#44 Better Questions For The New Year

Resolutions fade when they’re built on pressure instead of purpose. We offer a calmer way to start 2026: five simple questions that reveal what to release, what to keep, what to learn, what to explore, and what to create more of. Rather than chasing another crowded checklist, we guide you to a reflective reset that aligns with your values, faith, and season of life.

We begin by naming the hidden costs of post-holiday stress and why January promises so often collapse by February. From there, we map a practical life audit across six integrated areas—marriage or primary relationship, motherhood or fatherhood, friendships, self-image, health, and contribution through career or service. You’ll learn how to rate each area honestly without shame, choose one focus that matters most right now, and apply the five questions to craft a plan that is specific, humane, and sustainable. Along the way, we share a self-image case study, from muting comparison triggers to creating space for prayer and journaling, so you can see how small shifts compound into real change.

If you’re hungry for progress but tired of hype, this conversation hands you a clear framework, a kinder mindset, and the courage to act. Start with one area, ask better questions, and let your choices reflect what you truly value—peace, intimacy, health, learning, service, and joy. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who’s ready to build a year that actually fits. What’s the one area you’ll focus on first?

Click the link below to set up a free discovery call to begin your transformation today.  Or email me @ smurph923.sm@gmail.com to find out more about how I can help.  

https://calendly.com/smurph923-sm/discovery-call

https://sharonkcoaching.com/

https://subscribepage.io/The-Five-Things-Your-Adult-Child-Needs-to-Hear-From-You

Transcript

Cold Open and Post-Holiday Reset

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Hello and welcome to my podcast. My name is Jaren Murphy, and I'm a certified life and mindset coach, and I help women who seek to be happy and holy. Each week I'll bring you tools and insights to help you on your journey to the heights. I'm so glad you're here. Hello and welcome back. I want to say as I begin this episode that if I sound a little different, well, it's because I have a cold, a bad head cold, to be honest, that seems to find me each year after Christmas. Some of and some of you out there probably know about more about this than I do, but I believe that stress is probably one of the biggest enemies or culprits of a breakdown of our immune system. And it's likely why I find myself sick after every big event in my life. You can talk to some of my family. After my wedding, I got pretty sick, and other big events or things that were going on that I was a part of, I would find myself sick right afterwards. And as much as I love Christmas and celebrating the birth of our Lord and all that comes with it, especially now in our modern world, the parties, the families, the gatherings, all the sugary, not so good for us foods, each year I seem to end up with some sort of bug. Anyway, I just wanted to explain that I sound a little scratchy, a little rough. It sounds like I'm in a 10-gallon drum. That's kind of what it sounds like in my own head as well, as I speak to you. But just want you to know, I I wasn't smoking two packs of cigarettes before recording, but that is probably what my voice sounds like, so I apologize. And I thank you for bearing with me. So as I speak of Christmas, I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas. At the time of recording, it's the end of December, 2025, and it should be released January 1st, 2026, so on New Year's Day. And I decided not to record an episode last week. I had talked about it on my previous one. I debated what to do for Christmas week, but I decided that I just wanted to be present with my family, all that the holiday offered. And even though I'm feeling under the weather physically today, I'm feeling really recharged and ready to go with regards to my work. And I'm excited about a lot of things. And so, as I said, this is going to be released on January 1st of the new year of 2026. I just want to talk about getting ready for what's ahead. I have to say, I am really excited because I talked about being excited about my work. I have some things that I'm going to be offering in this new year. And I'm going to be sharing more about it in upcoming weeks, the upcoming episodes, so stay tuned for that. But there's a lot of exciting things that are going to be coming. And what I hope that after you is that after listening to this episode today, you're going to walk away with some things that will help you feel inspired and recharged and hopeful as you head into the new year. And as we head into these new year, this new year, we know there's tons of things out there about resolutions, New Year's resolutions. Some people are all in on that, and some people are very repelled by it, understandably so. We hear a lot about it. You're either somebody who loves to do that or somebody who resists it. And there is no shortage of right now on videos, offerings, programs, just social media posts. There's lots of books out there about how to set goals and achieve them and to change your life. There's no shortage of ways that you can improve in 2026 or in the next year, especially when it comes to like health and fitness. So I know I know the resistance. I understand, because I I'm in this work and I'm I'm very passionate about personal development, personal growth, growth mindset. And I too sometimes just cringe when I think about the New Year's and New Year's resolutions. And it's probably because we've been told, and we know this, that how long do the typical New Year's resolutions last? I think it's like by the end of January, a lot of them have been dropped. All you have to do is join a gym. Or if you're somebody like me, when I used to work in an office, there was a a workout facility, and I would work out each day at my lunch or before or after. And if it was January, when come January 1st, we were always annoyed because the place would be overflowing and you couldn't get on the usual equipment. But we would say to each other, hang on, it's okay, because in a few weeks it'll be emptied right out again. And that's that's kind of true. So there's a reason why a lot of us maybe, maybe don't get too excited or hyped up about you know making changes for the new year. But I will say, my husband and I, we do challenge our kids to write down some specific things that they want to work on or plan to commit to for the upcoming year. And while some of them get more enthused about it than others, they have been pretty good about it, to be honest. At least when they were younger. And it isn't so much that my husband and I want to know that they're working on or that we're trying to hound them about it. But for me, rather, it's the idea that they get the wheels turning in their minds. And that's the key, that they start to think about what they want their life to look like and where they can improve or where they want to make changes, that they actually take the time to think about it and realize that they have the ability and the power to change their life. It just takes, it takes some thought and it takes some effort. But I think it's super important to have a mindset that is both reflective and growth-oriented. I don't think that we can be growth-oriented without being reflective. It's part of our human design, it's the way we were created. We were meant to take time to reflect on where we've been and what is going well, what went well, what did not go so well in our days, in our weeks, but also in our years and over the course of our life. And this is just meant to help us get clearer about what we want moving forward. It should serve as it should serve a purpose that will help us become better today than we were yesterday. What I'm inviting you to today is to take the time to reflect on 2025. And to help you to do this, I want to offer you some better questions. Better questions that you can ask yourself that will help you peel back some layers and to go a little deeper when it comes to what's working and what's not working in your life, what you want more of and what you want less of. So here we go. Here's a few things that I want to offer you. So I want you to start with this question right here. What is it that you want to let go of? What are some things that you need to let go of in your life? What is holding you back from being the person that you want to be? And take an honest assessment of this. What do you need to let go of? Another question that you can ask yourself is what is it that I want to hang on to? And by that I mean, what are those things that are moving you forward in your life? And specifically the things that might be difficult to do or are challenging to you or others? Those things that even though they're difficult, and you may be getting some, you know, I don't know, judgment from other people, or it may be costing you something, what are those things that you know you need to hang on to? The next one is what is it that you can learn from in 2025? And I'm just gonna off just tell you to pick two or three things. What are what are three lessons that you can take away from this past year? If you're unsure, let me help you out. Just take a look at those things that you would consider to be fails or areas that didn't go as you had wanted. Maybe it's even some goals or plans that you had that you didn't follow through with. Why do you think you didn't follow through? There's always a lesson to be learned, especially when things don't go our way or as we had intended. Why did those things go south? There's lessons that we can learn from that. Instead of saying, well, that didn't work or that's horrible, or very often we can go to a place of, well, good riddance, glad that that's done, glad to have gotten through that. But let's take some time and look at it and say, what have I learned through all of that? Because there's always a lesson. The next one is what do I want to explore further? And this one I really, really like. Because this could be something that it just maybe caught your attention, but but then it just sort of passed by. It could be something maybe that you admire in someone else and you noticed about them. What is what is it that you admire about it? What caught your attention? Because a lot of times that can be, it can be very subtle, but it can be the movings or the promptings of the Holy Spirit inviting you into something else. Maybe it's something that several people have commented on about you or your talents, but maybe you've just dismissed it. Maybe there's been an invitation to something. Maybe there's been some remarks or comments or certain things that have kind of resurfaced and you've just disregarded them. Maybe it's time to explore it further. What is meant by that? Maybe it's an opportunity that's presented itself, but you really didn't give it much attention. So that's a fun one. So what is it that maybe you want to explore further as you move forward? Look further into, dig deeper into. And then finally, a question that I love is what do you want to create more of? What do you want to create more of in your life? Time is a big one. It could be time for your family, time for doing what you love, could be travel. Maybe it's time for hospitality, welcoming others into your home, being more inviting and open to whatever comes your way. Maybe it's time to create. Maybe you want to create more time to create. Taking up a new hobby, maybe playing piano, learning a new language. I will say for me, those are two things that I'm going to be working on in 2026. I I really like to knit, and I'm somebody that when it's nicer outside, I like to run. Those are two things I like to read as well. Those are three things that I kind of tend to fall into for my hobbies or things that interest me. But I'm decided I really want to stretch myself and to grow, and I want to learn a new language. Yes, I am going to Germany next summer, so that's a little bit of a mo you know motivation for me to learn to speak some German. But I also want to learn piano, and music has really never been a big thing for me, but I've always admired people who are really, really good at music, whether that's playing an instrument or singing, and you know, yeah, today listening to me, it's very obvious why I am not a singer. I don't have a voice of a vocalist, and that's okay. That's just something that's not for me. But I thought, you know what? Even if I can learn to read music, I have no idea how to read music. So I want to learn how to read music and I want to learn how to play the piano, even at a very basic level. So I I'm kind of excited about that. So those are two things that I'm doing. But maybe it's time for working towards your goals. Maybe you want to create more time to work towards your goals, whatever that might be. Your goals, exercise goals, or a dream that you've been pushing aside. Maybe it's more you want to create more time for prayer and recollection, just more time for quiet meditation. Maybe it's maybe it's not time. Maybe it's money. Maybe you want to create more income for your family. Maybe it's your relationships. Maybe you want to create more intimacy and connection in your relationships. Whatever that is, just think about what you want to create more of. If you want to create joy, how are you going to do that? If you want to create more peace, how are you going to do that? Those are just several ideas that can just get you thinking down a little bit different path. There's things, but I want to take this even further. For those of you who are feeling brave, I'm going to invite you now to look at this for each area of your life. Because we are integrated beings. If one area of our life is lacking or hurting, it's going to spread into the other areas. Wholeness is really the ideal. Because what tends to happen is, and we know this, is if we're struggling in our marriage, we push that aside and we work extra hard on serving others or working on our careers or our health goals, right? Or if our health is struggling or we it's not what we want it to be, what do we do? We focus all the more on our relationships or our career or maybe our spiritual life. We tend to just push that aside because we don't want to deal with it, and we focus on the things that are working well, which is okay. It is okay. But we need to look at all aspects of our lives. We need to look at all parts. Because if one is suffering, we are whole. All of us is suffering. Which also, I mean, it's not just we are mind, body, and spirit. So if one of those areas is suffering, we're all going to suffer. They're not separate. And we like to think they are. It's easier to just separate it out and then neglect the area that isn't working well so we can actually feel better about ourselves and just focus on what's working. But what I'm inviting you into here is to look at those areas where maybe that that isn't working so well for us. What I'd like to suggest is just taking some time and getting really clear about what specific area or areas of your life are not what you'd like them to be. And it doesn't have to be anything disastrous. We're all working to become better people. We're evolving. And so there's areas in all of our lives, and in each area of our lives where we know there could be improvements. It could be one area that you really it sticks out to you, but it could be several or maybe all of them. But here's just a few of them. One of them being motherhood or fatherhood if you're a parent, right? Meaning the relationship with your kids or how you're showing up as a parent. The next one being your marriage, if you're married, you know, what does that look like for connection and intimacy in your marriage? The third being friendships, as well as all of our other relationships. What do those look like? How are we investing in those? Do we have friendships that are thriving? Another aspect or area of our life is our self-image. And this one, we can't, I can't place enough emphasis on this one. How do you feel about yourself? What do you believe about yourself? How do you speak to yourself? What are the thoughts that you have? You know, kind of how do you see yourself, your worthiness? This impacts so much of our lives and we're not even aware of it. This is one that's very often neglected because we just don't like to look at it. So that's one area. Another one is our health, our physical health, meaning like diet, fitness, nutrition, our emotional health, our mental health, our spiritual health. Health encompasses all of those. So you can pick one area, or you can pick just health in general. The other one is contribution. And contribution mean meaning our contribution in the world, in our homes. You know, what do we bring to the world? That can be our career or it can be our purpose or our mission that that's entrusted to us. Again, motherhood, fatherhood, marriage, friendships, self-image, your health, and your contribution. So take some time and rate each one of these on a scale of zero to ten and be honest with yourself. Just take some time when you have a moment, get a piece of paper and a pen on a scale of one to ten, zero to ten, excuse me, zero being not ideal or barely surviving, or ten being ideal or thriving. And don't worry about what it is right now. It doesn't matter. You know, we're gonna tend to judge ourselves if we see and it's this is why it's hard to do, this is why we resist this, is because we don't want to see that two or that three or that zero or that one. But it's just a gauge. And I know it's hard to look at, but it's it's just like getting on the scale, right? It's easier to avoid altogether, but that doesn't change what it is. That doesn't change the circumstance. And the only way we know for things to get better is to just take an honest assessment because it starts with our awareness. But if it's too daunting and if it's too much for you right now, and you have, you know, you just don't know that you can, then just pick one area. Pick one area. Start with your relationships, either with your kids, your spouse, or your friendships, or your contribution, meaning your career, your purpose, or your mission. Where does that fall? How are you feeling about that? Is that thriving or does that need some work? Or your health. Could be your physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, or all of them. And then your self-image, you know, how you feel yourself or how you believe, you know, what's your belief in yourself? What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe you deserve? How do you feel about your worthiness? Again, zero to ten. Pick one, just start with which one stands out to you the most. There should be one that jumps out at you a little bit more than the others that you know right now that maybe you've been neglecting or ignoring, but you know that there's one that stands out more than the others. And then go ahead and rate that zero to ten. After you've chosen that, then take the questions that I mentioned earlier to go deeper into that. So those questions that I mentioned earlier, now that you've identified an area of your life, whether it's your relationships, your contribution, your health, or your self-image, or any specific thing that you're struggling with or that you feel like you want to improve on or you want to take a look at or you want to work on, or you are most desiring growth in, there's different ways to go about it, but then now take these questions of in that specific area of my life, what do I need to let go of? What is no longer serving me? No matter how much I enjoy this or I like this, or it's been a part of my life, what do I need to let go of? What's not serving me anymore? What do I need to hang on to in this area of my life? Even though it may be causing me, it may be costing me something, maybe it's difficult, maybe it's challenging. What do I need to hang on to? What's worth fighting for? The next one is what do I want to learn from? What can I learn from in this area? What lessons can I take from the past year, the past two years, the past five years, the past six months, whatever it may be? What can I learn from what's happened in the past when I reflect on it in this area of my life? What do I want to explore further in this area? What are some things that I want to explore that I maybe haven't explored before? What are some opportunities that I haven't thought of? What are some things that have kept been presented to me that maybe I've dismissed? If things aren't if you're not at a ten in this area, then this is a great place to look at, you know, what do I need to explore further? And then what do I need to create more of? What do I need to create more of to get to a place of thriving, to get to a place of being fulfilled in this area of my life. Whether it's time, whether it's money, whatever that may be, what do you want to create more of? And again, don't worry about doing this perfectly. Even if you just pick one area of your life and focus on that. Like I said, say say that you talk about your marriage and you then focus on what you want to let go of, what you need to create more of, and so on and so forth. And just focus on that. That itself is gonna move the needle in your life. It doesn't need to be complicated. But I'm hoping that with some better questions and a framework to use, it's gonna help you cut through some of the noise. And it's gonna help you disrupt some of the same old patterns that your brain is offering you. Right? Because how often when we get to this time of year, if you're somebody who does like the idea of trying to reset and to set resolutions or to make some changes, if you're somebody that does that, don't we fall into the same patterns and habits of like, I need to get up earlier, I need to get a more structured prayer time, I need to have more structured workout routine, right? I need to read for 15 minutes a day. We we tend to fall into the same things. It's on loop. I I just, those are the things that are fresh in my mind. We fall into the same things. I should read more, I should exercise more, I should call my mother more, whatever that might be. But by asking yourself these different questions, and I would say better questions, you're now forcing your brain to really search for better answers. You're forcing your brain to think. As we wrap up, what I I just want to say this, and we're talking a lot about resolutions, but this is helpful for any time, not just at the start of the new year. But I just feel like right now, this is a time where so many of us are more attuned to this message because it's it's in our minds. So just to make the most out of setting up a plan for a new year, I just want to suggest again to start with reflecting on 2025, ask yourself these questions. What do I need to let go of? You know, basically what isn't serving in me in my life? What do I want to hang on to? Even if even if it's difficult or costing you something. What do I want to learn from? Those lessons or mistakes or things that didn't go as I wanted. What do I want to explore further? What are the possibilities available to me? What are some things I may have dismissed that I want to go back and look at? Or take a take another look at? What do I want to create more of? More time or more space? Wealth? Abundance? What gives you joy? Serving others. And then next, I want you to take an honest assessment of each area of your life, your relationships, marriage, family, friendships, your self-image. What do you believe about yourself? What's the self-talk? What are the beliefs you have? What do you believe of your worthiness? What do you believe you deserve? Your health. Physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental. Take a look at each area. And then finally your contribution. And again, that's just things like your career, your mission, your purpose, what it is that you bring to the world. And rate each of those on a scale of zero to ten. Zero being the lowest, being not ideal, ten being the highest, being ideal, or thriving. And as I said, just pick one if that's easiest. And actually, I would probably suggest just picking one and just focusing on that to start. Just pick one. And then ask yourself those questions in that specific area. And I'm going to just I'm going to give you a little example here, just because maybe, maybe I want to give you a little bit more detail as to what that can look like. So let's say that you want to work on your self-image, that you scored, let's say you scored a three in that. And you want, you know, then you're going to look at it and say, okay, what do I want to let go of? Maybe you want to let go of looking at Pinterest or following certain people on Instagram and Facebook because you tend to compare yourself. And then you feel even worse about yourself. And then to hang on to, maybe you want to hang on to your daily journaling and reading about, you know, inner healing, even though that's difficult to do. What do you want to learn from? Well, maybe you want to learn from those people in places that left you feeling worse off. You want to avoid those places. Or maybe you want to go deeper into what caused you to feel worse in those scenarios. What do you want to explore further? Maybe you want to look into reading books that speak to the dignity of who you are, or do the work to hear those, heal those areas of woundedness that have hindered your self-image. And that can be, you know, healing retreats, it could be therapy, it can be any number of things. You know, find a good coach. What do you want to create more of? It could be creating more of journaling and working through negative thought patterns or creating more time for quiet prayer, to invite the Lord in and let him speak to you about who he says you are, versus what you've let the world tell you about who you are. Maybe you want to create more compassion for yourself. So those are just that's some ideas to give you what that can look like and what, you know, to be practical. And you can do that for each area of your life. And like I said, I know this can be difficult. I know it's very easy to listen to this and then to to just dismiss it. And, you know, I say it can be difficult, but the reality is it's it's not just can, it is, it's difficult. But it's the work that provides so much healing and freedom in each area of our life. But it takes courage. It takes courage to look at those areas of our lives that we want to improve on. It's easier to just slap down some resolutions for the new year and set down some clear-cut goals, but in truth, it's that very reason that they don't stick. We don't go under the surface to go, you know, to get to what's really happening, which is where the real change and transformation occurs. So today I'm inviting you to be brave, to be courageous. And I'm on this journey with you. It's the journey that we must make if we want our lives to be lives that are fully alive. So until next time, onward and upward, my friends, to the heights. Thanks so much for listening today. If you have any questions or would like to go deeper into this topic or how it affects you in your own life, you can find me at Sharon K Coaching.com. That's Sharon the Letterk Coaching.com. If you've enjoyed listening, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite platform. And feel free to share with anyone you think might benefit from what you've heard.