Carla Miller [00:00:02]:
Hi. Happy New Year. It's 2025, and this is a short episode that's going to help you to reflect on 2024 and start 2025 in the right way. It's a different format from normal, but I've got some awesome questions for you to ask yourself. So this is not an episode to listen to whilst walking your dog unless you wanna stop and give yourself voice notes rather than take physical notes, but it it's a reflection episode. I'm going to share with you some questions and you're gonna take time and reflect and write down your answers. So what you're going to want to do is to find your favorite notebook or choose one from your selection of notebooks and set aside a bit of time for this episode. Find somewhere you can have peace and quiet.

Carla Miller [00:00:51]:
You're undisturbed. Grab yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, maybe even something to eat alongside it. And you're gonna spend some time thinking about yourself and what you want and how you've grown as a person. Hi. My name is Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, and trainer. And this is the influence and impact podcast for women leaders. Helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership and feel less alone on your journey as a leader. In fortnightly episodes, I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you to succeed in your career.

Carla Miller [00:01:33]:
Now before we jump into your journaling questions, as you listen to this or the week that you listen to this, it's my birthday. I am now 50 years old. Now, I have been psyching myself up for this for 2 years, so I'm now feeling pretty fabulous about turning 50. I'm even starting to embrace my gray sorry, silver hairs for the first time in my life. And I am doing something to challenge myself as I turn 50. I am going to run the great north run-in Newcastle in September 2025. Now I am not really a runner. I have run-in the past, but I haven't laced up my trainers and gone for a run-in well over a year.

Carla Miller [00:02:22]:
And even then, I'm a 5 k really slowly kinda girl. I don't even do parkrun because I put the pressure on myself to go too fast. So I'm not much of a runner. I have done one half marathon before back when I was 37, so that's now obviously quite a long time ago. And I recall thinking I'm never gonna do that again, and it certainly cured me of my lifelong goal of running a full marathon. So it's a big, big commitment for me. It's going to involve lots of training, and it's a little bit hilly around here, a little bit muddy, and rather wet. So we will see how that goes.

Carla Miller [00:02:59]:
But if you are able to, I would love it if you could sponsor me. Any small amount is totally fine, but I'm doing it to raise funds for breakthrough t one d, which is the new name of what was previously, JDRF, the charity that aims to find a cure and improve treatments for people with type 1 diabetes. Those of you that have been listening for a while will know my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, just over a year ago. It's been a roller coaster. We have adjusted, but I'll be honest, managing diabetes is relentless. And as a disease, it is exhausting physically for my son and for me. It is life threatening, and he requires constant monitoring and vigilance to make sure that he is safe and staying alive and well, and constant thought and involves everyone around us in that. Every now and then, I will say to him, oh, I've got some good news.

Carla Miller [00:03:59]:
And then I don't know why I'm talking about random things. And he says, is there a cure? Which breaks my heart, and is clearly on his mind. We are both really hoping that there will be a cure, hopefully, before he's grown up. I know people with type 1 diabetes have been hoping for this for a long time. There are huge breakthroughs happening in science in this area at the moment. And so every pound that helps accelerate that counts. I really hope that he does not have to spend the rest of his life being conscious of everything he does and making what is apparently an extra 180 decisions a day when you have type 1 diabetes. So we'll put the link in the show notes if you would like to sponsor me.

Carla Miller [00:04:47]:
It will also be, well, over my LinkedIn and everything. If you're able to, I would be incredibly grateful. Okay. So let's jump into today's episode, and let's look at these journaling questions that I have for you. Now the way it's gonna work is I am going to share a question, and then please hit pause and write down your answer, and then come back and hit play when you're done. I'm not gonna leave lots of space between the questions because I have no idea how long you're gonna be writing for. It could be 2 minutes, it could be 20 minutes depending on you and the question and what's going on for you. Okay.

Carla Miller [00:05:28]:
So the first question I'd like you to ask yourself is what have you learned about yourself in 2024? And try and answer these questions with love and compassion and self kindness. So what have you learned about yourself in 2024? Our second question, what are you proud of yourself for in 2024? You probably tell other people what you're proud of them for, but what are you proud of yourself for in 2024? My next question is for you to ask yourself, which parts of you were perhaps a little bit neglected or forgotten in 2024? So we're people with many different sides to our personalities, and we can get quite stuck in a rut sometimes, and pigeonhole ourselves as a certain type of person. Sometimes we can even forget that whole parts of our personality exist. So take a moment and think about which part or parts of you didn't get to come out to play much in 2024, and which ones would you like to come out to play more in 2025? So which parts of you didn't come out to play much in 2024, and which parts would you like to come out and play more in 2025? Now, as my coaching clients will know, one of my favorite coaching questions is who are you becoming? And I love that question because we're not static. We're evolving. We're growing. We're developing. And the world around us is changing all the time.

Carla Miller [00:07:12]:
So who are you becoming? And now let's start to think about 2025. My first question is, what do you want in 2025? As women and particularly if we're women that are taking care of other people in some form, we often put our needs and wants at the bottom of the list. And sometimes that means that we fail to even tune in to them. So what what do you want for yourself in 2025? And what do you want to do differently in 2025? You might want to think of it in terms of what do you want to do more of, what do you want to do less of, what do you never want to do again, or it might be about how you do things. So what do you want to do differently in 2025? And the next one is a topic I can often be found talking about which is boundaries. Something that again we're not all naturally great at doing, so it's good to just have a check-in. Are there any boundaries that you want to set in 2025? And these might be boundaries that you're setting for yourself, for example, around emails or social media time, or they might be boundaries that you want to set with other people at work or in life outside of work. So what boundaries or are there any boundaries that you want to set in 2025? Now if you have just written down some boundaries, but you're like, how do I actually do this? Then go and check out episode 125, which is all about setting and holding your boundaries.

Carla Miller [00:09:05]:
There's some really practical tips for you in there. Now when it comes to 2025, where could you be more open to possibility? And I ask that question because sometimes we have these stories in our head about what is and isn't possible for us or how the world works. And we can become quite self limiting. And it's just lovely to remember, oh, there are infinite numbers of possibilities out there for me. I once had a coach who said we are all infinite potential, And I love that. And sometimes the person that's limiting us is ourselves. I know I am really, really bad sometimes for seeing all the restrictions and the reasons I can't do things, and not seeing the possibilities that are out there. So where could you be more open to possibility in 2025? Okay.

Carla Miller [00:10:05]:
And then my final two questions for you. The first one, what would make 2025 at work brilliant for you? So when it comes to work, what would make 2025 brilliant for you? And my final question is a follow-up to that one. What's the first step that you can take for making that thing or those things you just wrote down happen? That brilliant life at work that you have just envisioned, what's the first step? Could be a teeny teeny tiny step, but what's the first step to making that happen, and when are you going to do that? What's the first step to making that happen, and when are you going to do that? So we've reflected on 2024 and how you've evolved and what you've learned about yourself, Maybe what part of you got a bit forgotten? Who you're becoming? And then we've looked at how do you want 2025 to be different? How do you want it to be the same? What boundaries do you want to set? What possibilities are there? So you've had a lot to think about. And maybe think about, right, what's really struck me from this exercise? What do I want to remember? And how can I keep that front of mind? So it might be an image or a vision board or a quote that sums it up. It could be something that goes on your screensaver or on your phone, for example. But how can you keep that front of mind so you can keep yourself focused on what's important to you in this coming year? Because often, we're we're focused on what's important to everyone else, and we don't spend that time thinking about what's important to us. Now if on your list of things to do, you want to make work brilliant, there are a couple of ways I might be able to help you with that. The first is that I work with a small number of people, one to 1 as a coach, normally for 3 to 6 months, but I am opening up a few spots for 12 month long relationships where I will be really walking alongside you for those 12 months.

Carla Miller [00:12:08]:
So if you've just stepped into a very senior role, for example, that might be a great fit for you. You can also join influence and impact, which is coming back in May. There's usually up to 20 women in the group, and we go through all the important things that you need to know to succeed as a woman in the workplace in a senior role. So we look at tackling self doubt, your personal leadership brand, becoming brilliant to influencing, getting your voice heard in senior rooms, and increasing your impact at work, basically. It's always a lovely group, and I would love to have you as part of it that group if it resonates with you. And if confidence is your challenge, we've also got the 4 week be bolder confidence and assertiveness course coming up in February. I would love to get to know you better this year. I would love to have that chance to work together.

Carla Miller [00:13:06]:
So if those 2 are calling to you, do book on to one of them. So I hope you've enjoyed that episode and taking that time to reflect. We've got some fantastic episodes coming up in the coming weeks months with some brilliant guests talking about all sorts of things from thriving as an introvert at work to, making decisions using ethics and your values and all sorts of different interesting topics coming up. So stay tuned. Happy 2025 and I'll speak to you soon.