This is something I have done over the past number of years and I find it an interesting exercise.
Successes/Appreciations
- Grateful for my lovely customers and the capacity to keep on working virtually. As someone who lives in the west of Ireland and who spent many years doing 100 mile round trips for work – this has been a major upgrade for me. I also believe it is better for learners – short sessions accompanied by homework
- I attended a 3 day facilitator festival in the UK in June and found it an incredible inspiring experience. In fact I have signed up already to do it again in 2026. It was glamping but I was fortunate enough to stay with a friend of mine instead. I am not a fan of outside toilets/camping/hard beds in any shape or form. I had the original experience growing up in the west of Ireland in the late 70s and 80s..yes, I am that old.
- I have lost some weight I’m still ready for any upcoming famine (as I like to point out to my skinny hubby) but not thinking about food/steps etc has released a lot of bandwidth. Did a really interesting experiment around this using AI with a woman called Julie Creffield. I chose not to get as deep into it as the programme suggested but I found Chat-GPT offered some useful suggestions.
- I kept up the practice of sending out a newsletter every week.
- I did quite a few simple upgrades: all my pyjama bottoms and tracksuit bottoms all have pockets now. I want all my hoodies to be zip up with pockets.
- I still hate cooking and am signed up to a service called GourmetFuel which delivers rather delicious meals to my door. A good choice for me.
- Already have lots of work booked in for 2026 which is most appreciated.
- Went to see Six in Dublin and it was absolutely brilliant. Highly recommended.
- I have continued working with Zita Lewis as my VA (Virtual Assistant) and I have been steadily outsourcing more admin work to her. As I say to her “I love her but not in a weird way”. It is so comforting to have someone who treats my customers as if they were her own and can cope with my control freakery :-).
- I signed up for an online comedy writing course (Royal Conservatory of Scotland) and I am absolutely loving it. You can check out their full range of short courses here. In fact I have signed up for Part Two already.
- I try to learn something non-techie most years to remind myself of what it is like to be a beginner and this year it was a drawing course with Castle Arts and Brent Eviston.
- Had a trip to Italy with my son in March (Florence, Pisa, Siena) and it was such joy. It was with the Travel Department and I really recommend it.
- One of the things I flagged from last year was my lack of organisation around non-training stuff. I signed up for a Build a Second Brain course and I’ve gone a long way to re-organising my resources so I can find them more easily (and not in five different places). But it’s not quite there yet.
Disappointments/failures
- During the year I decided to add some gravel under the washing line. Somehow I managed to pull something in my shoulder and despite going to physio I am having consistent pain with it. This is something I really want to get sorted in 2026 as I am finding it quite debilitating.
- The two books are doing OK but I have not developed them as much as I think I could have. I want to give that some thought over the year.
- Not my disappointment or failure but my son had surgery during the year and that was worrying. It all went really well thought. I felt glad to be living in a country where he had access to such good care.
- My fury with Eir as they left us with no Internet for over three weeks after Storm Eowyn. Very poor communication. No longer with them.
- I had planned to develop at least two online courses – I have worked on both but there is still..as they say “a lot to do” .
- BookBoon have decided to cull their library so I will be getting back quite a few of my books in February of next year. So they need to be repurposed.
- I had hoped to get more passive income sources up and running but I don’t seem to be able to get them working
Lessons learned/Things to ponder
- From 2024 I said “I like buying the materials but I don’t always allocate time to actually do the work. I want to be more aware of that pattern this year”. Unfortunately I am still in the “Like I said before, Ted, I’ll never do it again” (Fr Dougal – Fr Ted) mode with this one..
- I am increasingly aware that I can and do get stressed out about things that I have no control over. Natural consequence of being a control freak but I want to develop greater awareness around it so I don’t get hijacked by it so easily. For example, if people don’t pay me on time, it infuriates me and it is usually because of internal politics etc. It is a tendency that has served me well at times but when it gets turned up to 11….
- Again from 2024, “I have realised that one of the things I am really bad at is “taking in the good” – really appreciating how much goodness there is in my life. This is something I want to pay attention to this year.”. I have made some steps with this but I want to really pay attention to what truly brings me joy as I do have a strong tendency to “tune into the Catastrophe Channel”
- Deep deep gratitude and appreciation to be living in a democracy where a lot of our taxes actually goes to creating a good life for the majority – schools, hospitals, roads instead of lining the pockets of billionaires.
- I want to be more creative in 2026…