Takeaways

• Choosing a word of the year can guide your intentions.
• Growth often follows a period of contraction.
• Creating spaciousness allows for better decision-making.
• Awareness is crucial for recognizing what drains your energy.
• Pay more attention to what brings you joy and fulfillment.
• Plant metaphorical seeds and try new things.
• Not every idea needs to be monetized immediately.

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

Pam (00:00)
We like to wrap up our year with just sort of a catch up, kind of a free for all episode where we get to talk about whatever is on our minds, things that we want to recommend, and some insights for you heading into the new year. So that is what we’re going to do today. I wanted to first start with a story to remind you to change the batteries in your smoke detectors.

My mom was visiting and in the middle of the night, I heard a voice and I wake up and I’m like, what is this? Like, who’s talking? Like, what is going on? And I like wait a little bit and there’s no more talking. So I’m like, okay, weird, you know, go back to sleep. And then I wake up here again. I’m like, what is going on? It was the smoke detector in our guest room where my mom is sleeping. It was yelling.

change batteries. Batteries are low. And my mom was just laying there trying to sleep through it. Instead of coming and waking me up and asking me, like, can you help with this? She was just this… This was like midnight. She was going to lay there for another six hours just dealing with the sound. So I had to find the stepladder in the middle of the night in the dark and like try and get this thing out of the ceiling and then

Sarah (01:10)
Yeah.

What?

You

Pam (01:25)
know, they’re like plugged in but also have batteries. So I have to like figure out how to unplug it. And then I feel like, okay, I’ve gotten it unplugged, I’m just gonna put it away somewhere else and we’ll deal with the batteries in the morning. And then as I’m walking downstairs with it to put it somewhere else, it starts shrieking. The actual alarm started going off, because now it’s disconnected from the power. So now my adrenaline is through the roof at midnight.

Sarah (01:41)
It’s still talking.

Pam (01:54)
So it seems like batteries and smoke detectors always go out in the middle of the night. So just be proactive, change them like once a year or once every two years, do yourself a favor so you don’t have to go through that, especially when guests are in town.

Sarah (02:11)
love that. And I think that’s a good kind of end of year tip too. Like what are those loose ends that you can just tie up and feel good about it and maybe avoid a midnight wake up.

Pam (02:15)
Yes.

Yes, yeah.

Yes, yeah, it’s a great like tying it to your holidays maybe is a good thing. So you just remember like at the end of every year we swap out the batteries. So, all right. So you wanted to talk about the concept of like a word of the year.

Sarah (02:36)
Good tip.

Hmm. Yeah, have you done a word of the year in previous years?

Pam (02:48)
I think so. I mean, the concept’s not new to me. I feel like I’ve done it in workshops before, like maybe like a word for my business or like, you that kind of thing. But I don’t think I’ve ever done like a word for the year.

Sarah (02:57)
Yes.

Yeah, a year in a way a year feels like a big commitment versus like choose a word for this yoga class. Yeah, but I thought that I wanted to do a word of this year. So the concept really is to have like a theme for your year, almost like an intention that you’re bringing into the year to color all of the months ahead. And some of the ways

Pam (03:07)
Right.

Sarah (03:30)
to find that one word or I actually have a couple of words. Like I have one keyword and I’ve got a few others because I don’t want to commit to just one. Is some ways to like sort of think about what that word or those few words might be. Number one, what are your primary intentions or goals for the year ahead? Number two, what went well last year? What did you learn from last year? And number three, what didn’t you love about last year?

And if you need some help with assessing that, check out our most recent episode before this one, where we talk about a goal setting workbook or intention setting workbook guidebook that I put together. And we have a link to that, which will really help bring those themes to life.

Pam (04:18)
Yeah, definitely. I don’t think I would have been able to come up with my word for today had we not gone through that workbook. So we’ll drop a link in the show notes for this episode as well, because it is really helpful.

Sarah (04:22)
Mm.

Okay.

Amazing. So let’s start with you Pam. What word? Cause I don’t know. What word did you come up with?

Pam (04:36)
I chose growth for my

word for the year. And that came out of really kind of thinking about the last few years of my life where I’ve kind of been in more of a contraction phase. I cut out a lot of stuff from like all areas of my life. When my dad died almost three years ago, I really kind of closed in and like turned inward and like.

Sarah (04:51)
Yeah.

Pam (05:03)
didn’t socialize as much with a lot of people. I changed my focus for where I was spending my time. I was spending a lot more time helping my mom and spending time with her and less time with some social connections that maybe weren’t as strong or fulfilling as I thought that they actually were. So was really like an eye-opening thing for me to go through and see what I didn’t want in my life anymore.

Sarah (05:29)
Yeah.

Pam (05:30)
And I did the same with my business. I cut out some clients that were stressing me out. You know, even if the money was good, I was like, this isn’t worth it emotionally anymore. So that was really like my last three years was was reducing and eliminating things. And now I feel like I’ve got the bandwidth and the desire to move back into a growth phase.

Sarah (05:37)
Yeah.

Pam (05:57)
And that started to happen over the last few months where I started getting my like creative juices back and like, you know, launched my Making It Easy newsletter over on Substack and doing, you know, more with this podcast and really kind of starting to expand a little bit more again. And I want to bring that energy into 2025.

Sarah (06:16)
I love it. And it’s so funny as you were discussing that I was, you know, watching you because we’re on video. and for anyone who’s listening and not on video, not watching the YouTube behind Pam, are a whole bunch of plants. So when you were talking about growth, I was of course thinking about plants and you were saying, you know, for the past few years, you’ve really been, cutting stuff out. And in a way that’s like pruning.

Pam (06:32)
Hahaha

Yeah.

Sarah (06:46)
It’s like pruning your garden, pruning your plants, and then comes a new cycle. Right? That ready for growth.

Pam (06:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s true. We can’t grow all the time. It’s not sustainable. It’s not healthy. And some growth phases may be longer than others. But I think that doing that reflective process of looking back at where you’ve been over the last couple of years and really how you’re feeling energetically and emotionally and what you have bandwidth for is so important.

Sarah (06:57)
No.

Mm-hmm.

yeah. yeah.

Pam (07:20)
We’ve

talked about this on recent episodes of like how everything is kind of cyclical, right? And knowing when you have the bandwidth and the energy to take on more when you need to say no and like letting that be okay. Like for a long time, I didn’t want to say no to anything. Cause it’s like, I might miss out on this opportunity. But if you never say no, you’re always at capacity.

Sarah (07:24)
Yeah.

Pam (07:50)
And then something could come along that you actually do want to say yes for and you just don’t have the room for it or you can’t give it your best.

Sarah (07:57)
Yeah.

So you and I are very yin and yang in this moment in terms of this cycle. Cause I’m at another point where it’s not so much that I’m thinking like that I need to cut things, but I’m feeling like I am at capacity. I felt at capacity for the last couple of months, the last year. And I’ve had a ton of growth, like a ton of growth in my business, a ton of growth personally as well.

Pam (08:06)
Yeah.

Sarah (08:28)
And right now I feel that I want spaciousness. So that was actually my primary word is spaciousness. And what I mean by that is like a pause with room, right? And what am I gonna do? Am I gonna take out those pruning shears and prune some of the plants opportunities?

things around me, I don’t know yet, but I know that I am like just craving some of that spaciousness so that I can make some decisions around my time and around where I’m putting my energy. So kind of not a full stop on what’s happening. There’s so many great things happening in my life, but like, almost like some built in pauses or guardrails.

so that I can assess and be creative with what, feel a little bit more creative, a lot more creative about what I’m doing in my business and in my life.

Pam (09:42)
Yeah, I, in our conversations and in this one, I’m also hearing like, you have felt like you were just sort of keeping up. You didn’t have the ability to say, okay, you know, where can I do a little bit more over here? Where can I make the most of this thing that I really enjoy? You were just sort of like, it’s, I’m, right? Just, just making it through.

Sarah (10:04)
plowing through. Yeah.

Pam (10:09)
Yeah, and so being able to open up that space to just take a breath and go, okay, I really enjoy this aspect of my career or my personal life or, you know, whatever, like, how can I do more of that? Creating that space, how it sounds like it’s really important for you.

Sarah (10:27)
It’s really important for me. I think it’s important for all of us to have that at different moments. And I think we all have our constraints to like how easy is it to do that? In many ways, I’m fortunate or privileged because I have my own business. So there is some freedom there at this point, right? To say,

For example, I was able to build it with some of my clients, a schedule for the first quarter of next year that is more spacious in terms of like delivery instead of, you know, banging it all out in one go. But that hasn’t always been the case for me, nor will it always be the case for me or anyone, right? Whether we’re working for ourselves or we’re working for, you know, an organization or we’ve got…

Family demands, whether that’s young people we’re looking after, older people we’re looking after, anyone in our community, there’s constraints. So I think, I don’t know, I don’t want it to seem like this, we always can have the luxury of all the space we need. But I do think because we can’t always access that in the way that we want and need, but I think it’s really important to kind of stay aware of it and say, well, where are the pockets?

that I can create more of that space for myself? What would it take to create little bits of space where I can and where I need them most? So that’s what I’m doing because the last little while I kind of forgot about that and I was like, just better say yes to everything and I can do it. Of course I can do it, no problem. I’ll do it, right?

without realizing the places where I did have some agency to make some requests or say no to certain things or create certain boundaries. So I’m going into next year with a lot more intention around that. So yeah, I wanted to take this chance to remind our listeners, if you feel that you need that, spend some time thinking about how and where you can.

create some more of those pockets of space.

Pam (12:51)
Yeah, we say this probably on every other episode that awareness is the first step, right? So just like taking a little bit of time to reflect and go, okay, I am in this phase right now where I’ve said yes to everything, and I’ve done it all and I need to find some space like that is

Sarah (12:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (13:14)
huge just even having that awareness because so many people stay in that cycle of just like do everything, do more, do more, do more. And they never really take that time to go like where could I, you know, maybe cut some things out or ask for some changes or, know, whatever it is to make that adjustment so that it doesn’t feel like I’m just on the hamster wheel.

Sarah (13:39)
Yes, yes. So that’s my primary word for next year. But I have some other words too, and that’s because I love words like you. I love reading and certain words can carry like emotional, like pick a word that you love or pick a couple of words that you love. So there’s some other words that have come up recently that I love. I was having a conversation with one of my dear friends.

Pam (13:45)
Okay.

Sarah (14:09)
Richie and I was telling him about my word and he loved it. And then he said, well, I think one of my words is whimsy. And I was like, wow. And then we were talking about sort of how delightful that is. Like what does whimsy mean? It’s like magic. It’s like surprises. It’s like wonder. It’s like having space for like little things that delight you. And

I was like, okay, I really love it. I’m going to use that word too. And he said, yeah. So, that is whimsy and one, and also I love the word wonder because it’s just really powerful to like feel that life is wonderful or like feel in wonder of the way things are going. I find that it’s such a essential feeling. I have wonder.

Pam (14:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (15:07)
So I really like the words whimsy and wonder to me, they’re kind of similar. They both start with W. so that’s another thing I wanted to say is like, can identify themes or words that you love. Right.

Pam (15:23)
I like that. love the wonder one, because it’s so related to presence and being kind of in the moment. Instead of constantly being distracted or listening to a podcast on a walk or looking at social media or whatever, there’s this thing that you can do where you take, I don’t even know what it’s called, but I’m gonna call it a wonder walk.

Sarah (15:27)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (15:52)
you go out and you consciously pick things to look at and like notice things in your neighborhood that you’ve completely ignored every other time you’ve walked like, you know, go out and say like, I’m to look at all the trees and notice things about the trees in my neighborhood, or I’m going to notice all the birds and just focus on those and like, really look at like, look at the like leaf pattern on this tree.

Sarah (16:18)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (16:19)
crazy that nature makes this or like look at this hummingbird like this tiny little thing that is going so fast and like just really get so interested in the things that you see every single day that you completely ignore all the time and it’s fascinating and it totally changes how you feel emotionally and physically like you just feel lighter and happier and it just really can like change

Sarah (16:23)
Mm-hmm.

I love that.

Yeah.

Pam (16:47)
your day just by taking a 15 minute wonder walk.

Sarah (16:48)
Yeah,

I love it. Yeah, great.

Pam (16:53)
Cool. Do you have any more words that you wanted to share?

Sarah (16:59)
Yes. Well, I haven’t quite landed on the word yet, but it’s something around like, sewing, sewing new seeds, like for diversifying. So maybe the word is seeds. I’m not sure, but it’s something around like creativity, newness, expansion.

So I’ve got like the themes floating around, but I think I need more space. So as I step into my spaciousness over the break, I think the right words will emerge. So I’ll let you know in January when we meet again. Yeah.

Pam (17:29)
You

Okay.

Well, we didn’t plan this, but our kind of two, you know, major words, mine of growth and yours of spaciousness really fit into a lot of the things on my list for talking about today. And I just love that that happened. So that’s wonderful. Because I’ve been thinking a lot about

Sarah (18:00)
Yeah.

Pam (18:07)
like where you put your time and energy and how that is repaid. Especially since we did the episode on the planning guide where we, you know, like doing that guide you’re really taking time to think like what did I do energetically last year? What felt good? What didn’t feel good? What do I want more of next year? What do I want less of? And so it got me thinking about like

Sarah (18:28)
Yeah.

Pam (18:37)
you know, what have I done? What like conscious decisions have I made or what did I put my energy into that allowed me to have this life that I have right now? And I was thinking about that yesterday because CK and I decided to just take the day off in the middle of the week and we drove up to Los Angeles and we went to the California Science Center where they have an exhibit of Leonardo da Vinci’s works. So they like recreated.

Sarah (19:02)
Hmm.

Pam (19:03)
all of his crazy flying machines and just all kinds of cool stuff that he made and some of his artwork and things like that. And we just got to take the day and go learn things and see cool things and eat great food. And I was like, man, I’m so lucky and so grateful that we have built this life. We asked a lot of our friends if they could meet up with us and they were all like, we’re so busy. We can’t do that right now.

Sarah (19:08)
Hmm.

Pam (19:33)
It’s not possible. we’re like, man, like we have built lives that allow us to do this. And I’m so grateful for it. Not that there’s anything wrong with their lives. It’s just that, you know, this is what we have chosen. And so I was thinking about like, you know, how did I get here? Like what decisions did I make? And like what it really came down to was that I have over the last few years,

Sarah (19:42)
Mm-hmm.

Pam (20:01)
than putting more energy into what I want and less energy into what I don’t, which sounds very simple, but often that’s not what we do. Like we put energy into things that we think need fixing or things that are problems, like what’s broken, we focus there and we neglect the things that are going well. Like, you know, maybe your relationship is great, but your job is stressing you out. So you…

Sarah (20:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Pam (20:30)
spend a lot of time trying to work harder and do more and then you neglect your relationship. And then what happens in the long run, the relationship ends up falling apart because you’re not putting the focus in there. So I’ve been thinking a lot about like consciously putting more energy into what is making you happy and what is going well and seeing where you can put less focus on what isn’t going well.

Sarah (20:39)
Yeah.

Pam (21:00)
say no to things that are, you know, maybe in the short term they sound good, but you know in the long run they’ll be problematic. Like for me with business, I’ve had opportunities come up where it’s like a client that would have paid really, really well, but I know, you know, there’s three red flags. I know that they’re going to be stressful for me and it’s going to take more time than I want to put into it and that in the long run they’re not going to be a good client or whatever that is. It’d be really easy to say yes to the money right now.

but I know that it will make me unhappy. Like making those decisions to say no to the things that would not perpetuate more of what I want and opening up space for the things that would make me happy.

Sarah (21:41)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Also like doing those things that make you happy. Cause I think you make a really good point when you say it sounds so simple and it does sound simple and yet it’s hard to execute because I think often as humans, we really put a cap on our joy.

Pam (22:06)
yeah.

Sarah (22:07)
You know, we think, well, okay, I did one. I went to one dance class. Like I loved it. Well, do I dare go to two a week? What about three? Do I dare, you know, go next month again to another exhibit and go to another great restaurant? You know, sometimes it’s like we have this joyful experience and then it’s like, okay, well, that’s all I can get.

Pam (22:16)
Yeah.

Sarah (22:36)
but we don’t have to just, you know, settle for scraps.

Pam (22:43)
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, think about that. Think about where there’s things that are not making you happy that you’re putting a lot of energy into. And, you know, maybe if you’re a business owner, you know, maybe 20 % of your clients are taking 80 % of your time and you could be putting more energy into the ones that are

Sarah (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

It’s a really good point.

Pam (23:13)
know, more profitable or better opportunities for you. Maybe it’s a service that you’re offering. If you’ve got multiple things that you offer, maybe one of them is your least profitable but takes up the most time. Maybe it’s people. Maybe you have people that are, you know, time and energy sucks that, you know, want all of your attention and don’t give you anything positive in return. Maybe

Sarah (23:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pam (23:39)
If you have an employer, maybe there are aspects of your job that you love and aspects that you hate. Maybe you can talk to your boss and find out like, hey, I’m really good at this stuff and this makes me really happy. How can I do more of that? And can we shift these other things somewhere else? You have the ability to identify those things and at least ask.

Sarah (24:03)
Yeah, that’s great. a couple of things that are coming up for me. One is it reminds me of the advice in the workplace around like strengths and weaknesses. You know, when you hear like reverse, instead of trying to fix your weaknesses or build those up, really lean into your strengths. So in a way, it’s like a similar kind of model, like lean into your happiness and

Pam (24:23)
Yes.

Sarah (24:31)
put less energy in the things that aren’t working. So I think that it really takes an awareness to do both. And I think it’s going against the norm because I think we’re so conditioned, most people are conditioned to like wanting to fix things. And then I think, as I said before, we tend to like put a cap on how much happiness we think. I think a lot of that is unconscious, but like we don’t think we, it’s possible.

Pam (24:47)
Yes.

Yes.

Sarah (24:59)
like there’s like an upper limit problem, like we don’t think it’s possible to have that much goodness. So to challenge both of those assumptions and see what happens.

Pam (25:08)
Yes.

Yeah. And there was a podcast that we were listening to on the way to the DaVinci exhibit that was an episode of a podcast called Modern Wisdom. And it was an interview with a guy named Michael Gelb who wrote a book about DaVinci. He’s like a DaVinci expert. And I don’t even remember why they were talking about this, but the whole theme of the podcast was how to think like DaVinci. And there was a phrase that

I think the host said, which was like, how can you take your foot off the brake? So we’re always looking for ways to do more and like new tools and you know, new projects and new, new, new, new, new, new. And we aren’t thinking about like, well, what’s, what’s there already that is holding me back? So like you, can hit the accelerator all you want, but if you also have your foot on the brake, you’re not going to go anywhere.

Sarah (25:48)
for you.

Pam (26:04)
It’s this idea of like, you know, what’s holding you back? What’s slowing you down? What’s sucking your energy? You know, and it could be anything. It could be your job. It could be people. It could be your health, your diet. Like, what is making you not feel your best so that you can’t hit the accelerator? Like, identify those places that you need to put a little bit of focus to take your foot off the brake or cut them out entirely. Whatever that is.

Sarah (26:33)
So how did DaVinci

do that?

Pam (26:36)
That’s a really good question that I don’t have an answer for.

Sarah (26:38)
Okay.

Pam (26:41)
I was driving so I was only half paying attention.

Sarah (26:42)
Fair enough. Fair enough. enough.

Yeah, good inspiration though.

Pam (26:48)
Yeah, and it goes back to your idea of planting seeds and where can you cut out things that aren’t going well so that you can do this expansion and try new things and add new things in.

Sarah (27:10)
Yeah, and I want to give a shout out to a coach that I’ve done some work with, Dr. Julia Colangelo, who does work in flow and mindfulness. And this idea of planting new seeds came up in a program that she’s offering that I’m a part of and some of the one-on-one coaching that we did where she really helped sort of illuminate this

concept for me that, yeah, when I’m in a mode where I’m kind of doing the same thing over and over again and putting all of my energy into this one thing, which I think is a model. It’s like definitely a model that you hear of for anyone who is a business owner who’s listening to this podcast. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Get really good at one thing and kind of do it over and over again and let that be sort of your, whether that’s your main offer or your

kind of your area of expertise. And I’m not saying don’t have an area of expertise and don’t get excellent at something. And like, of course do that. But at the same time, it’s like, that’s like all you’re doing and you’re kind of feeling or I should say, I started feeling a little bit stuck in that. So in talking to Julia sort of realizing, yeah, like there’s a lot of other stuff I can do too. There’s like,

a lot of other stuff I wonder about, right? And that I’m interested in and like, come in the future, opportunities come in the future. And there’s no reason why I can’t be sowing more of these seeds, spreading some of these more creative seeds now to see what emerges in 2025 and beyond. So that felt like an inspiring idea for me.

Pam (28:55)
I like that and you know, thinking of them as seeds is so important because I think people get an idea and they’re like, I want to build this thing and they think that it should be a tree. But it’s a seed, right? You start with a little bit, dip your toe in, see if it really is what you want to do and don’t put the pressure on it to be this huge thing. Like you really you want to sprinkle 100 seeds and see what grows.

Sarah (29:06)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

For sure. For sure.

And listen, there’s a reason why gardening metaphors are so aplenty because they really, they really stand. But I mean, you don’t just, I mean, I, I planted a lot of seeds literally in my garden last year and I had, and I planted tubers, Dahlia tubers, and I planted tulip bulbs and daffodil bulbs. I planted grasses. I planted so many things and not all of them bloomed.

Pam (29:27)
You

Of course. Yeah.

Sarah (29:50)
Right? Like that’s just,

that’s just not the way nature works. And not only that, some of them don’t really show up in their like full glory, glory till the second or third year. Like my native perennials are going to take a couple of years to really, really sort of showcase themselves. So that’s, you know, such a clear metaphor of this. So if you want like full, like a more fulsome life or you’re desiring new things, which of course we

I think most of us want that we want novelty, we want change, we want like a full human experience. It’s… I love what you said. It’s not just like, okay, I’m gonna plant one seed and it better turn into an oak tree. You know, in two months, it’s like, it might not work. It might not work. Or you might not like it. Like, like, what would it take to kind of be more free with our ideas, our dreams and plant more of them and then see what happens.

Pam (30:35)
Wait.

Yeah.

Yeah, we put so much pressure on doing things because there’s this idea that everything has to be, you know, a profit generator or have a purpose or, you know, you got to monetize it or whatever it is. It’s like, can you just try it?

Sarah (30:49)
Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. my gosh. Yes

I know I really think yeah there’s a lot of pressure on needing to pressure on needing to monetize ideas if it’s a great idea you should be able to monetize it.

Pam (31:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (31:17)
interesting.

Pam (31:19)
We were gonna each give a recommendation for the most impactful book of the year and we both decided it was the same book. So that’s great because it was such an amazing book and it will help you with these topics that we’ve talked about in this whole episode. It was 4,000 weeks, Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Berkman. We loved it so much that we did two whole episodes about it, which you can go back and listen to, read the book. He’s on tons of podcasts as well.

Sarah (31:26)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Pam (31:49)
the principles that he talks about will help you decide how to spend more time doing what you want to do and less time doing what you don’t and give yourself some freedom to say no and to not monetize and produce and be, you know, go, go, go all the time.

Sarah (32:07)
Yeah, it’s it’s a construct

Pam (32:09)
Yes. Yeah.

Sarah (32:11)
Yeah, it’s such a great book and like you Pam, I’ve read so many personal development books, professional development books, and this one really stood out as something different and it was very personally moving for me. Like I found it quite a moving book and really created some shifts.

Pam (32:27)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Okay. Anything else you want to add before I give one last recommendation?

Sarah (32:40)
it’s been such a pleasure doing these podcasts and sharing our ideas, our questions, our wisdom and we’re looking forward to 2025 and so any listeners who have topics that you want our insights on, let us know.

Pam (33:00)
Yeah, leave a comment. We will take your recommendations and do episodes on almost anything that people would find valuable.