Welcome, friends.
I hope you all are having a fantastic rest of your holiday break.
I know it's that weird transition between Christmas and New Year's Day.
And so I'm working, however, we are working here in my research company.
We have a few deadlines to make before the 1st of January.
So we are working really, really hard right now.
And so, and plus I have a few clients today.
But I want to come on here because the last podcast episode I did was on reflecting, rejoicing, and renewing before the new year.
So we reflect on the past.
We take all of the learnings from our setbacks back.
from our failures, even from our successes.
So we have two columns that we made, right?
All of the beautiful memories of success and prosperity and abundance, all the things that we achieved.
And then the other column are all of the learnings from, or I should say, all of the setbacks and failures.
But we take the learnings from both lists,
from both lists.
And so as I was doing this exercise the last few days, because I'm reflecting on 2023, I am now moving into rejoicing these learnings.
And so as I was reviewing and reflecting, I couldn't help but think of the discomfort I felt in 2023.
There's so much discomfort.
And here's what I mean.
This past year, I have endeavored in a lot of interesting projects and experiences with my clients, with new clients, with new ways of using social media or using this podcast platform to expand my message.
And
In doing that, in putting myself out there and having the courage, right, to put myself out there, because I didn't have the confidence.
And I have an episode, by the way, called Courage Over Confidence.
You're going to want to watch that.
And so as I was practicing courage in 2023, and actually that wasn't even my word for the year.
My word for the year was community.
I was wanting to build a big community of amazing women leaders.
And
Actually, I found myself practicing courage instead, courage over confidence, courage over community, courage over a lot of things because I was stretching the boundaries of my neurology.
Like I was stretching my comfort levels.
And so here I was...
doing some very interesting things, speaking on stages, proposing to organizations and companies that I would never have considered speaking to or proposing my research, my leadership research and training services.
So I was stretching the boundaries of my neurology, things I had never done before I was doing this year.
And as I was reflecting on my learnings, I couldn't resist this feeling of discomfort.
I felt like I wanted to like shed my skin.
I felt like I was trying to get out of my skin.
And I was looking at all these memories.
I kept thinking, wow, I was so uncomfortable.
And I didn't know that that was the emotion.
the emotion of discomfort.
I didn't have a name for it.
I just know I felt very uncomfortable in my skin.
And there was a lot of moments of imposter syndrome, for sure.
for sure.
A lot of moments of feeling like a fraud, feeling like, oh my gosh, I shouldn't even be in this room.
Or, oh my gosh, they're going to find me out.
I'm actually a big idiot.
They're going to find out that I'm just so underqualified and they're going to think that I just shouldn't be here and that I'm not equipped to help their organizations.
There were so many moments of that.
And
although we throw this phrase imposter syndrome around often, you just put it in the back of your mind and you're like, okay, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
It's okay.
You're going to feel imposter syndrome at every level of success.
And that's what I was thinking the entire time was like, you know what?
I'm okay with feeling like an imposter.
I'm okay with feeling like a fraud.
I mean, I've had so many people tell me I missed the mark on so many subjects and projects and
and experiments that I was doing.
So many people have said, wow, she's just an outcast or an outlier, which is how I like to reframe it.
A lot of people were saying, she's just not tapped into us.
I'm like, well, I'm okay.
So there were a lot of moments like that in 2023.
And I have to admit that I have been very comfortable
comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I have put myself in rooms where I really quite frankly
don't belong.
I mean, there were rooms where I'm like, how did I get here?
I don't even know.
Oh, I know so-and-so who got me into this room.
And then this person put me in this other room.
And so there were so many moments where I'm looking back going, holy moly, I was so uncomfortable.
Like
And as I'm reading Adam Grant's book, Hidden Potential, which is so good.
I think that's what it's called, but it's the latest from Adam Grant.
And he's an organizational psychologist.
And he's talking about in the first few chapters, discomfort, being comfortable with discomfort.
And that when you are entering into a new experience or a new context, and you're so darn uncomfortable, that means that you are learning.
That means that you are doing something right.
That means you are progressing.
And so I kept thinking back on
all of my circumstances and the context, the rooms I was in, I was extremely uncomfortable.
And I don't know if I was able to really consciously find awareness around that.
I wasn't able to name it.
I'm uncomfortable.
This was uncomfortable.
I just powered through these events.
I just powered through them.
I said yes to so many experiences.
And then I was moments where I'm like, well, I'm stuck doing this now because I said yes.
So here we go.
Just keep going forward.
And so that's what I'm reflecting on right now is this common theme for me in 2023 was discomfort.
And so I want for you to take a moment to do that exercise.
By the way, that's episode 155, reflect, rejoice, renew episode, where I talk about how to do the three R's before 2024.
And here I am today telling you that this exercise,
is so beneficial.
And I'm still not done yet.
I'm still moving through this and I'm giving myself space to integrate all this information so that I can just settle into the reflection part.
That's part one.
Part two is the rejoicing of those learnings.
And then part three is the renewal.
And so I'm giving myself, and I've given myself a few weeks to do this work.
But what has come up for me
here is this theme.
And so if you're feeling discomfort, if 2023 was just uncomfortable for you, and if you're like me, a snake trying to shed her skin to move into this new realm, this new dimension, and I don't know where we're going in 2024, but I'm so darn excited.
And yes, I'm going to pick a word and I'm going to pick a theme for 2024.
But if life doesn't
present evidence for that, that word or that theme that you have chosen for 2024, then just go with the flow.
Listen, because for me, it was community all the way in 2023 and first quarter of 2023 was all about discomfort.
And it was really all about having courage.
And so courage became the theme for me in 2023.
And so I want for you to go back and do this exercise.
You're going to reflect on your 2023, all the learnings from your successes and from your setbacks, two different columns, of course.
And then I want for you to pull the learnings.
And if you go back to that episode 155, you're going to be able to go through the exercise in order.
And then after you take those learnings, you're going to want to rejoice in them.
And I'm now rejoicing with you in that the thing for me was discomfort, that I had so much courage in 2023 because I was so uncomfortable the entire year because I put myself in situations that allowed me to stretch my neurology.
And that's definitely something to rejoice.
And probably moving forward before we enter 2024, I'm going to just sit back and renew and just look at ways to renew my perspective, to take those learnings, to take the rejoicing and integration of these learnings and just consciously move into a new dimension, a new
a new, I don't know, just an additional part of my personality, of my character, right?
It's just this renewal of a person.
And that's the energy I'm going to take into 2024.
And then I'm going to set a word or a theme for 2024.
And if that doesn't work out because life has another lesson for me to learn, I'm just going to go with it.
And then I'll be reporting back to you in a year's time so that we can talk about what actually came to be in 2024.
But listen, we've got enough things to reflect and rejoice and renew right now at this moment before we enter a brand new year, before we start looking ahead.
Listen, I don't have a blueprint.
I don't have a path forward.
I'm climbing.
I just know I'm climbing the mountain.
I'm in a summit one day and I don't know what that's going to look like.
I have so many climbs that I'm on because of so many aspects of my life, so many wonderful things that I want to do in my life.
So I'm just going to go with it.
But right here, right now, I want for you to reflect on 2023, rejoice on those learnings, integrate them into your nervous system, and then find a way to renew yourself with these learnings.
All right, my dear friend, that's all I have for you today.
I just wanted to come on here before my next client here and my next team meeting that I'm having here in about an hour and a half.
So thank you all so much.
I'm wishing you a wonderful rest of your 2023, whatever's left.
Take good care.
