62. Looking Ahead to 2024: Reflect, Celebrate, and Decide with Intention
Are you prone to writing off the year, often even a month or two before it’s over? Are you practiced at setting yourself up for success in the New Year? Do you use lessons learned to set future goals and opportunities you want to pursue?
Our human brains tend to laser-focus on what’s next, so if you find yourself completely dismissing 2023, ignoring where you might have fallen short, and overlooking everything that was wonderful, you’re not alone. All of it is worth acknowledging and celebrating, and this week, you’ll learn why this matters more than you think.
Join me this week as I highlight the power of celebrating the close of 2023 and transitioning into 2024 with purpose and intention. You’ll hear why celebration is a key skill you must cultivate, my top tips for being intentional about what would be meaningful for you in 2024, and four powerful questions that will guide you along this process.
If you want to learn how to slow down so you can speed up your results in 2024, we need to talk. I have a few spots left for Out of Overwhelm, starting in January 2024 so click here to claim one of the very limited spots in the program! Or if you’re unsure if it’s a good fit, click here to schedule a consult call with me.
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why celebration is a skill you must practice.
How to broaden your definition of celebration.
4 powerful questions to ask yourself as you close out 2023.
The value of thinking ahead to who you want to be at the end of 2024.
How to be intentional about how you move into the next year.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Four Questions:
What are you releasing or leaving behind as we head into the new year?
What is one word or phrase that you want next year to embody?
What are three things you’re most proud of yourself for this year?
What are three things you’ll be most proud of at the end of next year?
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 62. In this one we’re celebrating the close of another year and transitioning into 2024 with intention. I have four powerful questions you need to be asking yourself and I’ll share them in the episode.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. Happy almost New Year. How did that happen? Is anyone else feeling like this year was just like, I don’t know, what happened to it? It has felt like it has gone so fast and now we’re headed into 2024. Just this feels wild to me. And I’m so curious, are you a New Year’s person?
I’ve never really been into it. I know some people really, really do. And at this point, I just can’t stay up late. I fall asleep so, so early. And if I don’t, I just feel so awful the next day. So I’m sure I’ll be going to bed early on New Year’s. But for any of you who like to whoop it up, I hope you have a fantastic time.
Before we get into the topic of today’s episode and I share those four powerful questions you need to be asking yourself as we head into 2024, I do want to give you a quick reminder that the podcast giveaway is still happening. In case you’re new or in case you missed it, when you leave a rating and review for The Interior Design Business CEO podcast you can be entered to win a private coaching session with me.
All you have to do is leave that rating and review and then go to the link in the show notes to submit a quick form. This is how I’m able to get your information and actually enter you in the giveaway. Otherwise, I can’t do anything with it. I, of course, continue to appreciate you if you’ve left a review. But if you want to be entered in the giveaway, I need you to fill out that form so that you can be fully entered.
So again, all you have to do is leave that rating and review, which really, really helps the podcast reach additional designers. And then as a thank you, I’ll be entering you in the giveaway and you could win a private one on one coaching session with me.
The other announcement is that the dates and information, along with registration for my upcoming goal setting workshop, Create Your 2024 Roadmap will be coming out soon. Last year I offered this workshop, it was a combination of teaching, interactive workshopping and also coaching and designers loved it. So I thought I’m going to bring it back this year. So stay tuned for those details.
And if you aren’t already on my newsletter list, Monday Mindset it’s called, be sure to get on the list because that is where I share all of the details for how you can get my support and also send you a weekly note of inspiration to get your mindset in the right place as you start the week. The link for that will be in the show notes and you can just enter your name and email.
The reason I wanted to talk about celebration and setting intention for the year ahead is because we are all so prone to writing off the year, often even a month or two before it’s even over, and just completely dismissing it. And that’s natural, our brain is always going to be focused on what’s next and also more likely to be focused on what didn’t happen. And, of course, that just then moves us into wanting to avoid looking at what didn’t happen.
But in doing that, we miss everything that was wonderful about the year. What we did accomplish, who we became in the process. And I’m sure there were challenges, things that didn’t go the way you wanted them to. And I’m also equally certain that you’ve evolved. You’ve made progress. You’ve had accomplishments, all worth acknowledging and celebrating.
With all of my clients, I teach them to celebrate. And yes, I teach them to celebrate because that is not a skill that we are taught. More often than not we are told to be more modest or to stop bragging because we’re going to make somebody else feel bad. And I’m not talking about “I’m so great and you’re awful.” I’m saying let’s make it so that we can all be great. We can all lift each other up.
And it’s really important to celebrate not just because it can feel good, once you get used to it, but when we celebrate, we get to know what works for us. What strategies, what methods, what levels of support, what created a positive experience for us or set us up for success in some way, so that we can use those lessons and apply them to future goals and opportunities that we want to pursue and our business.
Celebrating is also a huge source of untapped motivation that’s lying in wait waiting for you to acknowledge it. When you allow yourself to see how and where you’ve changed, what progress you’ve made, allow yourself to see that growth for you and accomplishment for you is possible, that’s incredibly motivating. It keeps you going, even on the hard days.
As the owner of your own interior design business, no one else is there to tell you good job. There is no performance review for you. There is no employee of the month. The acknowledgment, the celebration and validation is an inside job. Now, you might hear it from peers, or a client, or a partner, or a parent. But typically that’s not happening at the frequency we would like. Or maybe they offer it, but not in a way that you would like it to be delivered. Or even they offer it but then you dismiss the praise or not trust that praise, with a, “Yeah, but,” essentially discounting yourself.
The other purpose of this episode is really to be intentional about how we move into the next year. I think so often the holidays come and go, for a lot of people December is just a complete blur trying to wrap up everything in your business, do all the family stuff, be out at all the parties, right? And December comes and goes and it feels like we are just thrust into the new year.
And even just saying that, my body is tensing and I’m just thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to free fall into January.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately with how I want to move into the next year. My family is going to be in Costa Rica for the last two weeks of the month, taking some time off. So we’re going to be into January when I have my first day back at my desk and I want to support myself as I move into the new year.
And this episode today is really meant to be a pause for you before the calendar officially changes over. Before you skip over the year that was and look onward to the coming year, let’s reflect, celebrate and decide with intention what will be meaningful for you in 2024.
I have four questions I want to share with you to do just this. I’m going to read them and extrapolate on them here. And they’ll also be in the show notes. Bring these questions to your journal, maybe pause the episode and reflect. You could take a walk and let them marinate. Or you could even hit reply to an email that I’ve sent and share your thoughts with me.
The first question I want you to consider is what am I releasing or leaving behind as I head into the new year? We want to be conscious of what we’ve been carrying with us that feels heavy or like we’ve been dragging it along and it’s slowing us down.
This could be maybe past decisions that you’ve made that you need to re-decide on. Or confusion about next steps. You could be leaving behind ways of being or treating yourself or beliefs you hold about yourself. It might be that you’re leaving behind a way of working and stepping into a new one. Or even leaving behind employees or clients that no longer align with your future vision. Let’s release so we’re not bringing those things with us into the new year.
The second question I want you to ask yourself is what is one word or phrase that I want next year to embody? The word that keeps coming up for me quite frequently is release. Possibly releasing old beliefs, ways of thinking I should do certain things, possibly even certain offers or structures in my business.
It also feels really tied to release in my body, where my muscles still have these holding patterns from structural things that happened during pregnancy that have caused issues in my body. And I’ve been actively working to release those and realign. And so perhaps release will be my word for next year. I don’t know yet, I’m recording this in advance.
But think about what word or phrase could embody who you are becoming, how you’re going to lead yourself. How would you describe that next favorite version of you? And this intention could be personal, professional or both, just like I shared.
The next question I want you to ask is what are three things I’m most proud of myself for this year? This is that pause I was talking about. Your brain’s thought pattern is so accustomed to accomplish one thing, race to the next, accomplish, race to the next. Or possibly don’t accomplish and try and avoid and race to the next. But I guarantee there are things that you’re proud of and I want you to take time to acknowledge them.
Of those things that you’re proud of, what are you going to take with you? What are the pieces that worked well or served you in creating opportunities for this pride that you’re now experiencing? When you answer this question, I really encourage you to broaden your definition of celebration. Celebration of what went well, what you’re proud of, is not just a laundry list of things you accomplished or goals you hit.
Celebration, of course, can be of the external, what’s visible to others. But celebration can be very much about who you have become, what you have done to support yourself, and shifts you’ve made on the inside. These could be beliefs you’ve had about yourself or your business that have shifted and now you’re feeling more empowered and confident in the direction you’re headed and who you are as the leader of your business.
It could be that there were situations that came up, but you reacted in a really different way than you normally would and you’re proud of that. It could be how you set up your weekly schedule to allow you to do things to incorporate routines that support you as the human behind the business. This is your invitation to acknowledge yourself. Tell yourself good job. Even if you didn’t do everything you set out to do, you missed the mark on some things. I know there are things for you to be proud of.
And the last question I want you to consider is, what are three things I’ll be most proud of myself for at the end of next year? This is where we can start to think about future goals. Future goals, who we’re becoming, maybe some of the habits and routines or the accomplishments that we want to create in the coming year.
Where do you see yourself at the end of 2024? What will you be most proud of? And how will you begin to create that future right now? If you haven’t listened to episode 59 on Leading with Your Future Self, this would be a great time to listen to that episode, or go back and re-listen to it as an additional resource that will really support this prompt that I just gave you.
To recap, here are the four questions. What am I releasing or leaving behind as I head into the new year? What is one word or phrase that I want next year to embody? What are three things I’m most proud of myself for this year? And what are three things I’ll be most proud of myself for at the end of next year?
There we are, a little celebration and reflection, a little looking back and a little looking ahead with purpose and intention. I will be back next year. I know that sounds so major, even though it’s just really next week, with a brand new topic as always. And until then I’m wishing you a beautiful week, and a very Happy New Year. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one on one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you’ll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I’ll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello designer, welcome back to the podcast. Happy almost New Year. How did that happen? Is anyone else feeling like this year was just like, I don’t know, what happened to it? It has felt like it has gone so fast and now we’re headed into 2024. Just this feels wild to me. And I’m so curious, are you a New Year’s person?
I’ve never really been into it. I know some people really, really do. And at this point, I just can’t stay up late. I fall asleep so, so early. And if I don’t, I just feel so awful the next day. So I’m sure I’ll be going to bed early on New Year’s. But for any of you who like to whoop it up, I hope you have a fantastic time.
Before we get into the topic of today’s episode and I share those four powerful questions you need to be asking yourself as we head into 2024, I do want to give you a quick reminder that the podcast giveaway is still happening. In case you’re new or in case you missed it, when you leave a rating and review for The Interior Design Business CEO podcast you can be entered to win a private coaching session with me.
All you have to do is leave that rating and review and then go to the link in the show notes to submit a quick form. This is how I’m able to get your information and actually enter you in the giveaway. Otherwise, I can’t do anything with it. I, of course, continue to appreciate you if you’ve left a review. But if you want to be entered in the giveaway, I need you to fill out that form so that you can be fully entered.
So again, all you have to do is leave that rating and review, which really, really helps the podcast reach additional designers. And then as a thank you, I’ll be entering you in the giveaway and you could win a private one on one coaching session with me.
The other announcement is that the dates and information, along with registration for my upcoming goal setting workshop, Create Your 2024 Roadmap will be coming out soon. Last year I offered this workshop, it was a combination of teaching, interactive workshopping and also coaching and designers loved it. So I thought I’m going to bring it back this year. So stay tuned for those details.
And if you aren’t already on my newsletter list, Monday Mindset it’s called, be sure to get on the list because that is where I share all of the details for how you can get my support and also send you a weekly note of inspiration to get your mindset in the right place as you start the week. The link for that will be in the show notes and you can just enter your name and email.
The reason I wanted to talk about celebration and setting intention for the year ahead is because we are all so prone to writing off the year, often even a month or two before it’s even over, and just completely dismissing it. And that’s natural, our brain is always going to be focused on what’s next and also more likely to be focused on what didn’t happen. And, of course, that just then moves us into wanting to avoid looking at what didn’t happen.
But in doing that, we miss everything that was wonderful about the year. What we did accomplish, who we became in the process. And I’m sure there were challenges, things that didn’t go the way you wanted them to. And I’m also equally certain that you’ve evolved. You’ve made progress. You’ve had accomplishments, all worth acknowledging and celebrating.
With all of my clients, I teach them to celebrate. And yes, I teach them to celebrate because that is not a skill that we are taught. More often than not we are told to be more modest or to stop bragging because we’re going to make somebody else feel bad. And I’m not talking about “I’m so great and you’re awful.” I’m saying let’s make it so that we can all be great. We can all lift each other up.
And it’s really important to celebrate not just because it can feel good, once you get used to it, but when we celebrate, we get to know what works for us. What strategies, what methods, what levels of support, what created a positive experience for us or set us up for success in some way, so that we can use those lessons and apply them to future goals and opportunities that we want to pursue and our business.
Celebrating is also a huge source of untapped motivation that’s lying in wait waiting for you to acknowledge it. When you allow yourself to see how and where you’ve changed, what progress you’ve made, allow yourself to see that growth for you and accomplishment for you is possible, that’s incredibly motivating. It keeps you going, even on the hard days.
As the owner of your own interior design business, no one else is there to tell you good job. There is no performance review for you. There is no employee of the month. The acknowledgment, the celebration and validation is an inside job. Now, you might hear it from peers, or a client, or a partner, or a parent. But typically that’s not happening at the frequency we would like. Or maybe they offer it, but not in a way that you would like it to be delivered. Or even they offer it but then you dismiss the praise or not trust that praise, with a, “Yeah, but,” essentially discounting yourself.
The other purpose of this episode is really to be intentional about how we move into the next year. I think so often the holidays come and go, for a lot of people December is just a complete blur trying to wrap up everything in your business, do all the family stuff, be out at all the parties, right? And December comes and goes and it feels like we are just thrust into the new year.
And even just saying that, my body is tensing and I’m just thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to free fall into January.” I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately with how I want to move into the next year. My family is going to be in Costa Rica for the last two weeks of the month, taking some time off. So we’re going to be into January when I have my first day back at my desk and I want to support myself as I move into the new year.
And this episode today is really meant to be a pause for you before the calendar officially changes over. Before you skip over the year that was and look onward to the coming year, let’s reflect, celebrate and decide with intention what will be meaningful for you in 2024.
I have four questions I want to share with you to do just this. I’m going to read them and extrapolate on them here. And they’ll also be in the show notes. Bring these questions to your journal, maybe pause the episode and reflect. You could take a walk and let them marinate. Or you could even hit reply to an email that I’ve sent and share your thoughts with me.
The first question I want you to consider is what am I releasing or leaving behind as I head into the new year? We want to be conscious of what we’ve been carrying with us that feels heavy or like we’ve been dragging it along and it’s slowing us down.
This could be maybe past decisions that you’ve made that you need to re-decide on. Or confusion about next steps. You could be leaving behind ways of being or treating yourself or beliefs you hold about yourself. It might be that you’re leaving behind a way of working and stepping into a new one. Or even leaving behind employees or clients that no longer align with your future vision. Let’s release so we’re not bringing those things with us into the new year.
The second question I want you to ask yourself is what is one word or phrase that I want next year to embody? The word that keeps coming up for me quite frequently is release. Possibly releasing old beliefs, ways of thinking I should do certain things, possibly even certain offers or structures in my business.
It also feels really tied to release in my body, where my muscles still have these holding patterns from structural things that happened during pregnancy that have caused issues in my body. And I’ve been actively working to release those and realign. And so perhaps release will be my word for next year. I don’t know yet, I’m recording this in advance.
But think about what word or phrase could embody who you are becoming, how you’re going to lead yourself. How would you describe that next favorite version of you? And this intention could be personal, professional or both, just like I shared.
The next question I want you to ask is what are three things I’m most proud of myself for this year? This is that pause I was talking about. Your brain’s thought pattern is so accustomed to accomplish one thing, race to the next, accomplish, race to the next. Or possibly don’t accomplish and try and avoid and race to the next. But I guarantee there are things that you’re proud of and I want you to take time to acknowledge them.
Of those things that you’re proud of, what are you going to take with you? What are the pieces that worked well or served you in creating opportunities for this pride that you’re now experiencing? When you answer this question, I really encourage you to broaden your definition of celebration. Celebration of what went well, what you’re proud of, is not just a laundry list of things you accomplished or goals you hit.
Celebration, of course, can be of the external, what’s visible to others. But celebration can be very much about who you have become, what you have done to support yourself, and shifts you’ve made on the inside. These could be beliefs you’ve had about yourself or your business that have shifted and now you’re feeling more empowered and confident in the direction you’re headed and who you are as the leader of your business.
It could be that there were situations that came up, but you reacted in a really different way than you normally would and you’re proud of that. It could be how you set up your weekly schedule to allow you to do things to incorporate routines that support you as the human behind the business. This is your invitation to acknowledge yourself. Tell yourself good job. Even if you didn’t do everything you set out to do, you missed the mark on some things. I know there are things for you to be proud of.
And the last question I want you to consider is, what are three things I’ll be most proud of myself for at the end of next year? This is where we can start to think about future goals. Future goals, who we’re becoming, maybe some of the habits and routines or the accomplishments that we want to create in the coming year.
Where do you see yourself at the end of 2024? What will you be most proud of? And how will you begin to create that future right now? If you haven’t listened to episode 59 on Leading with Your Future Self, this would be a great time to listen to that episode, or go back and re-listen to it as an additional resource that will really support this prompt that I just gave you.
To recap, here are the four questions. What am I releasing or leaving behind as I head into the new year? What is one word or phrase that I want next year to embody? What are three things I’m most proud of myself for this year? And what are three things I’ll be most proud of myself for at the end of next year?
There we are, a little celebration and reflection, a little looking back and a little looking ahead with purpose and intention. I will be back next year. I know that sounds so major, even though it’s just really next week, with a brand new topic as always. And until then I’m wishing you a beautiful week, and a very Happy New Year. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one on one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.
All you have to do is scroll down to the bottom of your podcast app, tap the five stars and leave a review. Tell me your favorite episode, why you look forward to listening every week, or why another designer needs to check out the show. It won’t take long, and as a thank you for leaving a rating and review you’ll have the opportunity to win a private coaching session with me.
Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I’ll talk to you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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