​Happy Holidays! I hope your Christmas was just as magical and joyful as my and that you are enjoying this downtime to the fullest. It’s perfectly ok to be doing absolutely NOTHING at this time of the year or binge as much TV as you want because you deserve it, anything you want, it’s your life. 

I know we’re all so looking forward to the new year, what new beginnings and adventures it will bring. BUT, it’s so important to reflect on the year before moving on with new goals and new experiences. By taking the time to reflect, it sets the stage for continuous improvement, determines what worked in the past year (as well as what didn’t work well), and ensures the greatest ultimate success according to your life plans.

Take some time on your own to contemplate your personal and professional life with a blank piece of paper or file or journal. Hey, light a candle, put on some calming music, whatever rocks your boat to get you in a place to think and reflect. 

So what are year end reflections? It is to recognize your accomplishments and give yourself kudos for what you did well this year. Last week I was telling a friend I felt like I accomplished nothing this year. The moment I said that I realized that can’t be true. This also shows the importance of self awareness by the way. Everything starts with awareness. So I reflected on my accomplishments and definitely gave myself some kudos for becoming a two time Amazon bestseller with both books I co-authored in. I also want to celebrate that this podcast is streaming in 68 countries in the world and I get to impact beautiful souls from all over the world. An amazing soul from South Africa wrote “Everything about this show is professional and exactly what everyone needs. Enjoy every episode!” Thank you so much, reviews and messages like this one just warms my heart and reminds me that I HAVE indeed accomplished something this year. So list out your accomplishments, the more you list, the more you’ll see how far you’ve come and it will serve as a motivation to accomplish even more next year. 

Besides recognizing our accomplishments, it’s also important to reflect on the lessons you learned, as well as the knowledge and skills you acquired. This year, in addition to professional life coach training, I’m trained to be a certified happiness coach because I believe there is no other way to live life but to live a happy life. One personal life lesson I learned is that life is ironic. It takes depression to value happiness. And it takes stress to value calm. And it takes absence to understand presence. But through it all, it’s the fun of life. Life is an experience to be cherished every step of the way.

Finally acknowledge your mistakes and missteps. This is not to beat yourself up but so you can use them as tools, self-improvement tools and analyze and plan ahead how you could do better moving forward the next year. 

So to sum up, the most important year end reflection questions are:

1. What accomplishments are you proud of this year?
2. What lessons did you learn this year?
3. What mistakes did you make and how can you prevent that in the future?

If you have more time, you can go into more details:

• Which of those accomplishments is your proudest and why?
• If this year were a milestone on your life timeline, what would the milestone be?
• How did you take care of yourself this year?
• What have you not done this year that you wish you had?
• What did you struggle with last year that you want to conquer or embrace this year?

Life is a journey, I’m here to support and guide you to live your best life, happy reflecting and happy new year!

Guest featured in this episode:

“Money Goddess” MORGANA RAE is a 20-time international #1 best selling author with over 27 years as a pioneer in personal development. She is widely regarded to be the world’s leading Relationship with Money coach (ask Google!), and she is a mentor coach to the mentors. Morgana’s groundbreaking program for creating wealth has featured her on ABC, NBC, FOX, PBS, NPR, CNN, United Press International, Yahoo Finance and The Wall Street Journal online.

As a “thought leader” on the topics of Wealth and Relationship, she’s been a featured expert on programs with Deepak Chopra, Arianna Huffington, Marianne Williamson, Bob Proctor, and many others.

Morgana is president of Charmed Life Coaching Incorporated, an internationally successful life and business coaching company. She has coached thousands of clients over the years, many from as far as Scotland, Singapore, Australia and India. She’s taught classes and given keynotes around the world from New York City to Norway, Baja California to Bali.

She guides entrepreneurs, artists, healers and humanitarians to thrive in their purpose, attract more than they chase, and make things happen with ease, flow and synchronicity.

Morgana wrote the “Life Magic” column for a national women’s magazine. She was named a Top Woman in E-commerce by WE Magazine.

Her fans have called her the “Money Goddess” because of the many documented stories of clients manifesting unexpected income of 5, 6, even 7 figures within hours of changing their relationship with money.*

Morgana’s Financial Alchemy books, recordings, magazine articles, and classes have impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Morgana writes, speaks, and coaches from a desire to empower entrepreneurs, innovators, healers, and humanitarians to have a big impact in the world… and to heal the rift between heart, spirit, and money.

Things you will learn in this episode:

• • How do you make money fall in love with you?

  • How is this different from the law of attraction?

  • Are some people destined to struggle with money?

  • How do you change the relationship with your money when in the midst of loss and fear about the future?

  • How to Attract Money Like a Lover

  • How to Slay Your Money Monster (or love monster)

  • and much more…

Guest featured in this episode:

Dr. Ruth Gotian is the Chief Learning Officer and Assistant Professor of Education in Anesthesiology and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine. She has been hailed by the journal Nature and Columbia University as an expert in mentoring and leadership development and is currently a contributor to Forbes and Psychology Today where she writes about ‘optimizing success’. She also has a weekly show and podcast by the same name where she gathers high achievers to talk about their journey to success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, dubbed the Oscars of management thinking and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 Over 50 list.

During her extensive career, she has personally coached and mentored thousands of people ranging from undergraduates to faculty members.  As Assistant Dean for Mentoring she oversaw the success of nearly 1,800 faculty members at Weill Cornell Medicine. Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel laureates, astronauts, CEOs and Olympic champions, in order to learn about their habits and practices so that we may optimize our own success.

Dr. Gotian received her B.S. and M.S. in Business Management from the University at Stony Brook in New York and certificates in Executive Leadership and Managing for Execution from Cornell University. She earned her doctorate at Teachers College Columbia University where she studied Adult Learning and Leadership and focused her research on optimizing success.

Dr. Gotian publishes on topics ranging from networking, mentoring, leadership development and optimizing success and has given keynote talks on these themes all over the globe. She regularly publishes in such journals as Nature, Scientific American, Academic Medicine, Psychology Today, Forbes and Harvard Business Review. She is the co-editor of a book on medical education, won numerous mentoring awards and is the author of The Success Factor – Developing the Mindset and Skillset for Peak Performance.

Things you will learn in this episode:

• • What do high achievers have in common
  • What are the ways adults can learn new things
  • How do high achievers deal with challenges
  • Why is it that the high achievers don’t crumble when they get their big prize – Nobel or Olympic medal
  • How can someone find what they are passionate about
  • and much more…

Guest featured in this episode:

Heather Murphy is a clarity coach, genealogist, and host of the Stories in Our Roots podcast. With an academic background in family history and twenty years of experience helping people discover the stories of their ancestors, Heather knows the clarity and strength that comes from spending time in the branches of your family tree.

Her mission is to help women feel more peace in their lives, because most are struggling with the weight of the past, the stress of the present, and the uncertainty of the future. So she helps them understand today’s circumstances and struggles by learning the stories of their ancestors, empowering them to create an incredible future filled with clarity, connection and perspective.

When she’s not exploring family trees, she’s knitting lace shawls, taking care of her three Welch Harlequin ducks, or trying to understand her teenage son as he discusses quantum mechanics.

Things you will learn in this episode:

• • Why is studying our family history important 
  • Common challenges seen with women with their past.
  • How drafting a family tree contributes to learning about who we are
  • Using the past to prepare for future challenges
  • How can we use our family gatherings and family memories to help us in life
  • and much more…

Jingle Bells. I love them Christmas songs, and all the holiday spirit makes me so happy BUT, the holidays can also be such a stressful season. While most of us love all the holiday activities, sometimes they can be overwhelming.

The EXACT things that we planned to do with the intention of making the holidays more enjoyable, can actually turn out to make things much more stressful, and that leads to losing sight of the true meaning of the holidays. So today’s episode is for you if you feel this overwhelm from past holidays and want to enjoy the holidays this year better than the past.

I just took a 2 week vacation off holiday season to avoid crowds. But if you are planning on traveling during the holiday peak season, expect and be prepared for delays. If your flight is delayed or canceled for any reason, what would you be doing? Prepare enough clothing and activities for you and your traveling companions. 

So first off, make vacation time actually vacation time and avoid working at all. Make sure you have scheduled out your social media posts ahead of time, emails can be scheduled, work ahead and let everyone know you will be on vacation. Set those vacation auto replies and enjoy your vacation. 

Before the holidays start, set some rules and limits, use these rules as boundaries for your decision making to keep your holiday sane. You can limit the time you spend with certain people if they make you feel uncomfortable. You can limit the number of activities or events that you will participate in so that you don’t burn yourself out.

Keep things simple, holiday decorations do not have to be a certain way, beautiful  friendships and family relationships can still last a lifetime without extravagant gift exchanging. Years from now, no one will ever remember your food, your decor or your gift, but they will only remember the times that you shared together laughing and enjoying the holidays. Only focus on what’s important! Family togetherness, spiritual enlightenment and camaraderie with friends, these are far more important than the tiny details that are often focused on that drives us nuts. Do less and actually embrace family and friends time more. So keep things simple! 

I always say that my favorite quote is yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that’s why we call it the present.  If something happened in the past that made your past holidays undesirable, let go of that feeling first. Don’t let past events pre-determine the experience you will have for the upcoming holiday. For example, if you had an unhappy experience with in-laws or other relatives from a past get-together, don’t pre-determine that your experience this year is already ruined. Today is a present, so focus on today, focus on the new you this year because this is a different chapter of your life and you are the author and you get to determine how to write your life story. If the holiday season makes you focus on a painful event from your past, start creating new holiday traditions.

Remember that your Christmas get-together is not a problem-solving working session. Deal with your family issues another time. Do not drown yourself in the negative stories of others. When someone is getting on your nerves, laugh it off, it happens to all of us. Feel free to excuse yourself to a private room or even the bathroom to calm yourself if you feel any overwhelm or anxiety. Close your eyes, take deep deep breaths, and restate your new intention for once you open your eyes. Do this reset for yourself as often as you need to.

You get to live your life the way you want to. Remember that saying no to anybody is ok, telling your parents that you won’t be going over this year is ok. Staying home for Christmas is ok.