Three wins, three challenges from 2025...

... And a lot of holiday love and best wishes for my readers!

Whenever I host my year-end planning workshops, I always start with the same activity. I ask participants to list all their wonderful accomplishments from the past year. I offer some prompts as they go, encouraging them to think about what happened in January, what they tried that was scary, what they worked on month after month.

The lists are always inspiring – and everyone is always overjoyed to see that they’re much longer than they expected. People start out by saying “oh I didn’t do anything big this year” but they always have a full page of positive things within just a few minutes. If I could encourage you to do anything for your business before the year ends, this is it. Take the time to focus on the good.

I’m definitely focusing on that now myself, taking stock of 2025 and thinking about what I want to improve in 2026. Below are three things I hope to continue in the upcoming year and three things I’m taking some time to ponder and figure out.

I was open to work that’s different. Case in point? I had the opportunity to work with Elections Ontario and Elections Canada. Yep, we had a lot of election activity this year! Being an in-person employee versus a work-from-home freelancer is a big change and I loved mixing it up.

I changed it up. I’ve long felt the tug to spend less time on the road and more time at home, writing about subjects that impact everyday life in our communities. Writing about swimmable cities and sustainably grown food felt good.

I had fun. Sometimes it’s just nice to do something for no other reason than the fact that it’s FUN. Planning a Beatles-themed co-working session and another that featured vintage holiday music was very fun indeed. Plus, I got great feedback from everyone about how much work they got done, which was especially nice.

I fell behind on my pitching. I bet you know this old story. A writer pitches lots of stories and gets lots of assignments. Hurray! And then that writer gets so busy writing those stories that she isn’t pitching new ones and then she finds herself with a few fallow months… and that is so frustrating that she allows the frustration to get in her way of pitching stories. Yep, that “writer” is me. I need better systems in place to support me getting more pitches done each and every month.

I flaked on networking. Some years, I seem to spend too much time on networking, conferences, and events. Other years, it feels like it’s not enough. This was one of those years. I need to order those fresh business cards and pre-plan some events to get myself back out there.

I need a new summer schedule. I’ve long been a passionate advocate of the fact that if you’re not getting paid like Wall St dude bro, you shouldn’t put in their hours. Take advantage of the “free” in freelance! As such, I’ve been taking off Fridays throughout the summer for years now. Here’s a weird confession: I don’t love it. I’m a person who thrives with a regular schedule and it just feels a bit odd to me. So I need to work on recalibrating what kind of summer schedule I really want and finding the work-life balance which feels best.

Thank you all for your ongoing support this past year, a year filled with conversations about stuff just like this: Growth, self-discovery, determination, positivity, and progress. It’s a privilege to pop into your inboxes every Friday.

I’m taking a two week break and I’ll be back with a fresh newsletter on January 9th. I want to wish you all a beautiful holiday season and a restful, restorative, chocolate-filled break.

Yours with love,

Vanessa