Born To Be Her
Born to be HER is the podcast for women who are ready to rise into the life they truly desire. This is your space to remember that you actually can—despite the stories you carry, the self-doubt you’ve battled, or the old patterns that try to keep you small. Together, we’ll explore how to hold your shadow with compassion, transform it into wisdom, and step boldly into the vision of a life that feels expansive, aligned, and deeply yours.
Because you were Born to be HER.
Born To Be Her
How I End My Year And Begin Designing What's Next in 2026
December doesn’t need to be a sprint to the finish or a full stop on the sofa. I’m sharing a gentler route that blends real life—moving home to Ireland, a seven‑month‑old who’s almost crawling, and the chaos of settling in—with a simple, powerful way to end the year feeling clear and calm. We start by integrating the year you actually lived: an energy audit using your photos or calendar to remember what lifted you and what wore you down. From there, we move into a practice I swear by—choosing a single guiding word for 2026—and show how that word can shape choices across life and work.
You’ll hear why I landed on nourishment and how it reframes everything from business offers to family rhythms and home life. If structured goals light you up, I walk through turning your word into clear priorities and grounded actions. If goals feel heavy, you’ll get a lighter path that still builds momentum: define how you want to feel by next December, work backwards into what matters most, and set rhythms that fit your nature. Along the way we talk alignment, boundaries, systems that reduce drain, and the quiet power of scheduling integration so plans actually stick.
Whether you’re a business owner or simply craving more intention, this conversation gives you a toolkit to close 2025 with gratitude and step into 2026 with focus. If you’re local, I’m lining up small in‑person gatherings to help you reset; there are online sessions coming too, plus a nourishing Greece retreat over Easter for deeper transformation. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs a softer December, and leave a quick review—what’s your guiding word for 2026?
Hello, welcome back to another episode of the Born to Be Her podcast. I'm your host, Vanilla Wiley, and I'm so excited to be diving into this episode with you today. This podcast feels like a really great space to give you some little personal updates. It's been funny having a baby and being a personal brand, and so much of me wanting to connect with you in this stage of my life, and also a part of me that is really protective of Eva, my daughter, and wanting to hold her story sacredly, knowing that you know she can't give me permission for sharing her online right now. Um, but this feels like a really special place to be able to connect and to be able to share a little bit about what life looks like behind the scenes. If you've been listening along, you'll know that we moved home just three weeks ago. Um, and we are just in the depths of settling in and figuring out routines. We keep saying to each other that it feels like we are on holidays, like it doesn't feel like we've actually moved home yet. I'm sure that'll kind of linger for another little while. Um, and we've had lots of things happening that has just been really beautiful to be home for. It feels like it was meant to be. Some of the things that we're we've been able to be home for haven't been great things, but it's just been so beautiful to be able to be around and be of support and be there. You'll know if you're an expat how difficult it can be when things happen at home and you feel like you're you literally are a million miles away from being able to be there to support people. And Eva is just at the most beautiful stage. I feel like I think that at every single stage so far. But seven months is now my favourite. She is just so full of life, and she is about to crawl. Um, she is learning how to wave, she has so many new things happening, and it feels like this stage is just when she like her brain is coming online so much. There's so many little developments happening literally every day at the moment, and it's just so so magic to be able to witness all of that. And she's just a little pocket of joy. She is such a little smiler, she is so full of energy, and yeah, it's just so incredible having her home and sharing her with everyone, and watching her be loved on by so many different people. So, all of that has been so so beautiful, and we're now in the lead up to Christmas, which is always I feel like us Irish people do Christmas so well. Um, so yeah, that's a little bit about what it's been like being home so far, very much in the settling stage, still starting to set up some in-person work things, and um, Thomas is still working for his Australian company, so we're starting to get into a little bit of a routine, but just taking our time with finding our feet and letting ourselves settle here, and that was always our intention to just give ourselves a little bit of time and space to land, and there has been so many things to organise and get sorted. Um, and you can forget that because you obviously know that you have to do all those things when you move abroad, but moving home, I'm like, oh yes, I'll have to like sort the phone contracts and sort the cars and all of those practical things, so very much in the middle of that as well. I wanted to record this episode today because I always feel like December is this really funny time where we're bombarded with so much messaging around how to carry out our December, how to use our energy in December, and this will be applicable to you if you are a business owner or if you're just someone who is feeling into how you want to spend this month because we can be really bombarded with messaging around, you know, not slowing down yet with really ramping things up in December and finishing hard on the year and all of those kinds of things, or we can see the exact opposite where we're really invited to slow down, to rest, to let ourselves ease into the end of the year, and that can feel really resonant if we are fully exhausted, if we're just feeling like we're dragging our feet to the end of the year, which I know can feel so true for so many of us in different circumstances in our life. But I always think there's like this this middle spot between those two places where we can really land our energy. And I wanted to speak about the things that I do in December to close out my year, firstly, and then to also really think about what I want to bring into 2026, how I want to spend my energy in 2026, what I want the following year to look like, because it's easy to kind of wait until January to do those things to start to feel into the year. But I always find that if I give myself some time to do a little bit of that this side of the year, then I can just rest in Christmas, I can know that I've got a plan for the new year, and I can just really allow myself to be immersed in holiday season. So, yeah, let's dive into firstly how we can close out our year and then how we can start to direct our energy towards what it is that we want in the year that's to come. So, one thing that I've spoken about on this podcast before is how important it is to allow ourselves to integrate. It's so easy to move into goal setting, into what it is that we want, into all of those kinds of things before we actually allow ourselves to reflect on what it is that we've just moved through. And so that is the first place that I love to begin whenever I um come into the end of the year. I love to reflect back. So the way that I do this, if you've been on a retreat with me, you may have done this exercise with me before, is I actually take out my phone and I go through all of my photographs and I look at all of the ways that I spent my time during the year. If you're not someone who takes loads of photographs, you could even do this with your calendar if you tend to record the things that you do in your diary. And I think about this from the lens of what were the things that I spent my time doing that gave me energy, and what were the things that I spent my time doing that depleted my energy. So I take a page in a journal, I draw a line down the middle, and I put things into different columns. So I really start to reflect on where it felt like my life was in alignment, where it felt like my life was misaligned in some way. And there may be things as you go through this that kind of sit in the middle. So there'll be things that kind of sit on that line that you draw down the middle of your page. This is a really powerful exercise for a number of different reasons. The first one being it, of course, helps us to think about where we want to spend our energy in the following year. There might even be relationships or spaces that we've been spending our time that we know no longer feel like they're in alignment. So that can be the first thing that it's really helpful with. But also it can be really helpful to actually just remember what you did in the year. There's so many times where I do this exercise, and I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe that I did that this year. Like that feels like three years ago, or um, even just like I completely forgot that that was part of this year. So this is really powerful to just reflect on the year that you've had. And I bet as you do this, you will realize that you've did way more things than you even realize this year. Um, and so really incredible to just reflect on your year, think about what was energizing, think about what was depleting your energy, and from that, then beginning to reflect on the most powerful moments on my year, the things that really expanded me, the things, the times where I felt like I was truly in alignment, that I was truly led up by the life that I'm leading, and then the places where I've got some reflection to do. So when we look at those lists of things that deplete us, the things that perhaps are feeling misaligned in some way, sometimes there are things that we can do about those, and sometimes there is nothing we can do about them. Of course, there are things that could be on that list that are just our day-to-day things that we have no say in or we can't shift or change in some way. And I would really invite you to get curious about that. Like even if there are things that you tell yourself right now that you can't do anything about them, I wonder if that's actually true. Um, of course, there can be things that we are committed to and devoted to that don't light us up. Um, especially, you know, in business, there can be tasks, things that I have to do that I would really love to not be part of business. If I could just be in service delivery, that would be ideal. Um but yeah, reflect on the things that you have control over that perhaps you can start to think about shifting in some way in your new year. So this is a really beautiful place to begin. The next thing that I love to think about as I begin to map out what 2026 looks like is from those lists of what felt like they were in alignment, what felt like they were misaligned, is beginning to think about what word I want to use to guide my new year. So I always have a word, I always start to feel and think about it in the year that I'm in, and it's been really interesting to witness how this comes up for me. So sometimes it'll just land like randomly in the shower where all good thoughts and ideas come from, or it might be that I just keep like thinking about a word, and I'm like, I think that's meant to be my word. And there's been times where I've been really resistant to the word that's came up for me, being like, I don't want that to be my word, but I know that it's my word. And this year, my word, my guiding word is nourishment, the word that I am bringing into 2026. And if you chose a word for 2025, this could also be part of your reflection process, how that word guided your year, if you allowed it to guide your year, how you can intentionally bring that word in more deeply in your new year. So, with the word nourishment, this word feels really potent for me because 2025 has been a year where I have gifted so much of my energy, of course, to my beautiful daughter having been born into the world this year. And I have been in so much devotion to her and to her family and to all of the things that have come with that. And it feels like next year is a time for nourishing all of the parts of me that need nourished, but also the parts of my business that need nourished after, you know, having spent some time being on maternity leave and being devoted to other areas of my life. Nourishment feels like a really beautiful word for just nourishing the life that we are creating here in Ireland, nourishing our home as we bring it together and purchase things and make it a home for our family. It just feels like a really beautiful word to describe how I want to feel in 2026. Even though there are probably like more structured, more maybe masculine words that I could use to really think about the things that I want to do next year. Nourishment feels like a really soft and beautiful way to focus my energy while still being a very early stages of being a mum. And this word came to me just closing down my eyes, doing a little bit of a meditation, and it just started to kind of what is the word that I want to use? It's just kind of started to reveal itself to me in that practice. But the thing that I would invite you to do is just let it be something that you kind of sit with or have a little thread in the back of your mind that you play with, maybe even over a couple of days, to start to think about what you want your word to be for 2026 and allow it to be what guides you. So you can hear probably from what I've shared there that once I've chosen my word, I've really started to feel into how that word applies to each area of my life, how it applies to how I want to show up for myself, how it applies to how I want to show up for my business, how it applies to how I want to show up for my family and my home. And you can take your word and then begin to do some maybe goal setting. If you are someone who resonates with goal setting, if goals feel like pressure for you, um, you can instead just lightly think about what you want to create, how you want your life to look in 2026, and really just allow that practice to be something that unfolds from that beautiful word that you have chosen. I work really well with thinking about the end of my year and what I would love to have achieved, or how I would love to feel by the end of the year, and kind of working back from that and thinking about okay, if that's how I want to feel by the end of the year, then what are the things that are really a priority for me next year and what do I want that to look like? How can I prioritize my time? How can I look at how I want to show up for that feeling and kind of work back from there from a place of like really grounded actions that I can then implement and when I want to implement them and how I want to implement them. And this is something that I have a very separate process around in terms of business, but a really great thing to think about in all aspects of your life, like how you want to show up for each and every part of how you lead your life right now. So those are kind of the main practices that I do this side of the year, really gifting myself time to reflect on the year that I've had, where I've placed my energy, then gifting myself some time to think about the word that I want to guide the following year with and what that word means and how I want to share it in each and every aspect of my life. You may feel like you want to go deeper into this as I shared and set some goals around what you want each area to look like. Maybe that's something that you feel like you prefer to do in January. Of course, all of this is a process that you can take and tweak and make applicable to how you want to spend your time over the next month or so. But it's really, really great to use this December energy to integrate your year and then to really feel into what you want 2026 to look like. However, that might pan out for you, in whatever way works for you. As a life coach, I support people to do goal set, and this is something that we often do in our first session together. And it's really interesting, having did that process with lots of humans now over the past few years, how we all work so differently. You know, some people work so well with structured goals that they set actions around, and some people really feel constricted by that. And even in how we set goals, uh, it's really great to reflect on what works for you. Like if you set a big, big expansive goal, does that make you feel expanded or does it make you feel stressed and pressured? And these are things that are really great to get curious about in terms of how you can really set up your energy, set up yourself for the life that you want to lead, and to be really intentional about what you want that to look like because all of these things are really guiding posts for how you can take your energy into what it is that you want to create, instead of just letting life pass you by, instead of just saying that you're gonna rest and then setting some loose goals in January that you kind of forget about, really being intentional about how you want to set up your year for the following year, and then getting really clear on how you want that to look. So I hope this has been a helpful episode. It's been short and snappy. Some really easy steps for you to go away and implement and do in your own personal practice, ways that you can support yourself as we close out this year together. If you are with me here in Ireland, I am definitely gonna be running some little events to support you with closing out the energy of 2025 and workshops to support you with goal setting and intention setting and manifest in your year as we move into 2026. So stay tuned for that. I am also going to be running some little online events. So if you're anywhere else in the world, stay tuned for those as well. If you can't be with me in person, and we still have some spaces left for upcoming retreat in Greece over Easter in 2026. So if you know that carving out time for yourself, that nourishing you is a priority for next year. If you know that you need some time out to really nurture yourself, to tend to your inner world, to step into the next era of what you want your life to look like, then I would absolutely love to have you with us. We have the most beautiful group forming, and I know it's gonna be such a special experience. If you haven't gone and looked at the property yet, please go do that because it is stunning, and I am so excited to be spending Easter with you next year. And I will be back in here with you for another episode next week. I will chat to you really, really soon.