is yours.” 

 

Your turn! How did your 2019 go? What were your wins? Your fails? What would be your one-word for 2020?

Previous

Next