Reviewing Your Year On Purpose

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy, mom, dog, mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello, my beautiful friends. I am delighted to be here with you today talking about reviewing your year on purpose. Before we dive in, can you do me a favor and leave me a review? It’s super helpful for me and it’s also helpful for other women and moms who will be able to access this podcast by the way that the podcast platform promotes the show, which is done in one way through reviews. So it really means a lot to me. It takes a little bit of your time, but it really would go a long way.

And I just want to say thank you in advance. I read all of the reviews. So with that, let’s dive in today, reviewing your year on purpose. Why review your year? Do you review your year or are you like a lot of people who kind of have these subconscious thoughts that you’re not choosing deliberately, but that you’re living from? That sound like I’m so far behind, I didn’t do what I said I was going to do, I thought I was going to accomplish X, Y, Z. It didn’t happen. I had a really rough year, or it didn’t turn out how I thought. And then you try to propel yourself into a New Year’s resolution or a goal or something to kind of fix that. And the problem with that is it’s kind of like running from, it’s running from what didn’t work. It’s trying to change from a place of approval, and I just don’t think that’s helpful.

I think that, setting goals and New Year’s resolutions and living your purpose and all of those fun future focused activities, which obviously, you know, I’m a huge fan of, I think are best done from a place of really intentionally thinking about your present life and your past. And so what we’re talking about today specifically is how you think about your past and even more specifically how you think about this last year. So you already have thoughts about your past, this happens automatically. The key here though, that we’re going to talk about in this episode is to do it more intentionally so that the story that you tell serves you and why this matters is because it will impact the decisions that you make. So if for example, you tell a story about this past year where you are beating yourself up for the decisions that you made or didn’t make, then it’s very likely that you will have more fear and reservations going into the future making decisions because you’ll be second guessing yourself and doubting yourself. All of that my friends, is optional.

It’s optional because you can create a story that is both true and much more helpful that doesn’t create that doubt. So let’s say you bought a house last year and you’re realizing you really do not like the neighborhood. You find that it’s just not worth, what you paid for. And you’re having all of these thoughts about how you made a bad decision and how you should have done things differently and how you were persuaded. And all of that may be true, but if it’s told from the perspective, from the mindset that you did it wrong, that you made a bad decision, then it’s likely that you’re going to doubt yourself for making future decisions and you will likely agonize over whether to move and the cost and all of these things that with a little bit of mindset help and cleaning up the way that you’re thinking about this past year.

Again, not to say that you’re going to love the decision. You still can decide this isn’t the house that you want to live in in the future, but you don’t have to beat yourself up. And I would argue that beating yourself up actually creates more harm than it does good. We think on default that beating ourself up about a past decision means that we’re much more likely to make better future decisions. But that’s just not true because the decision is the circumstance. The decision is the fact, the story that you tell about it is optional. So remember, you’re either winning or you’re learning. If the house was not a win, then there’s something to be learned there, not to beat yourself up, but truly to learn so that you can move forward in a way that has your own back because then you’re still energized to make confident decisions into your future.

I talk about this a lot with respect to money. So there have been times where I have invested in things and I would say that the outcome isn’t what I initially thought it would be, but I never tell myself I lost money or that was a waste of money, and that is on purpose because when I think I lost money, it feels like it’s out of my hands. It feels very scary. And then I hold on tighter to my money in the future from scarcity, not from a place of abundance and thoughtfulness, but from a place of fear. So instead I tell myself, okay, as part of playing the game of life, sometimes I’m going to have money wins and sometimes it’s going to work out differently than I anticipated. And that’s okay. It’s all part of playing the game. So we put money down on a house when we were going to move in South Carolina and we ended up backing out and we did not get that money back because it was with a builder and it was a significant amount of money.

The money was just gone, right? There was nothing that we got from it. And how I decided to think about that was not that I lost money, not that it was a waste of money, not that, you know, there are all these other things I could have done with that money, including just bulk up the savings. It was that, you know what? This is part of playing the game, playing the game of life, playing the game of moving homes, playing the game of, sometimes it works out and other times it doesn’t. And that’s okay. And not making it mean I did something wrong or bad, or I should have known ahead of time, I still didn’t enjoy that. I still didn’t enjoy that I wasn’t going to have the money, but I didn’t make it mean something about me or my marriage or Steve. I just made it mean, oh yeah, this is part of playing the game. Sometimes it doesn’t work out the way that we think and that’s okay.

And I’m so grateful for this tool basically of rewriting your past. That’s what we’re talking about here with respect to your year, reviewing your year on purpose, because then it sets you up so beautifully for goal setting, for making decisions next year, for changing your life, for transforming your life. Because doing it from a way that has your own back and has a really empowering story about what happened this last year is definitely going to be helpful in the pursuit of your future goals. Reviewing your year is also really helpful in so far as it reduces the likelihood that you’ll goal hop. What do I mean by goal hop? I mean thinking that happiness is over there. I used to be someone who was so in my masculine energy, always going to the next goal, always thinking that happiness was on the other side of some accomplishment.

And you know, me, you know that I still love goal setting, but now I have a much more a balanced approach. I’m happy now and I set goals for fun just because I want to see what’s possible because I want to grow because I like living into my purpose and I like evolving. And it’s challenging too, but it’s challenging because doing this work can be challenging, changing yourself, rewiring your brain can be challenging, but it’s not challenging because I am thinking that, you know, I’m not happy now and therefore I need to set a goal to be happy over there. I think when you thoughtfully and carefully review your year and take a look at, you know your accomplishments, take a look at the story you’re telling, take a look at everything that happened and didn’t happen and what your top feelings were and all the ways that I teach for reviewing your year.

I think when you do that, it slows you down in a really healthy, helpful way so that you don’t goal hop so that you notice any patterns. For example, have you been trying to change jobs year after year after year, but your actions don’t align with, you know, going on interviews, applying for different jobs and you know, taking some offers while rejecting others and just more awareness around what’s working and what’s not is extraordinarily helpful so that you don’t just continue to have another goal for the next year of getting a different job. So said differently, I think reviewing your year really deepens your awareness so that you become aware of any unhelpful patterns like goal hopping. And that’s why I kind of love the way that I teach reviewing your year on purpose, because it’s not just about, okay, what did I do last year? Yes, your actions, your results are part of it, but also how were you thinking last year? What were your top emotions last year? And really taking on like an introspective lens towards yourself and much more awareness around the story that you’re telling around the last year. And this is particularly useful for goals, but it’s also useful if you’re going through a challenge in your marriage, let’s say, is the story that you’re telling he’s changed. You know, when I knew him back then, he was so different. This year was really hard because he made it hard. And all of those thoughts are true and valid. The problem is they’re really disempowering because they focus on something you can’t control, which is your spouse. So by reviewing your year, you can take a look at what the dominant story is that you’re telling in an area that was hard for you. So if your marriage was hard for you this past year, let’s take a look at what your main story is, and if that main story focuses on your spouse who you can’t control, it will feel harder than it needs to be. It still might be a challenge, and it still might be hard, but it’ll be a different kind of hard, it’ll be an empowering kind of hard because you’ll be able to rewrite that story in a way that makes you the hero, makes you the hero of your own life, makes you feel more self-confident and more capable to live in your marriage, to be in your marriage, to connect with your spouse, to make decisions about the future in your marriage. All of that is made possible by examining what was going on in your marriage last year and what story are you telling about it, and who are you focused on.

The same thing is true for motherhood. If it was a really hard year as a mom for you this past year, let’s validate that hard. And also, let’s take a look at the story that you’re telling. It might be that the story you’re telling is one you want to keep, but oftentimes when we are struggling the most, a huge part of it is the story that we’re telling is disempowering us. So if you are telling the story where you are at the effect of motherhood, where you’re a victim of motherhood, where your life is happening to you, where this isn’t, you know, kind of what you thought your life would be like, that story isn’t going to help you. So if you’re thinking, okay, I just need better time management or better systems in place to help me through this motherhood journey, and you go about trying to take those actions, but you haven’t taken a look at the last year’s story that you’re telling, you’re not going to make the traction and the progress no matter what actions you take, because the story that’s playing in your mind, that mindset, that perspective is still one of being at the effect of your life.

So really reviewing your year and doing it in the way that I teach helps you have a self-confidence and feel more empowered to create the year ahead in the way that aligns with your purpose and who you want to be. Just imagine what it would feel like to start a new year with a sense of clarity and peace rather than stress and guilt and rather than kinda that false hope, like, okay, you know, everyone says I could lose weight, so maybe it’ll be this time, but you sort of know that you haven’t changed and you failed so many times that that’s the story running in your mind and you’re likely to fail again. That’s that false hope that follows the pattern of most people not achieving their goals and life happening and the New Year’s resolution fading that my friends is entirely optional. You can feel much more confident and have much more clarity going into this next year, setting a goal that aligns with who you want to be. And that goal might be outcome-based, like changing jobs, losing weight, making more money, or it might be internal, like changing one of your top emotions from feeling overwhelmed to feeling more peace.

Or another internal shift might be that you want to become a more playful, grounded mom who’s able to be in her feminine energy more. Your desires are unique to you, and no matter what’s going on in your life making space for intentionally creating your future, making space for designing the life that you want to live, making space for the goals that matter to you, that is important. And it all starts with reviewing your year purposefully. So I want to invite you to take your reflections to the next level by joining me inside the Mom On Purpose Membership and participating in the course that I’m teaching this month called I Year in Review. And this is where you’ll learn to harness the power of your personal narrative and set up your best year yet for this podcast. I want to leave you with three helpful ways to get started reviewing your year.

Number one is to adopt the mindset. You’re either learning or winning. There is no losing. There’s just a bunch of wins and just a bunch of things you can learn. So if you tried to stop worrying about your kids last year and you haven’t made the progress that you want to make yet, then you know what doesn’t work. You learned the ways you tried aren’t going to do it. You are now more equipped with knowledge to try something different next year. So there’s no going back, there’s no falling off the wagon, everything is going forward. It’s just not linear, it’s just not a straight line up. There are zigzags and turns and curves, and that’s just life. And when you have that perspective, it doesn’t make the moments where you miss the mark so hard because you know, this is just part of playing the game. This is just how it goes.

Okay, number two, adopt the mindset that last year happened for me. Remind yourself, my life isn’t happening to me, it’s happening for me. And answer this question, how did the challenges, the struggles, the hard moments, shape you into who you are today? If you reflect with this mindset, you’ll start to see how every experience contributes to your growth. Something that I’ve been saying in the membership for several months now is that every single day is a personal development opportunity. Anytime you’re triggered is an opportunity for you to do personal development work on yourself. There is so much to learn about you when you go into a spin about something that your husband did. It’s not because of your husband, it’s because of what’s going on with you. And that is good to know. So you can learn. There’s so much you can learn about yourself. And when you have a curious approach to learning about yourself and you’re not in a lot of judgment, that is where the magic happens because then you’re not thinking you’re bad or wrong or kinda hiding behind shame. Shame likes to hide, but instead you’re taking a real look at what’s going on for you. It’s like, hi, love. What’s wrong? What happened there? Let’s talk about it. And that takes that curiosity mindset, that self-love. And from there the sky is the limit because then you really do grow and evolve because then you understand yourself.

And lastly, adopt the mindset. I get to choose what happens next. The beauty of reflecting on the past is realizing you have the power to create the exact story you want to create. And that that story will impact your future. No matter what happened last year, you get to choose how you move forward. You are not stuck, my friend. You are not at the mercy of your circumstances. You are in control of your next steps. So the work that we’re going to do and that we’re doing in this class A Year In Review inside the membership is all about rewriting the narrative of the past year, taking a look at the most important parts of it, including what’s going on for you internally and externally, and then taking that and creating a story that serves you so that you can decide how you want to create your year ahead from a place of approval and from a place of loving yourself.

So again, the three mindsets to adopt are, one, you’re either learning or winning. Two, last year happened for you. And number three, you get to choose what happens next. These are empowering mindsets that can help you navigate any challenge, work through any goal, and it’ll help you get started. We will take it much deeper in the course a year in review. I hope to see you inside my friend. Have a beautiful rest of your week. Take care.

Thank you for being here and listening. Now, head on over to momonpurpose.com/coaching to learn more about the Mom On Purpose membership, where we take all of this work to the next level.