What it was like to be me in 2025
The reno is done. The garden is lush and blooming. I bought a summer jumpsuit online and it fits! Miracles surround me.
This newsletter's a little different. You've caught me in a reflective end-of-year mood, so...
Here's what it was like to be me in 2025.
Work highlights
I've been obsessed with work this year. I am an earnest little thing, and I really want my business to succeed. My heroic family have put up with me talking about nothing else!
Creativity got unleashed all over my workshops
I thought being a self-employed trainer would be the same as being an employee (with some extra marketing on top).
I didn't expect constant surges of creativity, rethinking my workshops' flow and topics. I didn't think I'd experiment with how I present ideas, take people further quicker, and make workshops more relevant.
But it's happened, and it's been wonderful. I feel like my workshops are genuinely mine now. They fit my personality and way of working. I relax into them and feel confident.
Now, when the nerves hit, I tell myself 'You know today will work. This is all your best hits.'
Stand-out workshop: NZ Film Commission
I know I'm not allowed to have favourite clients (a good parent never does)! But sometimes a workshop hits every note and the whole thing is a dream from start to finish.
This year, that workshop happened at the NZ Film Commission. We did 2 days on report writing. Everyone was full of ideas, smiles, and all the best things: cleverness, experience, creativity.
They produced fantastic documents and left me feeling that film promotion in Aotearoa is in the very best of hands.
Best professional-development dollars spent
Two events stand out in a year packed with learning.
Tūraukawa Bartlett's reo retreat early in the year was magnificent in every way. His whānau welcomed us to their place for a weekend immersed in te reo me te ao Māori. He's a brilliant kaiako and created the perfect environment to stretch us. (It was also great to spend more time with Miraka Davies, who was there in support. Love you, Miraka!)
Kerri Price's facilitator training was also a supercharged learning time for me. We had 2 days together experiencing Kerri's facilitation skills and trying them for ourselves. I've brought many of her tips into my training and her prep techniques have been gold.
Lowlights
Turns out life is not all hugs and rainbows. Here's what I've struggled with this year.
Stress: an ever-present shitty part of life
I know people say a certain amount of stress is good for you, but I have more than the good-for-you amount.
The knife-edge kid juggle
It's a lot, travelling all over the country while making sure the kids are looked after. My diary is a battlefield: organising overnight babysitters, flights for family members who cover my multi-day trips, after-school care and holiday programmes, making sure all the gaps are plugged.
No one is allowed to get sick! No flight can be cancelled! Otherwise the kids end up alone. My wonderful family and neighbours have stepped into the breach in those emergencies, but ... it sits there as a boogey-man in my mind, wondering if it makes me a bad mum.
The recession isn't helping
It's still here, hanging around like a bad smell. Training budgets get cut in a recession, and sales would be easier if people had the money to spend.
My skill gaps still aren't filled
Speaking of sales ... I have some glaring skill gaps that this year has made obvious. I have never had any training in sales. When I meet a client for a first chat, my current skills extend to:
Tell me about your situation.
This might work as a solution.
Do you want it or not?
I'm also mortally afraid of following up with clients after workshops to see if they want another one or can refer someone else. I'm terrified they'll see it as a hard sell – or proof that I think my training doesn't work and needs to be repeated.
So if you've been on any sales or relationship-management training you'd recommend, please let me know!
And back to the positive with some personal highlights!
Great kids
I have loved watching them grow this year. They're now 11 and 14, hitting their independent phases. Baggy clothes, greasy hair, grunts instead of words ... I'm trying to give them space!
Hannah spends every spare minute writing characters into existence. Lucy and I go for long walks. We still do cuddles before bed. They're the best!
I've stayed fit
Exercise is one of my biggest mood boosters (and I'm vain!), so I do a lot of it.
I trained for the Round the Bays run this year and thought it would be a breeze. I was disappointed on the day by how hard it felt, trying my best while people streamed past me ... until I looked up the results and saw I got in the top 7% for women in my age group.
I also joined the annual Crossfit competition. It happens over several weeks – an event a week. For the first week, I was top of the Beginners in my age group for Oceania, and then I slid off the leaderboard when we had to get our chests to a pull-up bar. Ridiculous! Who can do that?! (But for a week I felt on top of the world!)
A feeling of freedom
When Miraka handed the business to me, she said what she wanted for my whānau was the freedom and choices that being self-employed had brought to her.
It took a while for me to let go of the employee way of being, but I think I'm there now. I work when I need to and stop when there's nothing left to do. I can be on road patrol in the mornings. I can replant a Southerly-devastated garden the day after it's all wiped out. I can renovate my kitchen and pay chunks off my mortgage. I can decide how I want to represent myself professionally.
I can see why people don't go back to being employed.
So that's what it was like to be me in 2025. I'd love to hear about you!
What stands out for you from this year?
What do you want your next year to look like?
Flick me an email.
And have a beautiful Christmas.
See you next year,
Colleen