Ep #96 - Welcome to 2026: Easing In, Not Hustling

Welcome to 2026 — the unhurried edition. January, for me, is for hunkering down: blankets, films and honest reflection. In this episode, I share how I review 2025 (what worked, what I’m grateful for) and why tiny, conscious shifts beat big dramatic overhauls. We explore faith in uncertain times (yes, the real-life stuff with Johnny’s job), how your primitive brain resists change, and the skills that let you manage your mind and emotions without white-knuckling it.

I’m calling in 20 new 1:1 clients this year — women who know there’s more for them and are ready to learn how to create it, without the rush or the guilt.

We cover:

• Reflection before resolutions
• Conscious change → unconscious ease
• Courage over comfort (for real life, not Instagram)
• When therapy/CBT helped… but you still feel stuck
• What coaching actually does

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingWomensLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Transcript

Welcome, welcome, welcome to 2026!

It’s… funny, isn’t it, the start of the new year. Now, I have no plans for this podcast. I am just going to talk from where I’m at and, um, see what comes out.

And it’s… I always find that January is that time of year where you find people saying, oh, you know, what’s your goal for 2026? What’s your word for 2026? What’s this? What’s that? And I… I do that, and I’m on board with that.

And… I like to do it in a very relaxed way. And what I mean by that is, it still feels like January, for me, is still a time of hunkering down. It’s still a time of reflection and, you know, the weather’s still cold. If we lived in caves, we wouldn’t be going out much, so I still feel like it’s that kind of time for reflection, and time for just still kind of nourishing the body a little bit in cozying on the sofa, still watching the films.

But I am back to work. Today is my first official day back. I’ve had a very easy day. Just in a little bit of admin, a little bit of marketing, recording this for you, uh, with absolutely no plan.

So, how was your 2025?

Do you ever… sit down and actually consider what went well in 2025? What worked? What did you really enjoy? What are you really grateful for? Because a lot of the time, you sort of hear people going, oh, I’m so glad that year’s over.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt that. I’ve… and if my brain does want to default to that, I certainly don’t engage it. I actively look at what went well. What did we overcome last year?

And especially the end of last year, if you’ve been listening to me for a while, you will know that with Johnny leaving his job, we had a lot of uncertainty. We are going into 2026 with a lot of uncertainty. And we have really had to, or I have really had to, lean into faith and the universe, and being willing to consider that there is a higher force at work than just me.

Because if it’s just me and it’s just Johnny, those times that we go into the negatives, downs — and we do, because we’re human — then you could think, oh my god, it’s never gonna work. But that’s not the way that life works. Life… happens. Things happen for a reason. Life always works, in one way or another.

We don’t ever know what that’s going to look like. We may not know how that’s going to go. But when you have this belief in a dream, and you are willing to work towards that dream, the universe works with you. And you have to have so much courage leading into the faith that that’s what’s going to happen.

And it’s so easy to stay in our normal, in our familiar. It takes a lot of very conscious, deliberate effort to change who we are. And I’m not even talking about big, huge, dramatic things like growing your business, or, you know — it’s the tiny little things like exercise, meditating, eating healthy.

It takes an initial, very conscious, deliberate effort to go, right, what I’m doing isn’t working. So let’s try something new. That primitive part of our brain is never going to like it. Ever, ever, ever, because it literally thinks — and you’ve heard me say this before — we’re not dead. Why should we change?

So, to begin with, any change takes effort, it takes consciousness. And then, the more you do that new habit, or that new behavior, or that new thought process, that becomes unconscious, and then it becomes easy.

And we are doing this. You are doing this already, whether you’re aware of it or not. Your consciousness, your unconsciousness, is running your life.

Which is why I think coaching is so powerful, because you come and you talk to — hopefully me — and we’re talking in a very non-judgmental, very curious way that just enables you to get really fascinated about your unconscious thought patterns that will be creating unconscious emotions that will be creating unconscious behaviours.

So the power in becoming aware of all of that means that then you start to change it, however small a change you want to make. It all starts with consciousness.

So, as I’m going into 2026, I’m thinking about the year ahead, and I’m very consciously deciding what do I want to create so that when I come and I do my review at the end of 2026, what do I want to have created?

And one thing that I’m really looking forward to achieving this year is signing 20 new one-on-one clients. And what I mean by new is someone that has never coached with me before, so not someone who’s re-signing. Someone who is brand new to my coaching. 20.

I’ve already run one down. I’ve already signed one, so we’re starting… so I’ve got 19 more to go. And I’m really excited to see who those people are going to be.

And I’m looking for people that really want to change, that have this tiny little voice inside them that goes, do you know what? I think there’s more. I think I can do more, I can be more — whatever that looks like.

And the type of person that really has a willingness to work on themselves, because there’s a part of them that knows that trying to get other people to change isn’t working. Trying to change everybody else is tiring. It doesn’t work.

And so maybe, just maybe, if you change yourself, your life will get so much better. And this is what I believe. This is what I believe, without a doubt — that the only person that you can control or change is you. And knowing that you have that choice is so very powerful.

But it takes courage. It takes courage to look at yourself and go, right, what I’m currently doing isn’t working, and I want something different, so I want to learn — very deliberately using the word learn — I want to learn how to manage my mind and how to manage my emotions so that I become the version of myself that I want to be.

And that’s what I’m trying to figure out for myself now. That version of me that signs 20 new clients with ease. 20 new clients that I just love working with, because they are as passionate about their change as I am.

And there’s a part of them that can see how amazing they can be, even if they don’t quite believe it yet. I want to work with them to create it. I want to fight against their primitive brain with them in order for them to achieve the life that they want, however that looks.

And it’s usually the most insignificant things that we talk about in the coaching sessions that make the biggest transformation. When I’m in a session and my client says to me, oh, this seems like a really insignificant topic, I’m like, it isn’t. It really isn’t.

This is changing this tiny little bit that will fundamentally change your experience of your day.

And so, if you’re going into 2026 and there’s a small part of you that knows that eating the sugar isn’t working, that going on the holidays isn’t actually creating the change that you want — if you’ve maybe tried counselling, maybe you’ve tried therapy, maybe you’ve tried CBT, and all of that helped, but you’re still not quite where you want to be — please consider coaching.

Because the skill that you learn when you learn how to manage your mind and how to manage your emotions is what enables you to change into the future version of yourself that you want to be.

And I would not be here now, talking to you, if I hadn’t learned those skills. And especially with Johnny leaving the police and going into 2026 with the amount of uncertainty that we have going into it — and I feel very calm about that — I would not be able to have done that if I hadn’t have learned the skills that I really desperately want to teach you.

They’re in this podcast, you’ve got them already. But until you actually invest and you make a very conscious decision to change, and you work with someone that enables you to do that, it’s a very hard journey to do on your own.

So if 2026 is the year that you are finally fed up rushing from one thing to the next, trying to please everybody whilst you’re just completely exhausted, let’s have a conversation. Let’s have a curiosity call.

It literally is what it says it is. We’ll talk, it’ll feel like you’re talking to me like this. If you’re watching me on YouTube, I look no different. And we will have a really curious conversation about where you are, where you want to be.

And if I think it’s appropriate, I will tell you how coaching with me will help you get from one to the other. If I don’t think it’s appropriate, I will suggest other options. But at least if we have that conversation, we can see if we’re the right fit. We can see if you’re ready to actually make that change.

And I would love to do that with you.

So if you think you’re going to be one of my 20 people that I work with in 2026, look at the show notes below. Book a curiosity call, and let’s have that incredible conversation. Even if you decide that actually coaching right now isn’t for you, not a problem. You will still have a huge insight in that conversation.

I’m really looking forward to some of the conversations I’ve got coming up on the podcast. I’ve got a really lovely conversation planned that I did with someone else on someone else’s podcast, actually, last year. She very kindly has agreed for the recording to be shared on my podcast, so that’s for next week.

And I’ve already got some interviews lined up. And once I get my head back in the game of the new year, and my head doesn’t still feel like Christmas, I will also bring out some more valuable podcasts for you to learn from.

But for now, please be kind as we ease into 2026. And if you want to change, let’s have that chat.

Have an amazing week. Bye!