122. Thank You, 2024: Writing A Letter To Close Out The Year

The end of 2024 is coming up so quickly and I wanted to make sure that I could share one of my favorite practices with you that help you close out the year with gratitude and excellent reflection, giving yourself a real clean slate going into the next year. So this is going to be a letter writing exercise that you can do at any time to help you close out 2024 with the right focus, helping you really take on and capture the lessons of the year while releasing the weight that might have come during those lessons. Like the weight of disappointment, the weight of anxiety, the weight of pain and heartbreak and defeat. Just like we've faced throughout the year, it's important for us to realize that in those moments, as difficult as they were, we also got to learn something. There is a takeaway from our difficult experiences and and it's helpful to reflect on all of the positives of the year. So I don't want you to only focus on the difficult parts of the year and I don't want you to only focus on the positives of the year because it's both the positivity and the negative negativity, the difficulty and the ease that help us grow into the person that we really want to be. And you know, that's what I'm all about here. I love encouraging the focus and empowerment on becoming who it is that you want to be, no matter where you go or who you are you're with. Now, before I share the outline of this letter with you and some great examples, I want to let you know that I'm opening up a coaching membership this January. We are over the moon, excited to be offering this coaching membership for you. It is for women that need the resources, skills and community and coaching to finally become the person they want to be. Going through a course just isn't enough for you. Maybe you've bought several different courses and you either completed them and felt like now what? Or you didn't even complete them. Maybe you started them, got discouraged halfway through because you need more support and coaching through it. I have decided to create a membership that includes all three of my courses, plus the ones on the way in my membership. So that way you can have access to the right tools to help you build the skills that you're really looking for while also leaning on the power of a positive community. Women and mothers around the world that really get it. They see you, they hear you, they validate you, and they know you're capable of more. They're not going to give you a free pass. They're not just going to say, oh, I know you said you want to stop yelling, but you know, it's just way too difficult. Nobody's ever going to like completely stop yelling. Like, you don't need that. You need women that say, look, that was tough and challenging. We totally see you. Your circumstances are difficult and this is the tool that's the best for you to practice right, right now in these circumstances. Let's see how this mentality would change everything for you before anything and anyone else changes. If that's the type of community you're looking for, then the momset community is absolutely for you. The courses will be in there. I'll be doing weekly coaching sessions in there with my incredible coaches joining me on those, as well as inviting some of my favorite guests into our membership. So I, I want to encourage you to sign up with us in January to be one of our founding members and you get locked in at the founding members rate, which is so phenomenal. So instead of $97 a month, which is what our membership is going to be for all of the coaches and course the courses and coaching throughout the membership, it's going to be $97 a month. The founding members rate though, is $67 a month. And, and you're locked in at that rate so long as you keep your membership. We are only offering that in January for our founding members that are fired up, ready to go take on 2025 with all of the coaching community and support that you need to be successful. So that's coming for you. I will put the link in the show notes below for you to join our wait list. Be the first to know when you can get access and join us over there. And yes, it's going to be just a phenomenal year. So let's make sure that we wrap up 2024 with the utmost intention. The way that we wrap up 2024 really sets a tone for how we're starting 2025. So in this podcast episode, I'm teaching you how to write your close out the year letter. It's A thank you, 2024 letter. So what we're going to be doing is focusing on reflection. It's important to focus on reflection because it gives us peace with, with our experiences. When people say like, oh my gosh, I just really want peace with my experiences, a letter is an incredible way to do that. I've told you guys several times that your mind doesn't know the difference between something that's actually happened and something that you think has happened just so long. As you emotionally feel connected to it. So if you emotionally feel connected to the belief that nothing works out for you, you feel emotionally connected to the belief that 2025's gonna be just as bad as 2024. Nothing's gonna change. It's only gonna get harder. When you have that kind of negative self talk, your mind truly counts that as facts, even though it's not a fact. There's no factual information that says 2025 is going to look just like 2024. Those are beliefs. However, if you believe that, if you believe 2025 is going to look just like 2024, it's going to be just as difficult, just as devastating, just as heartbreaking. Nothing's going to change. That's exactly what you're going to create for yourself. I know we don't want to hear that. And that's the truth. You create what you believe. That's what we do. So with this close out the letter, close out the year letter, we're giving ourselves the opportunity to truly look at our experiences, acknowledge the lows, celebrate the highs, and also look at the year with gratitude, to recognize I really have been given what I need. Yes, that was completely devastating when I went through it. And in the bigger picture, now that I'm on the other side of it and I'm not in that anymore, I can really see how I've learned these skills from that. I've decided this about my friendships, this about where I spend my time, this about the person that I want to be. So let's dig into this outline. I would encourage you right now to have a pen and piece of paper nearby or even the notes on your phone open so you can write out this outline as I'm describing it to you. And. And that way when you're ready to sit down and do it, you can just refer back to the outline that you have written out from the episode, from those notes that you took away. So this letter will help you really validate your experiences, celebrate your growth and release the emotional weight of like, the pain and anxiety. And you're setting the stage for a meaningful start to 2025. Which don't we want that, don't we want a meaningful start to 2025? Something so exciting to dive into, like my coaching membership and a commitment to journaling, a commitment to ourselves, like truly choosing 2025 is the year that we see the absolute best in ourselves and we're at peace with people and we allow our experiences to teach us. I think it's going to be Just amazing. So this is a great way for you to validate your emotions, celebrate growth, and provide closure where you might be really needing it. The first part that we're going to do to start our letter is we're going to open up the letter with gratitude. This is really important because it helps your mind create that intention and focus of the letter that this isn't something that we're just going to brain dump our complaints and justify our behavior and say things shouldn't have been like that. It's okay if you want to think that way at other times. Just with this letter, we really want to keep it intentional. So we're going to remove language like that. You can save it for something different. When it comes to this letter though, we're really focusing on starting it with gratitude. And that's going to help your mind release those happy chemicals like the serotonin and dopamine that motivate you and inspire you. And you feel encouraged, you see something new for your life. Gratitude is so powerful. So the prompt to start your letter is Dear 2024, thank you for Blank. I want you to fill in when you think of 2024. What are you thankful for? What are you grateful for? What are you so glad that 2024 gave to you? Dear 2024, thank you for blank. You're going to write a few sentences acknowledging the year as a whole. So an example could be thank you 2024 for all you've taught me. You've been a year of growth, challenges and unexpected blessings like the time blank happened. And you can list out those couple of examples, really just a few sentences. Another example could sound like, thank you 2024 for Blank. You've been a year of blank. So I want you to have creativity with this. Feel like you can take the letter in the direction that needs to go in while still following these guidelines. After you have the opening of your letter complete, we're going to go into reflecting on the highs. So the prompts that can encourage you to do this is this year gave me what I need to become blank. I want you to state a positive about yourself, a positive characteristic about yourself. This year gave me what I need to become disciplined, responsive, confident, self aware, enthusiastic, light hearted, forgiving. Did this year give you what you need to become forgiving? Probably, if you're paying attention. I feel like every year does that for me if I'm paying attention. So when you're writing through this part, you're going to be writing more about like the personal wins, memorable experiences and Relationships that enriched your life. You could even turn it to something difficult that did happen. And maybe that was a circumstance that you needed in order to become more of this positive characteristic that you've been wanting in yourself. So an example of this for me personally could sound like this year gave me what I need to become the most disciplined version of myself that I've been longing for. When I had my fourth baby, I prioritized early bedtimes at 8:30, which I'm still doing even though I previously believed I'm not that kind of person that can go to bed that early. This newborn season, I actually trusted myself fully, letting sleep be adaptive and being totally responsive to my baby, really releasing the idea that I need someone else to tell me what to do. That is huge for me. And that's what I wrote out as my example. I that is a huge high for me. Just as a mother, being able to have another baby and have more experience under your belt where you're like, I've got this. I totally trust myself. I am what you need. And this experience, however it feels, is what I need to become more of who I want to be. And I've been longing for this more disciplined version of myself that keeps the TV off in the evening rather than trying to escape and numb with it. It's very specific with the times that I'm on my phone and when I'm choosing to work and when I'm not. And having my fourth baby in that whole newborn season helped me to just smack the reset button. And I'm so grateful for that. So I truly was given what I need to become that more disciplined version of myself. And it's very exciting. And this is the part of letter where you get to reflect on what were you given that you needed in order to become really one of that version of you that you really want to be. Our next prompt that we're moving into. So this is our. We opened with Dear 2024. Thank you for blank. And then we moved into this year, gave me what I need to become blank. Wrote a few sentences there. The third part is more of acknowledging the lows. So the prompt behind this is really considering the challenges and painful moments and that shaped your journey this year. This is important to do because this is where we can start to validate those emotions without dwelling on negativity. So you get to validate the hard stuff without getting stuck in it. Maybe you went through something really difficult, a friendship ended your gosh, you experienced a devastating loss. You had a stillborn, you Had a miscarriage, you lost a family member that's so near and dear to your heart. Or you lost a family member that you didn't get to make peace with because before they passed away, and that can feel really, really heavy. Did you lose your job? Did you gain something that you thought was going to be just the best thing ever? Maybe you moved into a new city, a new home. You got something that you're like, oh, this is going to fix everything, and then it didn't. What is it for you? Did your marriage. Did you go through something in your marriage? Acknowledging these low points, the ones that have been weighing on you anyway, is an excellent way to rewrite some of that experience in your mind to put more purpose there. When we provide pain to our purpose, we end up realizing the lessons and we get to release the weight. Pain to your purpose means you get to take the lesson and leave the weight. You get to put that part down. So when I can acknowledge some of my lows, my example could sound like I felt stretched beyond my limits in my business and personal life. Learning to have hard conversations and honor my vision was extremely difficult for me. It felt like I was responsible for the comfort of other people, and that weight was unbearable at times. Those times taught me the power of effective communication, the ability to describe my vision with great detail, and the power of letting other others be responsible and in control of how they choose to feel. The birth of my fourth was different than I imagined it would be. It was overnight and intense when I thought it would be done by the evening and my most smooth and comfortable delivery, I felt disappointed about that and down on myself for a few days. And then I realized how remarkable it is that I delivered a baby despite feeling exhausted. I had the home birth I envisioned and got to see myself truly surrender to the process and trust that it will all work out. And it really did strengthen my faith, which I'm so grateful for that. When you feel completely exhausted, when you are praying, lord, just let this be over, let this be done. Let my baby come now. And you pray for these things and you are in it. You're enduring it 10 minutes longer, 30 minutes longer, three hours longer than that. It's amazing and so remarkable what you realize about yourself, that sometimes, sometimes you've convinced yourself you can't do these things. I can't tolerate this any longer. I can't withstand this pain any longer. I need a break. I need to tap out. I need this to be done right now. And then you've got three more hours what you realize about yourself is that you are capable of going longer, you can do more, as much as you tell yourself you can't look, your body's doing more. And I always. I'm grateful for experiences like that that show me, you know, I really can do more. And it's my mind that I need to stay in control of. And I can trust in my heavenly father. I can trust in just whatever you want to believe in. I can have faith outside of myself. I can have faith in something bigger than me to take care of the rest. I'll just control my thoughts. And really acknowledging that in my fourth home birth allowed me to take those amazing lessons that have strengthened me so much. I mean, even the little things, those lessons about that fourth home birth, as disappointing as it felt because I allowed myself to take the lessons and release the weight of it, the disappointment, the pain, and just living the lessons. Last night on my assault bike, I was doing my workout, and I wanted to do 15 minutes, which would have been five miles, and I wanted to do it so bad. And then I got like six minutes in, and my husband was like, how long are you going to go for? And I was like, well, I wanted to go for 15 minutes. I'm really feeling like this is much more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I'm probably not going to make it. I'm probably going to stop early. And when I heard myself say that, I just started laughing. Like, if I can deliver a baby overnight and. And still have the strength to do that on very little sleep and. And going through that entire process overnight, I can certainly, certainly do nine more minutes on this fricking assault bike. Are you kidding me? And that perspective again, allowing myself to keep the lesson out of my lows, I've been able to create so many more high points as. As simple as the assault bike, as simple as completing my workout, how I said I was going to do it, allowing myself to accomplish more of what I say I want to be able to do just because I have the mentality to support me through it. So acknowledging the lows is really important. This prompt was what challenges or painful moments shaped your journey this year and being able to reflect on those just so you can, you know, validate the emotions without dwelling on the negativity, be able to validate the hard stuff without getting stuck in it. The next prompt that you're going to move into, this is the fourth part of your lesson, of your letter, is really focusing on the lessons learned so you can kind of answer Three and four together. It depends on how you write. I write very fluidly, so I go right into the next one in my writing. And a lot of what I just described to you answers this prompt for me personally, so you'll see how they tie together. 2024 taught me blank about myself, my values, and my life. So Personally, for me, 2024 taught me, you know, my life is as big as I let it be. I am as disciplined as I'm willing to show up as I can accomplish absolutely anything that I can specifically describe. As long as I know that I want it, I know I can get it. Isn't that amazing? That's what 2024 taught me. As long as I know I want something, I know I can get it. I just have to be willing to become the person that gets that thing, that accomplishes that feat. So you're going to be focusing on the insights that you've gained from both the highs and the lows. You taught me the importance of blank, and I'm carrying that with me into 2025. That can be a way that you write out this lessons learned part of your letter. It's just really important that you allow yourself to be honest with yourself. Reflect more on your experiences. If it helps you go, go to your camera roll in your phone and go back to January and just scroll through the pictures on in your phone, the pictures and videos of your phone, like, jog your memory of what all did I do this year? Where did I go? Who did I talk to? Where did I spend my time? Sometimes we really just move through things so quickly that we forget just how much we've done. So I find my camera roll to be a very helpful source to jog my memory and say, oh, my gosh, look at. Look at these events that I went to. Look at these people that I spoke with. Look at the things I took my boys to do. Look at how many times we did homeschool together, the things that we baked together, the conversations that we had. I just. I love all of that stuff. So use your camera roll as a prompt to help you really think about the year in a whole, not just this holiday season that we've been in. That can feel like a year in itself. Okay, the next part of your letter, closing out 2024 is about releasing the weight. So the prompt to help you do this is, what pain, regret, or anxiety are you ready to let go of? I love that question. What pain, regret, or anxiety are you ready to let go of? This is important. If you want to be able to move forward, forward into 2025, you have to allow yourself to release these emotions and make space for healing and hope. Yes, pain and healing can coexist. You just have to realize there's only so much space within us and we have a. We have a limited capacity to some extent. So if we're putting so much of our focus on the pain, how much focus do we have left to put on the hope? I like to encourage myself to focus on hope first, focus on hope as much as I want, as deeply as I want, for as long as I want. Before I consider the self doubt, before I consider the insecurity, the judgment, the noise. I let myself just stay in hope first. So that way I've filled my capacity with the things that are really gonna help me move forward and heal before I've allowed space to. The things that I know for me personally hold me back. They. They stall my growth. They cause reactive behaviors that are outside of alignment with who I wanna be. I wanna be able to focus on the hope first. So what pain, regret or anxiety are you ready to let go of? An example of this can be, I'm releasing the fear of failure I carried this year and embracing trust in myself for the year ahead. And then you could even describe, like, when this year that fear of failure held you back, what did you notice? The fear of failure really kept you from doing this year that, gosh, you just wish you would have done. Maybe you went on a family trip and everybody jumped off a rock into the water and you're like, I'm not gonna do it. And then you got you. I've done this so many times. And you walk down from the rock and then you're like, I really wish I would have just freaking jumped. So what, what times in your life do you think I really wish I would have just jumped, had the conversation, pursued the interest of mine, the hobby of mine, signed up for that class, danced with my kids when the music was playing and they were dancing at that mall performance or a street thing or a fair, whatever you guys were at. And I mean, if you were able to truly let go of those feelings, fears, imagine what you would do. Imagine who you would become. I've learned a lot about that in 2024 of. You know, I. I think sometimes I get this idea in my head that other people just are. They just have it more figured out than I do. They have it more figured out than I do, and they have more resources than I do. And that's why they create content more consistently than I do. And they're releasing products and I'm not. It's like a big business focus for me where I just feel like other people have it more figured out than I do. And what I've noticed is I really don't think they have it more figured out than I do. I think they're just so courageous and sure of themselves that they're willing to do it anyway. They're willing to figure out how to do it while they're doing it. That's one of my biggest lessons of 2024, is being willing to figure out how to do it while I do it, because I know what I want more than I care about how I'm going to do it. I just. I'm just going to start walking in that direction and being more sure of myself. I think also as a mindset coach, sometimes I feel really like I'll. I'll believe in one perspective really strongly, and I'll. I mean, I live by it, especially in my motherhood and my marriage. And then I. I shrink down. I feel really intimidated to share it openly. And I think that stalls my performance, my productivity, my growth, my integrity. It just holds out because I'm sitting here knowing I believe in something with all of my heart and then feeling too afraid to say it. And it's not even just the feeling of. It's not the feeling of fear. It's just the unwillingness to be courageous enough. Like, I want to be courageous enough to say the things that I truly believe in and let people do and say whatever they're going to do and say about it, even though I may feel afraid to do it. Like, I want to be that in tune with myself and give myself the opportunity. Like, are there times in your life that you're just like, dang, I don't even give myself the chance to try, the chance to see what would happen. I need to give myself at least the opportunity to see what will happen. I think that's really important, too. Instead of just deciding in our head what will happen, that's another thing that I do. I decide in my head, oh, my gosh, if I were to share that perspective, oh, Lord, it would blow right up in my face. There would be, like, complete. It's just not worth it. It's not worth the argument. It's not worth the fight on social media so that I don't share it. So I've decided for myself how it's going to go without giving other people to decide how they're going to perceive it without giving really life the opportunity to show me how it's going to go. I think I know. And I guarantee you do the same thing. Social media is just like a really easy way for me to describe that. So for you, maybe it's a conversation with your spouse. You've convinced yourself, I'm not going to have that conversation with him. I'm not going to say that to him because I already know how it's going to go. When I. When I try to offer different tools and strategies on, with parenting on social media, it's fascinating to me how many moms will say, well, I already know. My kids will say no, I'm not doing that. And it's like, have you ever. And I'll literally ask them, have you ever said this to them though? And they say no, because I already know they're going to say no, I'm not going to do that and give me so much sass and back talk. And it's like, how do you know for a fact your kids are going to say that? Like, don't you want to give them the opportunity to surprise you? Doesn't that sound nice? Instead of just thinking and already assuming that you know it all, you know how your husband's going to respond, it's going to blow up into a fight. You know what your kids are going to do? They're going to start arguing and whining back at you. You know your boss is going to say no if you asked for a raise. You know your friends are going to say, we don't want to do that. If you try to plan a book club with them. Like, we decide before we even try that it's not going to work. And I just think life would be so much better lived allowing ourselves to be surprised more often. Like, sure, maybe you have that, that little bit of self doubt and that little lingering fear of what if it doesn't turn out well. And I think if we just told ourselves more often, I would love to be surprised. I crave the feeling of surprise. And I think that's what helps me in parenting so much. Being willing to try so many different things with my kids to find the way that works best for all of us is because I love it when I say something in a certain way and it clicks for them and it's like immediate cooperation. Or I'll say something a certain way with my husband and he gets really vulnerable and opens up and we have this beautiful conversation. It's like none of those things would have happened if I weren't to willing. Willing to go first. So I want to encourage you when it comes to releasing the weight. Releasing the weight, letting go of that as you head into 2025. Maybe it's just that perspective for you of like, where in my life am I already deciding it's not going to work out before I've even tried? And wouldn't it be nice to be surprised a little more often? Okay. The last part of your letter, though, is closing with gratitude and intention. So for this prompt, I just want you to consider, how do you want to thank 2024 and what are you taking forward into 2025? So, wrapping up your letter, what do you want to thank 2024 for? And what parts of 2024 are you going to take with you into 2025? The lessons, the perspectives, the memories, the courage, the joy, the gratitude. What are you going to take into 2025 with you? The ambition, the integrity, the tenacity, the courage. When you end with gratitude and affirm your intentions for the year, it is remarkable what happens. You're like, give me the calendar. I'm going to start planning. Where's my journal? I'm committed. Every day you just really fire yourself up. It's amazing how we can fire ourselves up. So. So an example of this can be, thank you 2024 for being my teacher. I'm stepping into 2025 with clarity, courage, and hope. And this can be a few sentences. It can be one sentence, whatever feels best for you. So this practice is working so effectively for you because reflective writing helps you process emotions and create meaning from experiences. Remember, I've mentioned that when we only look at our experiences to relive the pain, we don't allow ourselves to take the lesson and to provide purpose to the pain. If you never find your lesson, it's very difficult to see the purpose and the pain. So reflective writing helps us to find that purpose in the pain. And we can acknowledge the experiences that have made you who you are while releasing the weight of those heavy moments. So you keep the lesson and you release the weight. Another reason why this practice works so well is because gratitude shifts focus to positive aspects of the year. Remember, it releases those chemicals of dopamine and serotonin. So we start to feel motivated and encouraged and hopeful and inspired and fulfilled with those. With those emotions going through us. And then we see the year in a new light. We see 2025 with New Hope, and we need that. And then lastly, in these reflective practices, again, like releasing the pain and keeping the Purpose. You're able to release anxiety and pain through this writing because you're lightening the emotional load and that fosters a fresh start. Remember, your mind doesn't know the difference between something you think has happened and something that's actually happened. So if you can get in tune with your writing enough that it creates an emotional connection to it, then your mind logs it as an actual lived experience. This letter that you're writing is going to be an actual lived experience for 2024. It's going to be a memory. So cool. And then you'll be able to pull on that experience and make new predictions moving forward. So writing is very important. But yeah, we're going to, we're going to wrap this up. Sweet friends, as you go through writing this letter, I would love for you to post a picture of yourself writing. Or let me know when you get it done. Just share it on your social media and tag me essaromero. You can let me know that you did your year in review letter, your end of the year letter, whatever you want to call it. Your thank you, 2024 letter. That's what I'm calling mine. Thank you 2024. Let me know though, on social media, because I just, I love seeing you take the time to pour back into yourself, to listen to these podcast episodes, to consume the content, to do the writing exercises. It's so powerful that you're taking the time to do this. And I truly hope that I get to coach you further. And in the membership every week, get on coaching calls together and move through 2025 with the type of intention, hope, integrity, discipline, challenge, vision that we've been craving for ourselves. The kind that brings fulfillment, the kind that brings excitement, enthusiasm before anything and anyone else changes. To me, that's the best part about life, is that you can be who you want to be before anything and anyone else changes. And I know that's true for you too. If I can do it, you can do it. So let me know when you get your letter done. I'll see you in the membership group. You can join our wait list in the show notes below and we will have enrollment opened up for that in January at our founders rate. And then if you're listening to this, after January, no worries, you can still get in to our membership and we would absolutely love to have you there.