Our December Uplifters Retreat sold out before I could even announce it, which freaking delights me because it lets us start the journey now, not on the weekend we all meet in person. Instead of another gadget or supplement promising to change our lives (though my Dyson vacuum did sort of actually deliver on that), we’re giving ourselves a truly meaningful holiday gift: entering 2025 with clarity, focus, and energy instead of just exhaustion and vague resolutions.
The weekly reflections I’m creating for retreat attendees are the heart of that gift. So I’m inviting all of you on this 8-week journey with us.
Between now and the end of the year, I’ll send a prompt each week that invites you to take honest stock of 2024 and get curious about what you could build in 2025. My hope is that through these reflections, we can all give ourselves that same gift—arriving in the new year confident of what we’ve built, clear on what we want to build next, and with a path for building it.
Week One: The Foundations You’re Already Building
There’s this thing my brain does every October. I start cataloging everything I didn’t accomplish this year. My brain, ever helpful, presents this inventory like damning evidence: See? You didn’t do enough.
Sound familiar?
Our brains are wired for negativity bias, which means we highlight what’s missing or wrong while completely overlooking what’s actually there and right. It’s terrible for the motivation and hope we need most to do big, brave things.
Last week, I gave myself permission to really look at 2024. Not just the highlight reel, but the whole messy year of it. Surprise! I discovered I’d gotten way more done than I thought.
Even more powerful? When I look back at 2024, I can see that nearly everything meaningful happening in 2025 grew from foundations I laid last year.
It’s like building a house. You can’t see the foundation once the house is finished, but it’s what makes everything else possible. That conversation that felt pointless? It might be the foundation for a partnership. The class you took? Foundation for expertise you’ll need next year. The small experiment that “failed”? Foundation for understanding what actually works.
What if all the little things you did this year are actually load-bearing walls for what you’re building next?
This Week’s Reflection: Your 2024 Foundation Audit
Step 1: Make Your Building Materials List
Look back through your calendar, photo app, and journal. List everything you did, tried, or learned this year—especially the stuff that felt pointless, small, or insignificant at the time. List it all.
Step 2: See Your Foundation
Now zoom way out, like you’re looking at your year from above. Try organizing these “building materials” into categories: What are you learning about? Who are you connecting with? What are you getting braver about? What skills are you developing?
Look for the corners and edges first—what’s giving shape to what you’re building? What foundation are you laying that you can’t fully see yet?
Step 3: Imagine What You’re Building
If 2025 was all about pouring the foundation, what could 2026 be about building on top of it? Just play with the question. Let yourself get excited about what becomes possible when you realize you’ve already done the groundwork.
I’ll share what I discovered about my own 2024 foundation next week, along with our Week Two reflection.
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