Week 8: She was there all along
For so long, my pictures were of four generations. My grandma, my mom, my aunt, my girls, and I. This year, we became three generations, and it’s still really sad and hard to accept that grandma is gone. But last week I was out with my mom and daughter, and we snapped a little 3-generation moment. Then we noticed the letters on the brick wall behind us in the photo: RB. Rosemary Baker, my sweet grandma.
Four generations again.
The biggest surprise of this year has been that since losing Grandma, I find her everywhere. I just had to start paying attention.
It’s so often the case to see where we’re going clearly, we need to look behind us.
For seven weeks, through this strategic planning series, you’ve been doing that same work of paying attention. Making the invisible visible.
Most people will start 2026 with vague resolutions (usually the same one they’ve set over and over), but no real self-knowledge. They’ll promise to “be healthier” or “stress less” without understanding what actually drains their energy or why they keep saying yes when they mean no.
You’re ending 2025 knowing yourself.
You know:
Where you’re spending time on things that drain you
Which relationships require you to perform and which ones let you exhale
The gap between your values and how you’re actually spending your time
And most importantly, where you’re going
Reflection didn’t change these patterns. It made them visible, so that you can choose what comes next. That’s agency.
Research on behavior change shows that simply becoming aware of our automatic patterns begins the process of changing them. When we identify obstacles consciously, our brains start treating them differently. Instead of unconscious barriers that trip us up repeatedly, they become visible steps we can navigate around or climb over.
The patterns that got you here, the people-pleasing, the performing, the putting yourself last, they were load-bearing for a long time. They held you up through hard things.
They’re part of the foundation, like my grandma’s initials on that brick.
We don’t need to demolish them. We just needed to see them clearly enough to decide which ones stay, which ones need updating, what we’re ready to build on top of this foundation.
Before you close out 2025, take one more moment to look behind you, friends, not with judgment, but with the clarity you’ve built over these seven weeks. This week’s reflection is just one question:
What pattern, belief, or behavior are you ready to put behind you as you step into 2026?
Name it. See it clearly. And know what you’re building.
With so much love,
Aransas
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