Welcome to Tried and True with the Dash of Woo, where we blend rock solid tips with a little bit of magic. I'm Renee Bowen, your host, life and business coach, and professional photographer. At your service, we are all about getting creative, diving into your business, and playing with manifestation over here. So are you ready to get inspired and have some fun? Let's dive in. Hey, hey, welcome back to Trident Tree with a Dash of Woo. I'm your host Renee Bowen, and happy New Year. If you're listening to this on New Year's Eve, because this is when I'm releasing it, I want you to give yourself permission to do something really erratical today, which is pause. Not to plan something, not to optimize something, and not to figure out your word of the year or what your big vision is. Just a quick pause, okay? Because before you plan the next chapter, you need to tell the truth about the one that you just lived. And most women tend to skip this step, which is why they keep recreating the same patterns every year with new intentions layered on top. Okay, so this episode is not about goal setting, it's about self-honesty. So here's an uncomfortable truth. And that is that most goals do not fail because you didn't want them bad enough. They fail because they're built on denial, denial about your capacity, what you're capable of, uh, denial about your energy and about what actually worked and what quietly did not. So you cannot create a new year from an edited version of the last one, because you're just building on something that isn't real. And yet, most women rush past reflection because it feels uncomfortable to admit that they overextended themselves, they maybe tolerated too much or ignored their intuition. But truth is not punishment. Okay. Truth is just information if you allow it to be. So this is where I want you to get really honest. Okay. You might have hit some really awesome goals this year. And if so, I love that for you. Maybe you booked a lot of clients. Maybe you made a lot of profit. Maybe you have grown in visibility. That's all great. But at what cost? What did it require from you emotionally? What did it drain your nervous system of? And what did you sacrifice that you're no longer willing to sacrifice again? Success without sustainability is not alignment. That's just endurance, right? Like I just got to get it done. I just got to get it done. Okay. But if you pull back the curtain, that's really kind of what we're going for here. Because endurance always has a shelf life. There's only so long that you can do that, truly. So instead of asking what you want next year, ask these questions first. What worked, but what took more from me than I want to give again? Where did I override my own boundaries to keep things moving? That's a big one. And what am I secretly hoping I don't have to do again next year? Okay. So a lot of photographers, especially who are listening to this, I want you to listen deeply because you probably just finished, and I hope you did finish, an insane amount of editing over the last three months, particularly in the last probably four weeks. Okay. That push to the holidays. I made a meme on Instagram that is hilarious. Um, but it has been shared as of today, as of the recording of this, which is right before New Year's, it's been viewed almost 800,000 times. And it's been shared like 10,000 times, I think, or almost. And the reason why is because it's incredibly relevant to photographers, right? I get it because I'm right there with you guys doing that push of editing because it's it's a meme of a Barbie, basically. It's an AI-generated image that I did give credit to the creator because it's it's so funny. Um, but he made this really, really funny meme. It's like a series of memes that he makes of Barbies looking completely frazzled, and she's holding a coffee cup that just says no. And so I put the caption on top that says, Have are you done with all your editing yet? And it's just this look over on her face of like, no, because that's where so many photographers live at this time of year, is behind the computer. And we're trying to race to be present for the holidays and you know, race to finish all the work. And even if you have systems and even if you have people helping you, you can still get into this, you know, crunch time, right? And there are going to be times in your business where you do have to do that, where you have to put in a lot of effort so that you can release and pull back. And so a lot of times that's what it looks like for photographers or a lot of creative businesses is that the Q4 and leading up to the holidays is where we make most of our money. It's where we have most of our clients, but it's also where we burn ourselves out because we're doing so, so much. And we roll into the holidays absolutely exhausted, a shell of a person, essentially. And then January comes and there's this like famine, basically. It's because we've been in the feast and then we stopped. And then now we're in the famine. Because if you're as a creative, if you don't have systems or people who are consistently marketing for you on repeat, or you know, you have really good SEO so that your marketing continues to happen when you're not doing it. Because when, you know, if you are having to work on your business all the time, that's not sustainable. Because once you stop, you pull back, you take a break, you I don't know, relax during the holidays, God forbid. Then you head into January with like no clients and the panic rises, you know, once the holidays are over and you're like, oh my God, how am I going to be able to keep us afloat or whatever it is? Right. And that that is a very common thing that I see happen all the time. Um, I get it. Trust me, I've been in that a hundred percent. And it's a very unstable, unsettling place to live. So that's one of the reasons why I do what I do as a coach is because I want photographers and creatives to feel consistent and calm all year round and not just, you know, when you've got a lot of money coming in during a busy period. Because during that busy period, even though you're making a lot of money, what's the cost? Right? What are you doing to your nervous system? Are you exhausted? Are you literally about to lose your mind? Have your kids had any point of contact with you other than just to see you at a computer? Because that's how I lived for a long time. And let me tell you, if I could go back, I don't have a lot of regrets in my life. This is one of them is that when I was building my photography business, my kids were little. And I told myself that it was fine that I was working literally 24-7 at that computer because I was building a business. But I told myself I was it was fine because I was home, because no one, I wasn't outsourcing my kids being raised, right? I didn't have them in daycare. They went to school. I picked them up from school. I was with them all the time. I took them to their practices. But I also was tied to that computer for the next six hours at night, staying up well past one in the morning to get up again, bring them to school at 6 or 6:30, living on no sleep, right? So, yeah, I might have been home, but I wasn't present. So these are the kind of things that I want you to assess. I don't, I want you to not have that regret, essentially. Okay. Yeah, we gotta work. I mean, I definitely had to. Like, this is not something that I could choose to do, right? I did an episode a few episodes back talking about how comfort can be a cage because, you know, I think a lot of people who don't have to work or make X amount of dollars, they may not, you know, have enough skin in the game to keep them in the game, right? For me, I had to make this business work. I really had to. I needed to work, I needed to make money, I needed to help support my family. And I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't pull me out of the house if possible, because I wanted to be there for my kids. But in retrospect, I wasn't as present when I was there because I was so distracted by all the work that I had to do. Even if I wasn't physically doing it, I was still distracted by the fact it was eating up space in my brain, right? So that's the kind of stuff that's just not sustainable. So if you're in that season, first of all, don't beat yourself up because that's not gonna help a damn thing. You need to be kind to yourself. I want you to just look at it as information. Okay. This this whole little audit that I'm having you walk through, it's not about beating yourself up and like, you know, feeling bad or guilty. It's about information so that you can make a better informed choice. That is more an alignment with who you are and where you want to go. So ask yourself those questions, okay, in that way. I'll put them in the show notes too, so you can just kind of see them easily. And these are not inherently negative questions, they're clarifying ones if you choose that, because these questions are gonna reveal what your next season actually needs. So here's a simple framework that you can do tonight or tomorrow, January 1st, if you're listening to this on New Year's Eve. Uh, grab a notebook, uh, divide a page into three sections. Okay. And in section one, what you're gonna put at the top is what am I proud of this year? Not just outcomes, but moments where you showed up with integrity, where you really feel proud. This does not have to be about your business, okay? As solopreneurs, our businesses are extensions of who we are. So it's gonna show up in your business, but like this could be about anything. I want you to just really like just brain dump it all out. What am I proud of this year? And then in section two, what cost me too much? And be specific, whether it's like projects or relationships or expectations, habits, what price did you pay? Right? What what cost you too much this year? And then in section three, you're gonna put what am I no longer available for? Okay, so that's where the power lives, but you don't need to solve anything just yet. You just need to name it, put it on paper, look at it, reflect. And then you don't even have to do anything with that right now, right? Like just let it simmer. A lot of times you're gonna have stuff just drop in when you least expect it. But this is a pretty important step, I think, because when you skip this part of it, the reflection, the auditing, the information, uh, you end up planning from a place of guilt or pressure or even just pure fantasy, right? And you know, I love me some Dululu, but that's not what I mean here. When you do this step, you're planning from a place of self-trust. And self-trust is what allows that follow through, right? The more you do it, the more you're gonna trust yourself to do it again. And the women who build businesses they actually really enjoy are not the ones with the best strategies most of the time. I talk to a lot of women on the show and just in general, in my circles online, I speak to a lot of women in business. And I am continuously surprised by the ones who are the most fulfilled and the happiest and who have the most joy. They are doing things in a non-traditional sort of way, right? They're the ones who know how to listen to themselves honestly and adjust accordingly. That like radical honesty, I talk about that a lot. Like really allowing yourself to sit with it. It is not fun. I get it. But when you are emotionally regulated enough to do that, your whole world opens up. Be emotionally regulated, you need to calm your nervous system. You can't be in fight or flight and trying to control everything and trying to be someone to everyone and be regulated. It's not possible. It's just not possible. So that's why I'm so big on working the inside out. Okay. So if you hear nothing else from this episode, maybe it's that. Maybe it's just, you know, meet yourself where you are right now. And I don't know about you, but New Year's Day always feels a little anticlimactic because, you know, we build up so much to it. And it's not like I'm going out and partying on New Year's Eve anymore. Like, let's be honest, that's not happening in my life right now. And that just doesn't even sound fun to me right now, um, at all. I'm recording this episode before New Year's Eve. So the plans that we have this year, normally we just we we have a party at our house, we just have some friends over, or we'll just, you know, it'll just be the two of us, my husband and I. Um, but this year, my son is home. He moved home from after graduating college. And so he's living at home. And my older son lives there as well. But my son, who's a musician, actually has a gig on New Year's Eve. And it's not like a rock gig, like at a club, which is, I'm sure, what he would like, because that's the kind of music he loves to play. Um, instead, he's playing like this really awesome set at a hotel down in LA. And so we're gonna go. We're gonna go and hang out and watch him play. And I think that's gonna be really, really fun. And it shouldn't be too, too crazy because it's not like a party party like club atmosphere. And I told him, like, we're probably gonna leave before midnight, but we will we will go and uh and be able to watch him play, which is always so nice. So I'm excited about that. But you know, in years past, even when we did go to parties, or even when I was really young and I was going out, you know, and doing the whole New Year's Eve thing, New Year's Day always feels like what? This is like January 1st, like okay. New Year's Day has just always felt really odd to me. I don't know, you know what I mean? Like, let me know if you guys feel the same way. It's just like a very weird feeling. Like, oh, okay, it's like a whole new year. It's just another day, right? I mean, it's a Thursday. What's the big deal? Yeah, nobody's really working, and you know, you're tired and you're coming out of the holiday fog or whatever, but it's just another day. So for me, New Year's Day, the last several years, I have made a concerted effort to really be intentional about how I'm starting the year. I don't put that much on my plate, don't worry. I'm not like telling you you have to like do all this elaborate stuff, but I do believe that our intention behind things matters. And I'm very big into rituals. Maybe it's the Catholic inside of me. I don't know, but I love me a good ritual, and which was stolen from paganism, but I digress. I love a ritual. So New Year's Day, I always do like a New Year's Day meditation and or hypnosis. Um, I've already done by the by New Year's Day, I've already done like my reflection of the year, which is what I've been talking about in this episode. And this year I did a deeper dive into all of that because I did a whole program called Unavoidable where I worked through it myself too before I did it live with you guys for the recording. Um I did that whole process myself. I walked through all the things that I didn't want to take, all these questions that are here in this episode. I did that already. And so by the time I go into January 1st, I feel like I've already shed what I'm not taking with me. And so I can really be present in that moment, in that New Year's Day vibe, right? In that feeling, right? Okay, new year, January 1st, 2026. I've done that reflection, I've done all of this stuff. What am I now building on? And what how do I want to feel in the next week or two? Right? Like one step at a time. How do I just want to feel right now? What feel what would feel good today? You know, really allowing myself to just kind of be in the moment, but starting in this very clean um energy. I think that makes a big difference. So I would encourage you to do something like that tomorrow on New Year's Day. It can take you 10 minutes, it could look like journaling. And actually, I have a really awesome freebie. I'll put it in the link for you. I made it a couple weeks ago. Um, it's all about this. It's some journal prompts and also at the end of it, it does include the 13 wishes ritual. Again, I told you I love a good ritual. The 13 wishes ritual is not mine. I it I didn't create it, but I've done it every year at the end of the year for the last several years. And it's very, very cool. It's a fun little ritual. You do it over 13 different nights, but you don't have to do it like when I did it, which was a couple weeks ago. You can you can do it now. So, in that free, it's a Google Doc. Uh, in that freebie, there are journal prompts about all of this kind of stuff that we're talking about here that are gonna help you shed and sort of like reflect and audit without judgment. And at the end of it is the 13 wishes ritual. So you can have that as well. So I'll put that link and you can grab that freebie. And I think that will be really supportive and helpful as well. And let me know if you enjoy it because it's always nice to hear from you whether something I create is actually helpful or not, because uh otherwise I'm living in a vacuum over here. It's like I'm talking to a screen. So y'all gotta let me know. Does this hit? Does this resonate? All right. So wrapping up, just a reminder you don't need to become somebody completely new tomorrow. Okay. You just need to be more honest with the person you already are, like really being honest with yourself without judgment. And you already have the tools you need, even if Can't see them in yourself yet. That could be something someone else can see in you. Like there's a lot of different ways you can go about uncovering that. But I just want to remind you too that you have you had the you have the tools. Okay. They're there. You have the inner knowing. And most of the time we just have to quiet ourselves enough to listen and and calm our nervous systems so that we can access it. Because you you won't have the capacity to actually even achieve the goal you want if you don't have the nervous system support first. As always, if you want any help with that, just reach out. That's the kind of work I do in coaching. And there's lots of episodes here about that too. So if you're a new listener, you can go back and find plenty of episodes to support that. But for today, for tonight, let this be enough, right? Just tell yourself the truth. Honor what this year has taught you, and trust that clarity follows honesty, not the other way around. So have a phenomenal New Year's. I hope you have a safe and happy one. And I will see you in 2026. Love ya. Bye.