Modern Body Modern Life

End of January Check in, Making 2025 Your Best Body & Life

Courtney Gray Episode 62

Sometimes, the year gets going so quickly, we can roll into February feeling behind.  Can you relate?

I have felt this way before, and whether you are faltering with your goals for 2025 or haven't EVEN started really diving into working on you, I've got you.

You are in the right place my friend.

Today I am going to teach you about my end of 2024 evaluation and how it sets me up for doing 2025 differently.

I am sharing my word of the year for 2025 and encouraging you to choose a word of the year too.....in order to re-focus yourself all year long.

Let's GO!

Interested in working with me? Find my website here: https://courtneygraycoaching.com/workwithme

Unknown:

Music. Welcome to Modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to lose weight permanently, feel in control around food and learn how to stop obsessing about their body and food, a modern way of thinking about your weight, your body and your life includes mindset. I'm body and life coach, Courtney Gray, and each week I'm going to teach you the mindset tools that are necessary for changing the way you eat forever. We will uncover why you're eating when you said you were going to stop, what to do when you're really craving something, and how important it is to decide what you want to believe is possible for you. I believe we can get in the best shape of our lives at any age, a modern body, a modern life, all starts in your mind, and when you learn how to manage that, losing weight permanently becomes so much easier. Welcome to the podcast. Episode 62 end of January. Check in. Making 2025. Your best body and life ever. I'm really excited to be here, because I have not recorded a podcast in a while. My last few podcasts, I got them done very much ahead of time, because I knew I was walking into a very busy January, which is, it has been a very busy January, so I haven't recorded in a while, and it reminds me how much I love it. I love creating these podcasts for you, so I'm so glad you're here. So this podcast is coming out the very last week of January. Am I the only one who feels like January is almost over, but yet I'm like, just getting started in 2025 that's how I feel. And I if I'm on to myself, This is how I feel most years. And I'm hearing this actually a lot from my friends and clients. It's almost kind of like it was a really busy holiday season, and then we kind of just collapsed. Even when we finally got time to ourselves, we didn't really do what we wanted to do with that time. And then all of a sudden, I got really busy again. And so I if you are at all feeling like I hear you I'm feeling that way, then this is going to be the perfect podcast for you. I have had a very busy January. It's been a very successful January actually, I started my January group coaching programs. I launched a jewelry collection. I put on two workshops. One was live, so fun, and one was virtual, always fun too. But there's something special about in person stuff. You know, my son turned 19, and we were able to go visit him at school, which was wonderful. And I've been doing a lot of my own masterminding in my business, like creating programs, enhancing programs, planning for the future. And I've been coaching my face off, coaching my clients, coaching myself. I just did a massive, massive evaluation of my life in business in 2024 and planning for 2025 and I just did it at the end of January. And I'll tell you one thing that I used to do years and years and years ago is I had all these intentions to like, Oh, I'm gonna really do an evaluation, whether it's of my business or my life, and I'm gonna make plans and a vision board, or I'm gonna create a word of the year, and I'm gonna all do all this. And then, like I said, January would be so busy that I kind of wouldn't do it, not kind of, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it. And then all of a sudden, it was March, and I was like, What? What? What happened? And it was almost at that point, then I would actually give up. So here's what I want to tell you, if you're listening to this podcast in in real time, it's going to be great for you. But if you're listening to this podcast, if you're not finding this to like, June, July, October, I really believe, I know, like as it's a societal norm that we really think of, like New Year's as the time to really evaluate and make some decisions and goals. You really can do this at any point of time in your year. If you find something, whether it's a book, a podcast, a program at any time of year that you that really speaks to you, go all in on that and start fresh at any time. Don't listen to your primitive brain, the excuse that your primitive brain might tell you that like, Oh, we're halfway through the year, oh, there's no time. There's I love the magic of January, but I used to get caught up in the magic of January 1. Well, look at we're almost to February. It's magic right now. So you're if you're listening in real time, and you are feeling the same way as me, like, wow, you've been doing all the things, but you actually haven't taken a moment to make a plan. You're in the right place. So maybe you have never done an evaluation of the prior year before, or maybe you just haven't done one yet, but maybe you've never actually done an evaluation of the prior year before. Or maybe you've actually never made some big goals. Maybe you've never chosen a word of the year. I'm gonna be talking about all those things on this podcast, and that's okay, even now, whenever you're finding this podcast, I want to get you excited about doing that, and I want to kind of convince you, sell you on the power of evaluating and then planning. I think that what I see some people do is they just kind of go, oh, you know, last year, you know, oh, I didn't really do what I wanted to do. It's fine. It's fine. New year, new you, and they move forward. But if you have been listening to the last few podcasts, you are going to know I'm a big believer in understanding why you've not been doing what you truly want to do what you truly desire, and once you understand that, it's so much of a better place to then launch forward into creating your plans, you know, for the future. Because if you don't, you don't know what you don't know, you can't fix what you can't you can't change and fix what you don't even understand. So the reason I'm calling this podcast end of January, check in, making 2025, your best body and life year ever is for a few reasons. First of all, it's possible you're wavering on sticking to your plan right now. It's possible maybe you just started the year off, just like I was describing. You didn't really do an evaluation, made a plan. Maybe it was a diet, maybe it was a healthy eating working out more whatever your quote, unquote plan was, and maybe you're kind of wavering, and that's okay. So that's one of the reasons why I really wanted to circle back end of January check in. And the second reason I'm calling this podcast end of your January check in is because in the past, I would feel a lot of guilt for waiting to do my end of year, evaluation and planning until the to the end of January, I almost kind of told myself a story. You know, you hear me talking about stories a lot. I told myself a story that I wasn't doing it right, that I was waiting too long, that it was almost kind of like the year is getting away from me. And I would tell myself this story, really, the messaging was, I'm already behind, and now I'm like, I'm not already behind. I've been already killing it. We're almost to February, I'm already killing it. And how might that be true? And so that's one thing to ask yourself right now, maybe you've faltered a little bit. Maybe you've wavering on sticking to your plan. Take a moment and go, How have I actually stuck to my plan? How have I actually done better than I've done in past January? We truly can find evidence for whatever we are looking for. Unfortunately, our primitive brain likes to always guide us to the evidence that makes us feel like shit. So you need to find evidence to how right now you're in a great spot. Yes. Do you want to do better? Yes, but let's go right now. You are not already behind. Right now. I am not already behind. Now I know that by the end of January is one, I'm going to have all this stuff done, and it's not a problem. The third reason I named the podcast, the name that I did, is any time of year, like I just said, is a good time for you to make a decision, to go all in on yourself. If you're if it's June and you're listening, it's okay. Sometimes we really do get caught up in the social construct of it has to be the new year. And if you don't do the new year right, you just give up. And it's like, oh, well, maybe I'll try next year. I was joking around with one of my girlfriends yesterday. She is a cold plunger. She's such a stud. She is a cold plunger, and she's been trying to get me for like, over a year now to cold plunge. I've done it once. There's there's evidence of it on social media. Done it once, and it was amazing. But I just don't like being cold, and I know that someday I will do it, and I will go back to her and say, You're right. You are right. I wish I would have done earlier, but for right now, I just have not been able to get myself to consistently cold plunge. But I was telling her, I said, You know what? I'm gonna do it 2026. Is my year, and we both started totally laughing. Sometimes we do that. Sometimes we feel like it's the end of January. I haven't done well, I'm already behind, and we kind of get the fuck it's and that doesn't have to be the case for you be open to starting anew any time of year. In fact, let me give you one of my favorite quotes that really will get you in the mindset of starting over and starting over. No problem, no problem. Let's start again. Let's try this out. Let's evaluate let's keep going. And this is a quote by a man named Seamus Heaney. And here is the quote. It's a little bit long. In fact, the ability to start out upon your own impulse is fundamental to the gift of keeping going upon your own terms, not to mention the further and more fulfilling gift of getting started all over again, never resting upon the oars of success or in the doldrums of disappointment, getting started, keeping going, getting started again in art and in life, it seems to me that this is the. Essential rhythm. I just love that quote. I've had it on my bulletin board in my office for years. I just love it. So I'll tell you, you'll have to, like, maybe rewind it and listen again. I'm not going to read it again because it's kind of log but you can, you know, backtrack a little bit and listen again. For me, when I hear that, I don't hear I messed up. It's a problem. I don't hear that didn't go as well as I was hoping. I'm done to me. It's like the natural rhythm of life is getting started, keeping going, falling off track. This is the one thing I wish you would have put on there, falling off track, falling off the wagon, getting started again. He did say that starting getting started. Keeping going, getting started. But I would have loved for him to put in there, falling off track. None of this has to be perfect. And we as women, we kind of think it has to be right. We're very in the diet mentality of you start a diet, you keep going. In fact, there's many diets where you don't do well, you you mess it up. You got to start over. I mean, talk about talk about teaching you that it has to be perfect. It's not the essential rhythm of life. The essential rhythm of life is getting better and better and better, and part of that is at any moment knowing that you can start again. For me, the end of January is a lovely time to review the prior year and then allow that evaluation to influence this next year, every year, when I take time to do an evaluation, I am so glad I did. I get so much clarity. It makes me feel so proud. It sheds light on what I want to continue doing and what I want to stop doing. And it's almost kind of like every year I do it, even if things have not gone the way I had hoped, every year, I'm so proud of myself, and I'm a pretty positive person. But even though I'm a very positive person, maybe you don't think of yourself as a really hyper positive person. This will help you be more positive, because when you stop and you start looking at what you have done, it's quite amazing, because again, remember, our primitive brain goes to what we haven't done, that it naturally defaults the to the negative, and that becomes a habit. But what if you made a habit of actually looking at the positive of what you have done? At the very least, if you look back on 2024 I'm going to give you some questions to help you evaluate your year. But if you look back on 2024 and you recognize all of the amazing things you did for your family and your friends, that, in itself, is unbelievable, and maybe what you'll realize is in taking care of all your family and friends, you kind of put yourself on the back burner. I mean, it kind of is like in our DNA of being a women and so that lets you know, okay, I'm really good at helping others, amazing. I'm gonna pat myself on the back. Now, let's keep doing it that this year, but let's actually help ourself. I promise you, you can put yourself on one of the front burners. There are two, if we think of a stove, there are two burners in the front. There's not just one burner. We can put ourselves in the front, and it's hard work, and that's why I think it's so many women put themselves on the back burner. They tell themselves, I'm busy. I gotta put other people's first. I think what it really comes down to, especially when it comes down to our eating and our workouts, it's hard to eat well at first, it's hard to build those new habits. It's hard to get yourself to work out at first. And so it's so much easier to help the other people when we help the other people. Often we get accolades. Often we feel like that is intuitively, as women in society, what we're supposed to be doing that is adhering to the habits we've created. It really is easier. And then we also get to eat cake. We don't have to stop eating as much. We don't have to drink a little bit less. We don't have to get ourselves to work out at the end of a long day. So, in fact, it is easier to help all the other people first. But if you look back over your year and you're like, I was amazing for everyone else that's amazing. Well done. Let's now put you on the front burner. So I've been talking a lot about understanding why you don't follow through with your healthy eating plan. The last few podcasts has really dove into why, why you give up, even for a few days. Can you see how I'm asking you to evaluate yourself in the moment when you give up in that moment, and overall, when you look back over what you created for yourself last year. So I've been asking you evaluate why in the moment. Now I'm asking you to evaluate what you've created for yourself last year, what you've done well, and maybe what you haven't done well. If we understand why, we can do better. If you want to create something different in your life, you need to understand how you created where you are now, if you've been frustrated for years wanting to lose 20 pounds, and year after year, you started a diet, lost some weight, lost some momentum, gained the weight back. Decided it's your age, decided it's just who you are. It's harder now than now that you're older. You just don't have the time to dedicate this to this right now, and you're repeating this life. First of all, take a moment to go, Okay, if that's what I'm doing, where am I going? You're going to create more and more and more of that. And unfortunately, your your weight is probably not going to stay the same. You're going to probably continue gaining getting unhealthier, right? That's the bummer with that, but also, you're going to be repeating this habit over and over and over again. You would really benefit from doing a year review of your body and your eating and your thoughts. You could benefit from some clarity of what has been lacking in your planning, what has been lacking with your ability to feel negative emotions. Do you have the tools you need? Do you have a strong enough Why do you understand what your triggers are? I'm so inspired after doing this end of the year evaluation. I think this might have been my favorite one. I have an evaluation I do every year. And then my girlfriend gifted me an evaluation she bought from another program, which was amazing, and I kind of combined the two for myself. I love it so much that I'm actually in the process of creating an evaluation for my group coaching programs to do in the beginning of joining my group coaching program, like whenever they join with me, I'm thinking this will be the perfect kick off to helping them again, even start our coaching of 12 weeks together. So they will really feel like, Oh, I understand where I've been now. I understand the work I need to do to get where I'm going, let's dip our toe in this together, shall we? I'm going to just give you a few. I'm not going to give you. It would take an hour with me to give you all of this, but I'm going to give you a few powerful questions to journal on, to give you some clarity and to start to create a plan to move forward. Whether you've already done an evaluation, and this can add to it, whether you've never done an evaluation or whether you haven't done one yet. Number one, what are you really proud of when you look back over 2024 I kind of actually alluded to this just a moment ago. What are you really proud of, but make sure it's something that you did or you created, not something that like, happened to you or your family. Like, what are you really proud of? Again? Are you proud of the way you showed up for certain people in your life? Amazing. Why did you do like, ask yourself a bunch of questions here. My question is, what are you really proud of when you look back over 2024 if you say I'm really proud of how I took care of my mom, I'm just throwing this out there, right? Don't just stop there. Like, why are you really proud of that? Why did you decide to do that? How were you amazing for your mom? Like, would you do anything differently? Like, really dive into your pride and allow yourself to be filled with the emotion of pride in that moment. This isn't necessarily like the best parts of 2024 like, what I mean is, what are you really proud of about you? Sometimes people think about the last year and they think of like an amazing vacation they took, or like an award they won. Not necessarily that. I just really think of what are you proud of? It could be something trivial, like taking care of your mom or starting a business, or the way you helped one of your children through something that was really difficult, but what is something that you're proud of you? So I'll give you an example for me. When I was doing this evaluation last year, I started a group coaching program. I had been doing one on one, coaching with my clients. I had been doing group coaching in another program for another coach, but I really went from offering only private coaching to offering a group coaching program. It was a massive success. It was a way for women to work with me at a lower price point. It was a way for me to introduce people to the power of group coaching, the power of community. And it was really a way for me to introduce coaching to a lot of women that have never experienced coaching. It was a massive success. I am I? When I was doing this evaluation, I literally started crying when I was like, What am I most proud of? And I started crying and because it's hard. If you're an entrepreneur, you're sitting there going, that's a big deal. You'd get it if you're not an entrepreneur, this is very hard. Let me just tell you, going from one offering, right, one on one coaching, private one on one coaching, to then offering group is just a hard on so many levels, hard worthy of my time, but just very hard. So I'm so proud of myself. So can you identify what you're really proud of when you look back over 2024 I'm taking a little break to let you know, if you are loving the podcast, you have to grab my free course, lose weight for the last time, the mindset and strategy you've been missing this free. Course, is available right now. It is for women who are tired of dieting only to gain the weight back. It is for women who want to lose weight permanently and feel like themselves again. I spent years wanting to lose weight every morning. I would promise to eat better that day, and then by four o'clock, I would completely change my mind. I would think I don't care. It wasn't worth it. I should just love myself. I'm getting older. This is normal, that my body's changing, and it shouldn't matter, but it did matter, and it did matter to me. I lost weight permanently by learning how to feel in control around food, eat better consistently and follow through. And this course will help you do the same. So the link to get immediate access to this free course is in the show notes. It's also on my website, at Courtney Gray coaching.com you are going to love it. Now back to the show after you identify something that you're really proud of, that you created in 2024 ask yourself, How did you do that? What skills did you have to learn or channel or pray about or whatever to be bold enough to use in order to create this thing? Let me say that again. What skills did you have to learn, or what did you have to be bold enough to do in order to create this thing. So for me, when I think back as starting group, I think for me, the biggest thing I had to learn to do was to trust myself, be willing to fail like I remember when I started my first group, I thought I might get no one signing up, and I said to myself, how would that feel? And I go, I would feel embarrassed. I'd feel embarrassed in front of my kids. I'd feel embarrassed in front of my husband. I'd feel embarrassed if anyone said, How did it go? I was willing to feel that embarrassment now that never happened, and now that I was willing to feel that embarrassment if I start another offering at some point, and I get no one, I don't think I'll be embarrassed at this point, because I won't make it mean anything. I'll make it mean that at least I'm trying. But in that moment, I thought, I'm gonna have to trust myself, and I'm gonna have to be willing to fail, and I'm gonna have to be willing to feel embarrassed. I'm gonna have to be willing to give things a try and have them not go as well as planned. And even though group, my group coaching program, was a massive success. It did not, not all go as planned. I learned a lot. There were many failures along the way, as as there are every year with everything in my life. Okay, so next, can you identify a story you told yourself last year that is holding you back in a story that you're ready to change. You hear me talk a lot about thoughts, beliefs, stories. A lot of times, when we have a thought or a belief, we talk to it in our head like a story. It's almost like we are thinking about our life in a story form. So that's why I say. Can you identify a story you told yourself in 2024 that's holding you back. Now, be on the lookout. A lot of times this story is not going to present like a story. It's going to seem like the truth. And so here's a great example. I just don't have enough time right now that is a story. Now you might come up with all the reasons why that story is true. I promise you, I've worked with some of the busiest flipping women ever, and they will make time for what is most important to them. And one of the things I always say, and this is kind of a call out, but I do say it to my clients, if they say to me, I just don't have time to work out, I just don't have time to meal prep. I don't have time to I say, Do you watch TV? And I'm not telling anyone to not watch TV. I love me some bridgerton. I love me some Outlander. But if you have time for TV, over time for taking care of yourself, what are we doing here that you're telling yourself a story you're telling your body in your life that TV is more important than health and feeling like you want to feel in your body. So can you identify a story that held you back in 2024 this one might take a few minutes to really uncover, but it is so powerful. Remember too that I talk a lot about beliefs, stories and thoughts and how they create how we feel in our bodies, and these feelings dictate what we do throughout our day. They literally dictate what we do or don't do. It's important to identify the stories we tell ourselves on repeat, because they are affecting how we're living our lives. The story you tell yourself is affecting how you eat, what you do with your day, in day and out, whether you go for a walk, whether you lift heavier weights, whether you do some sit ups and again. A lot of times, people think these stories are facts, so identifying them is very powerful. I'm gonna give you like a client example. I had a client that wanted to lose 10 pounds, like for years. She came to me and she was, I've wanted to lose these 10 pounds for like, 20 years, and we identified. It took us a while, but we identified the story. Of course, she didn't think this was a story. She just told herself. It this shouldn't matter. She felt like something was wrong with her because she was telling herself a story. It didn't matter. It made her feel insecure. It made her feel foolish that she did want to lose this weight, and so anytime she had the desire for something sweet, especially in the evenings, because, you know, girls, evenings are tough for us, right? She would cave in because she'd be like, this shouldn't matter. Like, I'm fine. I look fine. I'm healthy. This shouldn't matter. My partner tells me I'm healthy. If I ever talk about wanting to lose weight, people kind of shame me, like, in a loving way, but they just tell me to kind of get over myself. And so I'm telling myself a story that it's that it shouldn't matter. It's making me feel insecure. And I made her realize this story was one she needed to let go of, because it was holding her back from losing the weight. She dropped the story. She decided the story was going to be this fucking matters to me. I loved it. I'm like, What do you want it to be? She was I want it to be this fucking matters to me. She lost the 10 pounds, then she ended up actually losing a few more pounds, because she got there and, like, I actually want to lose a few more fantastic, started working out, swimming, doing more than she had ever thought she could do, and it's all because she decided she didn't want to keep telling herself that story. And then the next question you can ask yourself is, do you know what you truly desire? Meaning you from your prefrontal cortex, meaning the you that wants to grow, you that wants to reach your goals, you that is good at making decisions and allowing all the feelings that come with making decisions, it's it's not the you, it's not the primitive brain that wants to sit on the couch, eat food and just not move right. We have those days, for sure. We have those days, we have those moments. But what do you truly desire for your life and why do you want it? Always understanding what your WHY IS is so important. But here's what happens often when we think about why we want something, sometimes we're kind of hard on ourselves. Sometimes when we think about why we want something, we really think that our reason isn't good enough. Sometimes we come up with reasons like, I just want to feel like I look beautiful. I've had clients lately tell me that I want to feel like I look beautiful. I want to be healthy. I want to look a certain way when I get dressed up. I want to look a certain way when I take off all my clothes. I want to, this summer, feel like I look a certain way. Can that be good enough? Can your reason for what you truly desire be good enough? And for some reason, we feel a little bit selfish, a little bit like, just like my client story, a little like it's not worthy enough of our time. And so you get to decide if you like your reasons. It doesn't have to change the world. It doesn't have to make our whole life better. It doesn't have to affect our family positives. But here's the thing that you will find, and this is what so many of my clients right now are nodding their heads, hearing this, when you allow yourself to decide what you truly want for yourself, and for a lot of my clients, that's to lose some weight in a healthy way, where they're feeling in control around food, they want to learn some new skills, how to follow through without necessarily always feeling motivated. They want to be able to be at a buffet and want things and even not have to have all those things. They want to be able to go to a restaurant and order the way they said they were going to order on the drive over. So we have all these desires for ourselves, and if we can do those things, then we can be living in the body that we want to live in. When this happens, what you will find is your whole life does get better. Your relationships often get better because you're feeling better about you. You're feeling like, wow, I can actually put myself first and put my kids first. Wow, I can actually make myself a priority, and my make my relationship a priority, you will find that you like the way you feel about you, and that makes every other area of your life better. Remember that we experience all of our life through the filter of our own mind and our own body. And so when you take control of your body, and you learn how to do that in a very loving, sustainable way, every area does get better. So it's interesting. It's one of those things when, if you allow yourself to be, quote, unquote, a little selfish, put yourself first a little bit, it ends up helping all the people. It ends up. Helping your whole entire life. Here is a powerful question, what needs to change? When you look at last year and now you look at where you're going, where you're you are creating, what you truly desire, what needs to change? What skills do you need to learn? How do you need to grow? And here's a question for those of you that have been on a diet since the beginning of January, and maybe it worked, you lost weight, and now you're slowly gaining the weight back and shaming yourself totally, very common. Or maybe you have been thinking about going on a diet, and now it's the end of January, you're like, what is happening? I'm not taking myself seriously. When you think about what you truly desire in accomplishing it. And when you think about what needs to change, what skills you need to learn and how you need to grow, does going on a diet teach you those skills? Does going on a diet help you grow into the person who can want a cookie and not eat a cookie? And the reason I'm saying cookies tonight is we have cookies in the house, and I kind of want one, but I'm not gonna have one, because I had one last night. You can become that person, but you're gonna have to learn how to become that person. And does that diet you're planning on going on, or that you've been trying to stick to, does that help you become the woman who has this skill? Possibly not? Okay? And this is a really fun part of the podcast, and this is something maybe you've never done before. But can you think of a word of the year that represents your growth and focus? If you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you may have heard me talk about my word of the year every year for the last few years, I have chosen a word of the year. Last year, in 2024 my word was joy. I did my end of the year evaluation, and I really just knew that I really wanted to focus on joy. And the way I think about joy is joy is available to us at any moment, even when you're having a moment when times are hard, even if you break your leg, even if you didn't get that business deal, even if you stepped on the scale and you're a pound up when you were thinking you were gonna be a pound down. Joy is available to us at any moment. And joy comes from our thoughts, our focus, our perspective. And so I really spent the year last year, really telling myself, I can have joy at any time. How can I, in this moment allow myself to feel joy? And joy is more than happiness. Joy is like, it's like a it's almost a little exciting. It's like, like, just, I don't know, it's very expansive, and I got pretty good at channeling that. I would take a moment in the middle of my day and I would say, Oh, I am focusing on joy. And I would put my hand on my chest, and I'd be like, Okay, how can I feel joy right now? And oftentimes I felt the joy by guiding my mind. And I would think about something I was looking forward to, or I would think about something I was really excited about, or I would think about one of my kids, that I just in that moment, really just felt joyful about that. I was so glad I was their mom. So I came to this joy many different ways, but I really allowed myself to feel that in the moment. And the thing that's interesting with joy is it's kind of like excitement. It's, I think, a little bit fleeting. If you really feel joy in in your body, and you kind of get the tingly, like expansive feeling, it's hard to sustain, I think, kind of like excitement. You can get shots of excitement, but it's hard to sustain excitement for me anyways, throughout, throughout a day. So I would try to have moments of joy more and more often. And I got really good at getting good at experiencing joy. My word of the year, the year before that was adventurous. I really had decided that my work was to do more travel than I had ever done alone, travel alone, travel with friends, travel with family, and just be more adventurous in the way I was living my life. And I did, I think I traveled more in 2023 than I had maybe in my whole life. And I went to, I think, three masterminds. One I was paid to instruct that. But, I mean, it was a wild year of adventure, but it was even like adventure in when I would go for a walk, I'd be like, I'm gonna go to a different place. If I went to lunch with my kids, I'd be like, Let's go here. We've never been here before. So I really focused on creating more adventure by being more adventurous. My word of the year after doing my huge evaluation of 2024 and really kind of planning out what I want to do with 2025 my word of the year is connect. And I could talk for an hour about what this means to me, but basically to me, it means connect with universal energy. For you, you might say, connect with God. You might say, connect Bucha. You might say, connect with your your guardian angels, whatever that is. For you, we all have a different i. Idea of who that person is, or thing or feeling or energy is that is guiding us. But I want to connect more often. I want to feel like, I definitely feel like I connect to my guides, my future self, universal energy and really another thing I feel the the connection is with is just with all living things, like plants, animals, all past, present, all I think there's a huge connection, a realm of connection available to all of us. And I feel it at moments. I feel it when I meditate very much. And I feel it oftentimes like if I'm in nature, I feel it when I think about my children and how much I love them, for some reason that's very expansive for me. But I want to feel like every day I am connected, and I believe it's my job to open up to the connection, and I also want to connect to my own trust, to my own guidance and my own wisdom, and that is where I am headed this year. You want to think about a word of the year that represents your growth and focus. When I look back at last year and I'm like, I'm really glad I really started learning to trust myself. I want to trust myself even more. And that means I don't want to connect to what other people think I should be doing with my life. I don't want to connect with what even people that I love, their thoughts and what I'm doing. I want to connect with what I think I should be doing, what matters to me, what matters to my guides, my universal energy, my purpose for being alive. I really want to feel that connection. And in feeling that connection, I really believe that I will be guided to helping more people, to living my best life, to doing scary things in the pursuit of everything I desire. And I also want to connect to what I truly desire. And I'm a lot like you, some of the things that I truly desire, just like some of the things you truly desire, no one else cares about or agrees with, and that's okay. And here's what I want to ask you, is, can that be okay for you? I have decided it's okay for me. It's okay for me that not everyone understands it's okay for me that maybe I misunderstood, and I'm not I'm not saying people disagree with me. I feel very loved. But sometimes when you're doing things that you want, you're like, Is this okay to be wanting this? I've decided yes, even if it's something that maybe your primitive brain is telling you is insignificant, if it matters to you, if it keeps coming back up for you, then it's important to you. It's a true desire. And can you take it seriously, even if maybe other people don't really see the seriousness of it? Can that be okay? I encourage you to choose a word of the year after doing your own version of this evaluation of last year and what you decide you want for this year, choose a word of the year that every time you think about this year, it will guide you and anchor you back into where you're going, anchor you back into you and what you truly desire this is going to be an amazing 2025 have a great Tuesday. If you are ready to lose weight and keep it off permanently and feel confident and at peace around food, I invite you to head to Courtney Gray coaching.com to learn about how to work with me. I work with women privately, one on one, and I also offer small group coaching. There is a link to my website in the show notes. You.