51 | We’re Almost There! How to Finish the Year Strong (A Pep Talk)

Feeling ready to finish 2025 strong—or wondering how to get there?

In this solo episode of The Art of Badassery podcast, Chief Badassery Officer Jenn Cassetta shares a roadmap for surviving the year and stepping into 2026 with confidence. Drawing from her martial arts experience, Jenn introduces “White Belt Month”—a reset to strip away titles, revisit the basics, and reconnect with your inner strength.

She guides listeners through creating a “Greatest Sh*ts List” to honor tough lessons, uncovering secret weapons built through adversity, and building a “Greatest Hits List” to celebrate wins and joyful moments.

This episode is your guide to ending the year grounded, empowered, and ready to tackle the next chapter with clarity and courage.

Transcript

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I never like to make people feel like they have to be grateful for the shitty things that happen in their lives. I don't think that's helpful for a lot of people. I know it's not really helpful for myself, but I can go, wow, thank you for these gifts that I now have, these secret weapons that I have as a black belt to go through different things. And one of those for me, as I already mentioned, it was empathy. Losing my father in 2016 has given me a totally different perspective on grief and people going through it. Hi there, I'm Jen Cassetta, your chief badass three officer. If you're feeling drained, hesitant, stuck in self-doubt, or you just have a case of the vlogs, the Art of Badass 3 podcast is here to help you unleash your lojo once and for all. We'll provide you with tips, techniques, and real-life examples of how you can kick heads in all areas of your life. You'll learn how to flex your mental muscles, rise above fears, and turn setbacks into superpowers. So let's enter the dojo and let's get to work. Hello and welcome to the Art of Badasserie Podcast. I'm Den Cassetta, your chief badassery officer. Hello, my friend. Today it's just you and I, a solo episode, and we're gonna talk about surviving 2025. And finishing it strong. No matter when you're listening to this, whether you have two months left in the year or two days left in the year, this can make a very big difference on how you finish out 2025 and prepare yourself to walk into 2026 like the powerful, strong, sturdy, grounded, calm, confident, relaxed, and ready. Sensei that you are. Quick story on why we're doing this. Back in the dojo in the martial arts school, the dojiang, it's actually called in Korean, World Martial Arts Center in New York City that I trained at, the teacher, the master, the sensei, he always had us do what was called white belt month when January hit. So for all of January, basically everyone in the dojo, no matter what your rank was, from white belt, yellow, orange, green, blue, red, black, second degree black belt, third degree black belt, and beyond. We all had to put those belts aside. We left them at home. And for the entire month, we had to wear our white belts. Now, imagine how that could feel for you when we identify with our accomplishments in life. I know I do, and I bet you do too. You identify with who you are at work, your rank, your title, how much money you have in the bank, whether you wear a wedding ring or not, your relationship status. This is how a lot of us, how we define ourselves, right? So imagine having to put all of that aside, strip it all away for an entire 30 days and go back to the beginning, right? Go back to the basics. That was the essence of White Belt Month. And not only did we have to wear our white belts, but we had to practice and drill and train our white belt techniques. So I'm talking basic punches, basic blocks, right? And we had to do these basics over and over again, slow motion techniques, quicker techniques, you name it. And you can see those of us that when you get to a certain level, ego kicks in. Your ego, it's there all the time, right? And it's telling you, Oh, I know this already, or oh my god, this is so boring. This is below me, right? But you know what? After that month was complete, you get to go back to the way things were, but with a deeper understanding of the foundational techniques of what got you there in the first place, right? Going back to the basics. That's what we're gonna do in this podcast episode, essentially. What basics? We're gonna go back to white belt level in The Art of Badassery. Chapter one, level one, white belt is about embracing the suck. What does embrace the suck mean? To consciously accept, maybe even appreciate, things that are extremely unpleasant, yet unavoidable, in order to move forward. Things that suck are bound to happen. We all know this. Life is not one long, smooth ride. Remember, if you've read the book, your greatest shits list. Right? So, right now we can do this together. You can grab a notebook and start to journal it out or write it down later. But essentially, start to think about your greatest shits list from this year only. Let's we're just working on getting through 2025. In the beginning of the year for me, started out with the fires here in LA. Luckily, I don't live in, I didn't, I don't live in an area that was directly affected, but it was definitely disruptive. It got my year off to a very wonky, wobbly start, filled with stress and fear and anxiety and what-ifs and worst-case scenarios. Sound familiar? And once that kind of settled down again, because I was so lucky, I didn't lose my home. And I feel so terrible for everyone that did, who's still dealing with it, right? They're still displaced, etc. But then soon after, towards the end of January, all of a sudden, the news cycle just I feel anyway, like it completely erupted. And every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, it was breaking news this, breaking news that, breaking news this. And myself, you probably, and my loved ones, some of them, started to go to worst-case scenarios. If this happens, then the worst thing possible is going to happen. What does that do to us? If it floods our body with stress hormones, with cortisol, with adrenaline, right? And all day long you're walking around the world dysregulated. It's hard to sleep at night, your thoughts are racing all the time. And again, you're going to that worst-case scenario. We're making things up that haven't even happened yet in our minds. So we're feeling anxious about things that may or may not even happen. So for me, my greatest list of 2025 was starting out with the fires, then all of a sudden, this breaking news thing that really has lasted all year long. The third thing that goes on my greatest shit list for this year was going through the process of selling my book. Now, granted, there's a great goal that I accomplished, I'll get to in a second. But when you are creating a book proposal, there's lots of edits, there's lots of reworks. When it finally gets accepted by the literary agent, then it's okay. That's one win. And then it goes out to a slew of different editors at different publishing houses. And I think there's at least about 17 or 18 that this book proposal went out to. Now, mind you, I have a book already out in the world. And you would imagine that the second time around, it would be easier. But you start getting the feedback from different editors. Now, granted, my last publisher made me an offer right away, but we decided that we wanted to go out to a bigger audience. And my goal specifically was to land a deal in a top publishing house this time around. Line up. I set my aim high. And then all of a sudden the rejections are coming in, right? One after another. She doesn't have a big enough platform, she doesn't have enough followers. Oh, the authors that we work with usually have a more engaged audience. You name it. I was just getting those rejections over and over, things that I knew would be coming, but at the same time, it doesn't sting any less when they do come. As you probably know, if you're in sales or if you put yourself out there in the world in any way creatively, you're probably getting rejections just like I do. Luckily, no other terrible thing has happened in my personal world this year. That's it for my greatest shits list for this year. So go ahead right now and think about the things that you've gone through this year that were unavoidable and extremely unpleasant, right? But you had to move through them. The second step after you do that and have your greatest shits list, or just hard times, challenges, failures, et cetera, that you've been through, or grief or loss, disappointments, those two go on there. The second step is to figure out what your secret weapons are because of them. So secret weapon is like this. Back in the dojo, when I used to watch these amazing black belt, mostly women, that I would just look up to in awe of, each one of them had their own secret weapon. For example, Lena was really awesome with Psy, these pitchfork kind of weapons. Holly was really awesome with sword and her sword form. Someone else maybe had an awesome spinning hook kick or a knockout punch. These are their secret weapons. And I started to realize that they weren't just naturally gifted with these different secret weapons. They were forged under fire. They were forged on the mat through hard work, through blood, through sweat, through tears, through dropping them on their face, through cutting themselves by accident, right? All of these things because they were dedicated to it. And they drilled these techniques over and over again. So I realize that for our secret weapons are kind of like values or emotional states that we've gained and that we have access to because of the terrible things that we've been through, because of the hard times, right? The things like, and secret weapons can be like, like empathy, like grit, like perseverance, persistence. Right? That's one thing that I say a lot is patience, patience and persistence, patience and persistence. I say it to myself. I say it out loud all the time because I need to remind myself that, yeah, I've gained those are secret weapons, but I still have to remind myself that I've gained them through lots of waiting around for things to happen for me or never giving up on a dream or a goal that I've had. Right? That is persistence. That's how it plays out in the world. So, what are your secret weapons? What are things if you look at back at your greatest shits list? Now, again, you can go way back and you can go into the last five years, last 10 years, you can go back into your whole life and write pages of the greatest shits list. But because we're doing 2025, I want to focus on that for now. But what do you think? And if you're still going through those things, then you might not be able to see it in the moment. But if you can zoom out and zoom into the future and look back at your present self now and zoom away, like watching it almost play out like a movie, being on the other side of it, what do you think your secret weapon may be someday in the future? Can you see yourself getting through your current challenge and going, wow, I'm way more patient these days? Wow, I'm more humble. Wow, I'm really more empathetic. Ever since losing that person and dealing with grief, I'm really able to meet people where they are when they're going through hard time and through grief and disappointments. I'm just more empathetic. My heart's more open. These are amazing things that can help you with any challenge going forward. They're gift, really. So I never like to make people feel like they have to be grateful for the shitty things that happen in their lives. I don't think that's helpful for a lot of people. I know it's not really helpful for myself, but I can go, wow, thank you for these gifts that I now have, these secret weapons that I have as a black belt to go through different things. And one of those for me, as I already mentioned, it was empathy. Losing my father in 2016 has given me a totally different perspective on grief and people going through it. Right? I know it's like waves that come and go and hit you when you least expect it. Empathy can when I want to connect with people on a deeper level. It's really important. Like I said, whether you've gone through the challenge already in 2025 or are still going through it, you are you have a new skill, a new secret weapon, or you're in the middle of sharpening that sword right now, right? Sharpening that skill, that tool that you can use to move forward. After you've identified what your secret weapons are, the third step is to develop your greatest hits list. This is where it starts to become a little more fun. Look back at the last year, the last 10 or 11 months, and say, what have I accomplished? What were some amazing moments? What was some fun events that I was able to create in my life? Because you are creating your life. Remember that. Every day you are creating your future by your thoughts, your words, your actions, your habits, right? Your personality. And then that all combined becomes your destiny. So, what are those amazing things that have happened? Because I was able to go through the rejection. I think there was at least, I don't know, most of them were ghosted, which is another form of rejection, which I think is personally worse sometimes than getting a no, is just like not answering me. But anyway, I didn't land the publishing deal that I wanted to. And I look back at my goals that I wrote in January. The number one goal, I just looked at my notebook just yesterday. And the number one goal said land a publishing deal with a top five publisher. I did that. Oh my God. And you can look back at your goals or your word of the year or your vision board. Hint hint. If you don't have a vision board, a digital vision board at that. Please make sure you show up to my workshop in January. Don't have a date yet, but make sure you're following me on Instagram at Jen Cassetta. Make sure you're on my email list. Go to jennifercaseta.com. On the homepage, there's a way to put your name and email in there so you are one of the first to know so you can get on the list. Because I'm telling you, it's one of the most powerful practices and has completely shifted my life in the last five years, right? Creating this beautiful visual version of my future that pulls me through, even if it's dark and chaotic and uncertain in the world, in the atmosphere, in all the noise. I look at that vision board multiple times a day because it's on my phone, it's on my laptop screen, and it's the last thing I see when I roll over to go to sleep at night. So it's there in my subconscious as I'm sleeping. And I know that my subconscious is working on that as I sleep. And you can do the same. Start to review your greatest hits list, start to build that out right now. Even just think about it or write them down. What have you accomplished this past year? Like I said, it could be things that are more goal-oriented. If you write down your goals and you wanted to increase your sales by X amount, whether it be a health goal, maybe you wanted to be able to bench press 100 pounds. I don't know. Just another way of thinking about fitness goals versus just a late boss. Maybe it was to leave a relationship, or maybe it was to enter a deep relationship or deepen a relationship with a loved one. Right? These are all great, valuable, worthy goals to have. And you want to make sure that you write down all of the things, even if they're little simple things that you've accomplished at work, at play, all of it. Put it down on a list, right? And then that starts to show up for you. Ah, yeah, I have accomplished something this year. Instead of just sitting there frozen going, oh my God, it's the end of the year and I didn't get anything done. I bet you did. I bet you've done way more than you think you did. I promise. Okay. So start making that list. What are even just what are fun, joyful moments that you had in your life? I want them to go on that list as well. Okay. And then sit with that list for a few minutes. Take it in, breathe it in, breathe it into your heart. And start to feel the possibility for creating even more of that in your life. Start to feel the emotions associated with looking at that list. Maybe you feel satisfied. Maybe you feel confident. Maybe you start to feel more calm. Maybe you start to feel more safe, secure. Yeah, I did actually increase my abundance. I did actually increase my finances. I can start to relax a little bit around that because I have made a difference. And if I'd done it once, if I made a difference in any area of my life, it just means I can do it again and again if that's what I want to create. So that is how we start to get our mindset ready to move into 2026. Like I said in the beginning, feeling more grounded, more on purpose, right? With a new vision for your life ahead, which we will create for you when we work together in January. More calm, more confident, more relaxed, more ready to take on the world, to take on your dreams, your goals, regardless of what's happening out in the world. Because I'm going to tell you right now, it doesn't look like it's going to get any better overnight. Things that suck are bound to happen. And they are extremely unpleasant, and in this case, unavoidable. But we still have to move forward. Because feeling joy in your life is actually leverage. Right? It's actually resistance against uh the things that we don't want. And the more that we create joy, the more we raise our vibration, the more we increase our frequency, and the more we start to attract and invite in much better things in our life, in our community, in our world. Do that start to zoom out and see how your little bit can affect the entire planet, right? Just you creating more higher vibration and frequency can actually have a ripple effect from person. You're probably reaching people that you have no idea will be affected and impacted by your positivity and your contribution to this world. So just think about that. Zoom out and think about that for a minute or two, okay? And that's how I'm gonna leave you. Feeling zoomed out, feeling connected to the world, everyone in it, and all the good things are gonna be coming your way in this following year. I promise you, just do the work. Get onto the mat, connect your mind, body, spirit in your personal dojo, right? And little by little, step by step, day by day, I promise you, all of it combined makes huge transformation in our lives. Thank you so much for tuning in. I want you to finish this year strong, not just survive it, but to thrive through the end, thrive through the holidays, enjoy them. Okay. And I'll see you on the other side. I'll see you in January. There's still a few more episodes left this year, so make sure you're tuning in for continuous mindset and motivation to finish this year out strong. All right, my friends, I'm gonna leave you here. Make sure you're subscribed. Please leave a rating and a review for the podcast. They really help me get the word out so we can help lift others up as well as the black belts that we are. Have a wonderful day, and I'll see you next time on the Art of Bad Astery podcast.