As 2024 comes to a close, it’s the perfect moment to reflect on the year that was and prepare for the adventures of 2025.

This episode guides you through the essential practice of reflection, helping you celebrate your achievements, learn from your experiences, and release what no longer serves you. With helpful prompts and thought-provoking questions, you'll uncover the lessons learned and the growth you've experienced throughout the year.

Sara emphasises the importance of acknowledging both your successes and the challenges, all while ensuring you step into the new year with clarity and intention.

Join her in this empowering journey to wipe the slate clean and embrace a fresh start as you plan for the future ahead.

Takeaways:

• Reflecting on the past year allows us to acknowledge our journey and prepare for the future.
• Celebrating our successes, no matter how small, helps us appreciate our growth and resilience.
• Letting go of negative beliefs is essential for personal growth and moving forward positively.
• Identifying what you need to release can significantly improve your emotional well-being and clarity.
• Gratitude practices help ground us in the present and highlight the good in our lives.
• Choosing three words to encapsulate your year helps focus on your personal growth and intentions.

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There's plenty of wrapping going on right now, but there's one thing that I believe we really do need to wrap up, and that is the end of the year.

Today, we're going to explore how to reflect on the year, how to look at taking forward the good stuff stuff, how to learn from the lessons and release what no longer serves you.

There is nothing better than stepping into a new year, feeling calm, together, and you've wiped the slate clean, ready for the next year.

So by the end of this episode, you will be exactly that.

More on that in the next episode.

Welcome to Start over and Rise.

I'm Sara Burton, your host, and this is the podcast for you.

If you are ready for fresh starts to reclaim your power and create the life that you truly desire.

Whether you're navigating a major life change, recovering from a setback, or simply just feeling a bit stuck, or that something is missing, this is your space for inspiration, practical tool and empowering conversations.

Each week, we'll dive into topics that help you step into the person you're meant to be so that you can rise to your new desired heights.

Because here's the truth.

It's never too late to make a change and it's never too early to start over with your thinking, with your approach, with your attitude, so that you can be, do and have all you want in your life.

So let's get started.

Hey, gorgeous.

How are you doing?

I hope you are on top of Christmas and you're looking forward to it and all is well.

Reflection.

If you listen to this podcast on a regular basis, you will know this is my favourite thing.

I think reflection is a really, really powerful tool.

It allows us to acknowledge where we've been, how we got to where we are, so that we can better map out where we're going next.

So celebrating and releasing this year, taking the time to do this, I believe, is a complete luxury.

You can do this in a very short amount of time.

Grab yourself a nice little Christmas treat, maybe a Tia Maria, that's my chosen Christmas tree.

And, you know, take a little bit of time to think about what has happened this year for you.

You'll be able to get to a place where you do you feel calmer, you feel much more in control and much more better equipped to move yourself forward.

So this is all about bringing you back into the here and now.

You are in a much better place to wipe the slate clean and start a whole new sparkly brand new year.

If you have done this little piece of reflection, clarity is everything.

So by reflecting you can see how you've got to where you are now.

And if that isn't where you thought you'd be, you will be able to gain the clarity over what did get you here, what happened, the foundation for all of our actions.

This is one of my biggest learnings this year.

I'm jumping ahead of myself, but it's true, it's one of my biggest learnings is that the foundation for our actions, the reasons we do, the things we do, they're always based on what we think, what we believe to be true, and how we then act.

No amount I want to make this really clear.

No amount of faking it till you make it will ever overcome the power of the beliefs that we hold to be true.

And those are the beliefs about ourselves, about the society that we live in, about what other people's expectations are of us.

All of those beliefs, if we hold them to be true, they will override anything else you are trying to mask, anything else you are trying to fake, anything else you are putting on to make things happen.

It's a bit like painting white over a black wall.

Now, I speak, it was dark navy, but I speak from experience here.

Unless you take the time to remove the black, not focus on making it white.

Start the foundations with putting that primer on removing the black, giving yourself a perfect base.

Then you put the white over the top.

If you don't do that, you will always find that the white is always tinged with something that's not quite right.

It's not perfectly white.

So we have to do those foundations we have to let go, remove what was there before we can really free ourselves to move forward.

This is how we grow wiser.

This is how we get to know ourselves better.

And this is therefore how we Progress.

And take that responsibility.

Not to blame yourself, not to shame you, but take that level of responsibility to actually look and see why did things happen.

Some of it is out of your control, of course, in which case you stop worrying about it.

Don't overanalyze it, accept it.

For what it is.

But it's your job, your gift.

It's your gift to yourself to take a deeper look at these things, because we know that saying hindsight is a wonderful thing.

So let's remember that, that and use it to our advantage.

So as you go through the rest of this episode, I want you to open your mind to the thinking, the rationale and the beliefs that you held to be true that were behind the decisions that you made, the ones that worked out and the ones that maybe taught you something.

We need to be mindful of what you didn't do in the same way.

So things like what held you back from taking action, what beliefs were in the driving seats, what did you actually reprioritize over the things that maybe you needed to be doing to have got yourself into a different position to where you are right now?

It's really, really powerful stuff.

It can be like lifting the fog and suddenly seeing things really, really clearly, because these are the patterns that we need to in order to make changes, to make our life different.

We have to do it in different ways if we find that what we're doing isn't working.

So grab a journal or a piece of paper and some pens if you want.

You can make them colourful or do it however you want to do.

I love my massive whiteboard and this is something I love to do on my whiteboard.

So get something.

It's something very, very powerful when you write things down way more than you know, if you do it digitally, but whatever works for you, do it that way.

If you want a printed version of these questions, then check the show notes and I'll put a link so you can just download it and go for it yourself.

I'm not making it a workbook because I've had feedback in the past.

It says, can we not have workbooks?

Can we just have the questions and then obviously you can write them down on the paper yourself.

So happy to oblige.

Let's keep the printing costs down, let's keep the value high.

Okay, so let's get started.

Let's start with the fun stuff.

What went well.

Now, a really good way of doing this is to pick up your Google.

I'm a Google Calendar girl and I do.

I use this for this purpose.

But if you've got a written diary, whatever you've got, start back in January, just flip through your diary, have a look at what happened, and there will be some things that jump out immediately at you, of course, but sometimes we can forget, especially at this time of year, if we're feeling a little bit disappointed with how the year went or something massively emotional happens that has overridden everything else.

By going back over, taking another look, you will find things that did go really well.

Maybe there were fleeting moments with someone, perh.

Perhaps it was a hug from a loved one that you haven't seen in a long time.

Perhaps it was a massive success in your business or a promotion that maybe you've just got used to already.

It's very, very easy as humans to downplay our successes.

So go back over the year and take a look at what went well.

Write them all down.

Really appreciate everything that happened.

Now, the next thing to do is then look at what lessons did you learn?

I think this is one of the most important things to do because it gives.

Things happen anyway.

And if we learn a lesson from something that maybe, you know, when we made a decision, we didn't have all of the information that allowed us to make the decision, perhaps we feel could have been a better one.

But go back over it in the same ways and rather than look at them as mistakes or failures, look at them as lessons.

So what lessons did you learn this year?

Thinking about those emotions, thinking about those examples.

Just put a little add on here.

What did you actually learn about yourself this year?

Did you learn that you're more resilient than you think you are?

Did you learn that you've become a calmer person?

I'm definitely having that one.

I'm loving that.

I have definitely learned how to slow down, how to have faith in myself and trust in my decisions and trust in the process.

Trust that everything happens for a reason and I'm always in the right place and at the right time.

It's very, very wonderful.

So what have you learned about yourself this year?

Next?

How have you evolved or changed as a person?

So the two of those are slightly connected.

But, you know, you can learn things about yourself, but it's really, really powerful, very empowering to actually look at who you were at the start of the year.

And at the start I mentioned thinking about your beliefs and your thinking, are you more positive now?

Are you more loving?

Do you take risks a little bit more now because you trust in your own abilities?

Have you made new friends and has that allowed you to, you know, move on in a more positive way?

What were your happiest moments?

And I love these because there's what went well.

And there can be lots of things go well, but there might be other things that have been your happiest moments.

I Know, for me, you know that I love my hiking coastal walks are.

My rugged coastal walks are my absolute favourite thing where I experience or I love nothing more than a beautiful day where you can see for miles out to sea and you've got a beautiful coastline.

I'm counting those that have happened where.

Places where I've been this year where I've just felt completely happy, sometimes to the point where I have shed tears.

So it doesn't necessarily have to be a specific event.

It could be a moment.

But what we're doing with these is when you're writing these down, think about how did that moment come about?

What did you do?

What action did you take to make that moment happen?

So for me, with that example is I planned a trip.

I knew that I needed that kind of feeling, so I actually put it in my diary and I made it happen.

What was it for you?

What were those happiest moments?

Perhaps it was a difficult conversation that had to be had.

First.

Think about those things.

When you think about what made them particularly special and what you did, you're able to replicate that.

You become more aware of it and so you can recognise it as.

Actually, those are things when I am at my happiest.

Perhaps it was when you were doing a project or a new hobby or being with specific people.

Yeah, I'm going to map out these.

I'm going to make sure I have more of these moments in our lives.

Because, let's face it, when we are happy and things feel special, the more we do it, the happier we are, the calmer we are, the more confident we become, the more we believe in ourselves and what we can do.

It is just a massive upward spiral and that's what we want to be doing.

So next, there's always a reverse of that.

What did you let go of?

What.

That's.

Because those feelings are very powerful as well.

I love it.

I have definitely become an expert of letting things go.

They don't matter.

What's in the past is in the past.

Let it go.

It's really.

It's really liberating and empowering.

So have a think to yourself, what did you let go of.

It may have been a person, it may have been a belief.

It may have been, you know, an old grudge that you've been carrying around with yourself, with you for a very long time.

Have a think about that.

What new thing did you learn about yourself?

So when you're looking about how you've changed, how you've evolved, what new thing did you learn about yourself?

And think of this in terms of all areas of your life.

One might be maybe you lifted a weight that you've never achieved before.

Maybe you had a PB in a time for running or something to do with your health.

Maybe you learned that you can drop a food to feel better about yourself.

This was the year, including this in January, I went dairy free.

And oh my goodness, so much has changed for me.

I was able to drop a lot of the bloating that was happening to me.

The fact that I identified that it just didn't do me any good.

I was able to let it go.

It's been an amazing journey because as you can imagine, chocolate and cheese, well, you might not know this about me, but chocolate and cheese were two of my most favorite, favorite things.

However, now I look at it and I just like, I can't touch that.

It makes me ill.

I don't want it.

And so I've made adaptations.

I've thrown myself into that dairy free world.

And you know what?

It's not so bad.

And I feel so much better, so much better.

So, yeah, what new thing did you learn about yourself?

Now let's take that just one step further.

What are you most proud of?

What are you proud to have done, to have been, to have said, to have achieved?

What are you most proud of yourself for this year?

Might have been difficult conversations you had to have.

Might have been loving yourself a little bit more, considering yourself in your own decisions.

It might have been becoming more visible.

It could have been changing how you look, stepping out into your new identity.

And there are plenty of episodes.

Definitely check out Lisa, Lisa's episodes.

I'll put it in the the show notes about her coming out as a lesbian.

And also Jennifer's on losing over 13 stone.

You know, there are so more Louise, last issue with, you know, setting up a foundation after losing her son.

There are so many inspiring stories on this episode.

So go back and take those because you got to be proud of yourself for the things that you're achieving.

And whether they are massive things or just small positive steps that are moving you forward to better happiness, better fulfillment, then recognize them.

And celebrate them, because it will just fuel you to do more of that, to do more of those things that you can feel really, really proud of.

So now we can look at the other side of that.

What do you need to forgive yourself for?

I love this question.

Because you can't let go of something that you don't know about.

And when we get real, when we look at mistakes and failures, I'm going to call them that because I think we do make mistakes and we do have failures.

But unless we actually look at them, unless we actually break them down and see how they happened and why they happened, we can't glean the lessons from them.

So take a look at those things.

What do you need to forgive yourself for?

What are you beating yourself up about?

That really is not going to do you any good.

So take the time to take a look at it and what do you need to forgive yourself for?

Where did you feel most aligned?

Again?

This is one of my biggest things over the last couple of years.

I know when I'm out of alignment now.

Now, I haven't had a burnout for a couple of years now, and part of this has been that I now recognize that if my mood drops, if I feel heavy, if I'm not doing something, if I'm resisting something, there's always a reason why.

And the majority of the time it's because I'm out of alignment.

I'm going against what I value most, what is most important to me.

I'm prioritizing things that aren't my priorities.

They might be steeped in old beliefs, societal conditioning.

They're not mine.

And when I move away from the things that are most important to me, the things that light me up in whatever area it is of my life, I just head into downward spiral and burnout.

So where do you feel most aligned and what felt challenging, frustrating, and probably out of alignment for you?

Because again, this is something that you can look at, you can analyze, you can draw from it and make sure that it's that.

That you're letting go.

In order to move forward, who do you need to remove or fade away from your life?

Now, this is a difficult one, but it's so, so important to look at this.

I love that phrase.

Everyone comes into your life for a reason, a season or forever.

And I love that I've had so many amazing people over the decades that have come into my life for a reason or a season.

And I think sometimes when you get to that stage that maybe you've outgrown them or Maybe they've outgrown you, right?

If things change and they're not, you know, your relationship is no longer the same, isn't it better to kind of recognize that and just move on, thank them, be grateful for them.

You don't have to, like, say this to them, but it's very, very.

Yeah, I can't think of another word better than empowering when you start to recognize this.

Now, the turning point is usually I don't just mean like, one strike and you're out.

I don't mean that.

What I'm talking about is where you're going, what you want to be doing, are the right people around you.

And if you have got someone who is maybe overly negative, who drains you in some way, or who is constantly trying to pull you back to where you've been, rather than stand by your side and support you as you move forward, then really, the truth is you need to question, do they need to be in your closest circle anymore?

Maybe they need to just remove themselves or be moved to an outer circle, more on the fringe.

And then you can preserve a friendship in a relationship without it becoming damaged.

So have a think about that.

And on the other side of that, what do you need more of?

You know, who did you meet this year?

Think about your, your networks and, and people that have come into your life.

Who would you like to spend more time with?

Who stepped up for you?

Who did you step up with this year?

It's wonderful to really, really recognize those people because you're going to be flagging those up as that's, that's doing me good right now.

These people are uplifting me.

I am uplifting.

Then it's a good combination.

They say that the five people you spend most of your time with are the most influential on you.

So make sure that they are complementary to where you are going with your life.

So what do you need to release?

What do you need to have a really big rant over?

What do you need to journal the hell out of what has been bugging you?

And it could be anything.

And you know, you know what it is.

When I say, what do you need to have a rant about?

There will be something that comes up.

So use this time.

If it's going over several different incidents or events that happen throughout the year, what do you need to release?

Now, I'm going to use an example here that as you start to go over things, you might go, okay, there are reasons that these three things didn't happen.

And it was because I consistently told myself it didn't matter or that it wasn't important enough, something else took priority over it.

And you can get really angry with yourself, right?

You can get to that point where you go, oh, I am sick.

I am sick and tired of maybe feeling sick and tired of continuously being inconsistent in the gym.

Those are the kind of things that I'm thinking about.

Write them down.

Be specific.

Don't need to go back over 25 years this year.

If it's a pattern that you've recognized that you like, it's happening over and over and over again and I need to rant about it, I need to acknowledge it, I need to accept it.

When you've done that, you definitely find that you'll be able to move on from it in a much, much better way.

This is the start over and rise.

When you change your thinking, when you change your beliefs behind things, that is where you can properly start over with a nice clean sheet and move forward.

Who and what are you most grateful for?

Gratitude is.

I mean, many years ago, I used to think, how does that help you?

How does writing down, I'm so grateful that it's a bright, sunny day today.

I'm not taking the mic here.

I am, actually.

This is how I used to think.

I didn't really understand how it helped me, but I've plucked away with it.

And it is so grounding.

It is such a brilliant, brilliant way to bring you back to the here and now.

If you're on a downward spiral, the chances are you're thinking about too many things that have happened in the past.

You're beating yourself up about things, you're blaming other people, you're not in a good space.

If you're worrying about the future, you're also somewhere else.

You know, your head is somewhere else.

When you are able to sit down and show gratitude for the people or the things or the events that have happened in your life, it is really, really so good at bringing you back into the here and now because that's where you can make the difference.

And I know that gratitude, for me, I will say, over the last couple of years has changed.

I used to say things like, I'm so grateful for my children's health and all of those things.

I am.

I show gratitude for that.

But nowadays I tend to focus on right here and now.

I use it as a way to calm me now.

If you're ever in a place where things aren't going well for you and you're having a bit of A panic, because you're worrying about if things carry on like this, you start to take yourself into the future and you catastrophise and you go down that route.

If you're able to just sit and I think I've given this example before, but I've done things where I have sat on my sofa in my lounge and I've said, I am so grateful that I have a comfy sofa.

I'm so grateful that I have lovely carpet under my feet.

I'm so grateful that I'm warm because my central heating is on.

I'm so grateful that I have a beautiful cup of coffee here.

When you start to use gratitude for things like that, it just brings you back to here where you can say, I'm okay.

I'm okay right now.

And then when you're calmer, when you've calmed your nervous system down, when you've actually looked at all the good that is actually happening right here, right now, you are then able to get up and do something positive.

You can make something happen as a result.

Sorry, I just hit my microphone there.

That's not good, is it?

So the final thing that I want you to do is think about and we're going to be doing this in next episode, but we're doing the reverse of it this time.

Now, I'm not going to give it all away at the moment, but I'm going to have a little bit of analysis over what you or show you how to analyse what you've actually said.

Now, I pick three words every single year, and I know what my three words were at the beginning of the year and what my three words are at the end.

And two of them are the same, which is fun and simple.

And my third was freedom.

Now, freedom for me is Freedom is the one I am.

I have a great deal of freedom in my life now, but my word for next year is abundance.

Fun, simple and abundant.

And the reason I'm pointing this out to you is that for me, I realized by doing this, I've realized that I didn't feel the freedom that I wanted to feel fully.

I did in many areas of my life.

But the abundance for the financial abundance wasn't where I wanted it to be.

And for me, in order to do the things that I want to do, I align freedom.

Money is Freedom.

Empowerment is freedom.

I've got lots of things that lead to freedom, but for me, it was abundant that was missing.

Now, it wasn't awful, okay?

But it wasn't where I wanted to be.

And I realized that that is the word that I'm going to take into next year.

Fun, simple and abundant.

So what are those words for you?

And then we can look at how you use that for next year.

Okay, so going over all of this gives you.

You should.

Now, you know, I've kind of run through this.

You can take your time over this, or you may have written down enough already, but going over this is going to give you a clear P of where you are right now.

If you go through it.

As I said with take those things that you've pulled out, what were your thinking?

What made good things happen?

What were your beliefs behind the actions that you took that made those good things happen?

And on the other side of it, what didn't happen?

What were the thoughts and the beliefs behind the actions that you just didn't take?

Because that's really important as well.

So if you feel disappointed with this year and you've done this level of deep diving into it and do it from a place of compassion, do it from a place where you are being good to yourself about it, then you're able to start to look at what you might want to do that is different.

What are the beliefs that you've got to change?

What are the beliefs that you've got to let go of and move on from?

And what are the beliefs that you need to re and reinstall but maybe install for the, for the very first time?

And I want you to end this on a high.

What are you closing the door on?

What are things that you want to take forward with you?

So plenty there for you to have a look at.

There are two things I would really love you to do before you listen to the next episode.

Because I want to get.

I really want you to get some massive value out of doing this work.

Most people talk about doing the work, but this is the work.

The thinking, the writing it down, the contemplation over things that have happened, things that haven't happened.

When you give yourself that luxury, I love that word contemplate.

That is the word.

When you contemplate these things, there is so much you can draw from it.

But if there's two episodes I would love, love love for you to listen to.

Obviously.

In addition to this one, go back to the decluttering one and also go back to the episode that I did on Thursday.

It was an extra episode on Self Doubt.

Because if you go through those today's episode decluttering and also self doubt, you will be making plans for next year like you've never made before.

And as I said earlier, it's about clearing the way.

So that is all I have for you today.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll leave you with these final words.

Please, please, please have the most amazing Christmas and I will see you on the 30th just before New Year's Eve with the episode which you are going to love.

If you have big dreams, big things you want to be changing, then don't miss the next episode.

Make sure you subscribe.

And yeah, Merry Christmas.

Have a good one and I will see you soon.

Take care.