184: What My Year-End Review Revealed

As the year comes to a close, many of us are reflecting on our jobs, our lives, and what we want next. But when you’re a working mom building a business on the side, it’s easy to skip reviewing your own progress especially when results feel slower than expected.

In this episode, I share what my 2025 business review revealed after 20+ years of leading reviews and goal-setting in corporate roles and what I’m doing differently in 2026.

You’ll hear:

• Why your vision can stay constant even when priorities shift
• How different seasons of motherhood require different strategies
• Why avoiding your numbers is often about emotion, not discipline
• How to review your business without beating yourself up
• A simpler, more sustainable way to plan goals when time and energy are limited

This episode is especially for working moms who feel:

• Busy but unsure if they’re making real progress
• Discouraged by slow or uneven results
• Overwhelmed by 'big goals' that don’t fit real life

Mentioned in this episode:
Create 2026 (Free Live Workshop)
A guided year-end review + 2026 planning session designed for busy working moms building a business on the side.

You’ll review what worked (and didn’t) in 2025, clarify your 2026 vision, and leave with focused priorities you can actually follow through on.

Register here: sharonsinghsidhu.com/create2026

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the podcast. So, this is the time of year where I am sure you're receiving all your wrapped summaries from Spotify, from LinkedIn, from whatever platform you're on. Everyone's kind of in the spirit of not just, I guess, Christmas, but just reviewing the year that's just um about to end, right? In 2025. And of course, I do this every year. So every year, and in fact, even during the year, I do kind of do these regular reviews, and in my corporate role, I it's something I've been doing for like a long, long time now, for uh almost 20 actually over 20 years now. My my role has always been about uh you know, kind of like initiating the whole year-end review process and then doing the goal setting for the coming year and the periodic reviews. And so while I do that in my job, when it comes to my business, I have to be honest that sometimes I'm not as diligent, but for sure at the end of the year and at the beginning of the year, I will always do like the you know review of the entire year and then uh setting the goals for the new year. And so I did this and for my for myself and my business in 2025, and I actually had some insights that I wanted to share with you. So if you have not been doing this as well for your business, maybe you're very diligent about it in your job. Maybe you're like me, you know, in your job, you're very diligent about doing all your business reviews, your quarterly reviews, and all of these things. But when it comes to your own business, you haven't been quite as diligent. Then I hope this podcast will serve as a reminder. And as I share my own insights and lessons, I found this to be such a valuable process. You know, it's kind of take advantage of the natural, the natural motivation for you to do this because I think it's kind of psychologically, everyone around you and everything around you is in this review of the year mode, and so it is it's good for us to kind of you know make use of the energy that's all around us, right? To do it also for our own business. So, alright, so if you haven't done it, I would encourage you to do it. And so, let's get through into my own review and what it revealed, okay? Some of the lessons and insights I've got and what I'm going to be doing differently for next year. So, I have a couple of points that I want to just share with you. Uh, these are pretty high level, but of course, they trickle down and flow down into our day-to-day actions when it comes to building our business, right? So, for me, I was really reflecting upon all these years that I have been having this side business, and you know how I've realized that actually my vision has more or less remained the same, right? But the priorities shifted within that vision. So just because your priorities shift does not mean that you're being fickle. I used to think this a lot when I would switch priorities or kind of like amend them a little bit and allow them to evolve because of what was happening in my life and because of the different seasons of life I was going through with the different um needs of my family and my kids, right? And so when the kids were much, much younger, that mean when they were newborns, right? I made the decision to step away from more of the leadership roles because I really wanted to have more work-life balance, I wanted less responsibilities and kind of the the stress that would come with taking on a bigger role because I wanted to know that my priority- I mean what I I I knew at that time my priority was my were my little kids and uh simple things like even nursing them, right? Being able to nurse them, going home and being able to nurse them, going to home to be able to spend time with them, um, being available to take them to the doctor for their regular vaccinations and appointments and all of these things, and I wanted that flexibility. So for me, it was really more the priority was more being physically around them and being physically present for them, and therefore there were very specific roles I said no to, and only certain roles that I would want to take on that gave me more control over my time, and of course, in return, the trade was trade-off was that maybe I didn't get as as much money, right? And maybe I didn't have the glamorous job titles, but for me, I was very clear about what was the priority, and so um that was what I did. So, but then you know, so actually, in in that regard, having like a 9 to 5 job was very, very good uh because of the of course the benefits and where I was at the time had very good benefits for my kids, for my dependents, uh, and so I stayed, even though the salary was not the best, right? Uh, and so for me at that time the 9 to 5 kind of version uh model really worked, and where I was really worked, I was quite happy and willing to trade off a little bit of salary and in return get more uh I guess I wouldn't say predictability, I think like more um what is that word I'm looking for? Like more flexibility around my time, I I suppose, right? Uh the responsibilities were were less, the timing was more predictable, the benefits were very good, and so taking less salary was a good trade-off for me in my perspective. And then now that they're a little bit older, the kids are older, you know, they are heading off to college. Uh, and so for me it's really more about making more money now, right? Because college is expensive, uh, especially if they don't end up getting a scholarship. So I don't know yet. Um, of course, they're going to be trying, but who knows, right? It's very competitive. And for me, the priority, of course, right now, besides paying for college, would be I want to be able to have even more flexibility if they do end up going to uh abroad into a different country. I want to have the flexibility to be able to work from a different location uh and just be closer to them. Uh and yeah, and so for me, yes, maybe I will still have a regular nine to five, maybe I'll go part-time, but I really want to focus on building my business and also because they're older now, and so I think physically they are obviously a lot more independent now. I don't actually need to be there to take them for vaccinations, for example, or like to physically take care of them as much, but it really is more the emotional and mental um and spiritual support that I want to be uh there for them for, you know, at this stage in their life, and and so you know, the the priorities have shifted, but if you notice the vision or the I guess the purpose is very much the same, it really is about being the best mom I can be, you know, uh investing in the relationship with my kids and of course my husband and my family. Uh, this has always remained. Uh so for me, the vision the vision actually, you know, it's not anything and any kind of a fancy business vision. I mean, my business supports my life vision, and my life vision is is to be the best mom and best wife and best daughter, and just be my my family is the priority, and therefore I can allow how that vision is materialized and how that works out in terms of the priorities I then have uh in different seasons of my life kind of shift. And and so it isn't about being fickle, like I used to think, oh, I'm so fickle, I can't stick to one thing, I keep shifting, but it is about keeping the bigger picture central, and I think that you will probably find that the thing that is important to you um at the high level is going to remain pretty much the same, but how you express it, how you materialize it, how it how you make it happen, that is going to evolve depending on the specific needs and uh the season of life you're in, right? And so that was a like a lesson for me that oh, you know, it has been pretty consistent, my vision, but how it has happened, I have allowed it to evolve, and and by doing that, it has taught me a couple of things, right? Number one, that we want to be flexible and open-minded, right? We don't need to be rigid about how we want it to happen. Uh, and so being open-minded and flexible is really important. Number two is that everything worked out well in the end, and I think that's so important when we're building a business, like having that belief and the faith and the trust that it will be alright and it will work out, I think that makes a very, very big difference in terms of whether you can stick with it for the long term and keep going. Because we know in this journey of building a business, it is not an easy, quick thing that happens. There's a lot of trial and error, and there are days where we can get very discouraged when things don't seem to be moving. But just knowing, like, it's not about an intellectual knowing, I guess, it's really a deep knowing for sure, with a hundred percent certainty, with no doubt that it's you're gonna be okay, your family's gonna be okay, um, everything is going to work out, even if it works out in a way that you never expected it to, it's going to be even better, right? And so that over the years has um, you know, when I look back and reflect on not just this year, but even in all of the difficult, difficult moments I've had to go through throughout my life, and somehow I'm still standing here and talking to you. I'm still running the podcast, even though I've had certain patches, dry spells, and I've taken certain breaks because I I felt like that was what I needed, but you know, I'm still here after all these years, over a hundred something episodes now. Uh things are still okay. I'm still able to share all these things with you and come over to you on a podcast, right? And so it's gonna be the same case for you. If you're listening to this, obviously you're fine. Um, things may not be comfortable, may not be in the most ideal situation, but you are still able to listen to this podcast, right? So, somehow, some way things have somehow worked out for you to still be able to be here and listening to the podcast. So, I just wanted to make a note of that. So, that was the first thing. Vision can be the same, purpose is the same, but even though the priorities can shift, and so allow yourself to be open about how um your vision will materialize. The second thing that I realized also as I was looking at my own um read my own year and looking at the numbers, and of course, I go through all my metrics and I want to evaluate you know how I did in preparing this podcast, also and preparing my own review was that I think there were um things that I didn't really follow through on. Specifically, I don't think I diligently evaluated the outcomes of my actions as diligently as I would have liked to, and then I was thinking about why that is so, and then I realized that probably it's also because um there were moments I noticed when I kind of fell off, okay, fell off the bandwagon, I guess, fell off track, were times when things were going weren't going the way I wanted them to. I wasn't really getting the results that I expected, and then you know, I noticed that I have this trend or this pattern to then not want to look at it anymore because looking at it is so discouraging, and I don't like that feeling of disappointment, and so instead for me it was about avoiding it and just sticking my head in the sand almost, right? And avoiding it, and then if I don't see it, it means it doesn't exist, the problem doesn't exist, you know, and and then I can continue to live in my this escape fantasy world for a while and not feel those feelings of disappointment and discouragement, and I think that's very, very normal, right? I mean, when things don't go our way, obviously we're going to be disappointed. Um, and you know, I noticed even on my tracking sheet, there were like these weeks and months where I just didn't have any data updated when usually I would do my weekly review, monthly review, and then I would update my numbers, but there was a period of time that they were like patchy, like there was nothing in it because I I also consciously and I distinctly remember that I'm just not going to look at the numbers anymore, I'm just gonna like not care anymore. I think you know the intention was just that I didn't want to give myself all that pressure. Uh, and I I mean, interestingly, yes, it did work to a certain extent because I know when I let go that pressure on myself a little bit, I signed a climb. So, I mean, I think it does work in a way, but I want to be able to approach it differently next year in the sense that I want to be able to still be able to release that pressure, but not totally ignore the numbers because I do know that whatever we measure gets improved. Because if you don't even know where you are, it's very hard to get a baseline and then um know whether you're actually doing better or not so well, and what are the areas that you need to uh course correct and uh specifically what is the thing you need to fix to improve your numbers, right, and your results. And so that was something that I saw, and I was thinking, hmm, I think that's something I want to work on for next year. And so the way to do this is really what I'm gonna be working on is to really approach it like a scientist, right? I mean, there's growing your business. If you could just approach it like a scientist would, which means to say that there is a hypothesis, you um trying to prove it and see if that is true, and if it is not and it's not working out, then you need to make adjustments, right? You need to kind of like adjust your experiment, and so I you know, I'm going to take it really more like an experiment and just be curious that this is a just a problem or a hypothesis I'm trying to prove to myself, uh, without without making it mean anything about me, which I know is hard, especially when you're growing a coaching business where it is really about your personal brand and it can feel a lot more uh personal. It's not like you're selling a widget or a product, and so you can completely detach, like that product is obviously not me, right? But when you are trying to grow a coaching business, a lot of times it feels very personal because it is about your skills, it is about helping people through your experience, through your your thoughts, your ideas, your opinions, you know, and so it it can get very gray. But what I'm um suggesting, and that I'm gonna do and maybe suggest to you as well is to work instead on your mindset, your emotions, meaning to say, looking at it, shifting the perspective of it being very personal to something that there is your business, there's a um a service you provide, and then there's you as a person, and these are of course related, but they are not the same thing, to approach the problem or the hypothesis you're trying to prove with curiosity and also be open-minded to try different solutions, right? Different approaches that maybe you have not really entertained before. Like for me, I've always been very focused on having very practical, tangible actions. Uh, and I, although I am quite spiritual, I think part of me has always kind of dismissed that disregarded or put that separate from the business uh and work because we often think like in our careers and in something as tangible and um uh practical as business, we cannot have this very uh spiritual and uh woo concepts in it. But you know, I over last year I took up human design. So if you heard about it, you heard me talk about it. I've been studying human design. Uh I'm in the process of getting certified, and it is really of course, it's like a personality assessment, and it's a little bit more esoteric and a little bit more, some people might say, uh, out there, but I have found it to be super useful, helping me to understand myself better. And I think understanding yourself is like one of the first steps, right, to building a business. It is building a business is very much like a personal growth and transformation process because if you want to build a business, you really have to be a different person, and so just being open-minded, right, about um the solutions that might come to you. Uh, it may come to you in the most unexpected way, and being open um to explore that uh would be something that you know I would recommend it's gonna be something I'm going to continue to do. And of course, you know, I think it's important to surround yourself with the right people. I think that's what we hear about it all the time, but doing is another thing, right? Uh, I know that because I think for most of us, I mean, maybe I shouldn't speak for you, I'll speak for myself. That uh we tend to be surrounded. You'll find that I found at least that majority of the people have a pretty, I wouldn't say say negative in a way that kind of it's not really their fault. I think it's just the whole way the world works that we are conditioned to always be looking out for danger, and so there's a a lot of fear around not enough and and scarcity, not enough money, you know, not enough this and that and the other, and everyone's always very worried, and then they they're worried about how they how they appear in front of their um superiors and uh you know living up to other people's expectations. So there's all of this all around, but that's the reason why I think that I have consciously gone out to just really surround myself with people who don't think like that and who don't see the world like that. So if you do find yourself um happen to be surrounded by people like that or in an environment like that, we're so lucky today that we have access to the internet, and so you can always connect with other people from all over the world who are more uplifting and more uh positive-minded and more empowering and encouraging. Uh, because I think when it comes to measuring your outcomes, feeling discouraged, you know, it's easy to go down that spiral if you don't have the right people around you. And yeah, so that was for me the the second lesson. So the first one was all about how the vision is the same, um, even though my priorities have shifted and just being open to how your vision is going to materialize. The second thing is about really measuring uh and evaluating your outcomes, and then just really follow through with that, even though it is discouraging and disappointing, you want to make sure that you continue to approach it more like a scientist, continue to collect your data and analyze it so that you can continually improve. Because building a business it is a continuous improvement project, okay? It's like it's ongoing, it's never gonna end. Even if you solve one problem, there's gonna be the next one that comes along. Um, and every time you have like a bigger revenue goal, profit goal, whatever, uh, it is going to demand that you solve a bigger problem, and so it's an it's a never-ending thing, not that it needs to exhaust you, but if you approach it from a scientist kind of mentality, that's when with curiosity, it's like, oh, how can I make this better? Oh, how can I do this differently? Oh, how can this be more fun? Oh, how can this be easier? These are kind of the questions I always like to ask myself. So, finally, the third thing I just want to wrap up for today's episode is what I'm going to be doing in 2026. I will be um, I think reinforcing my vision that's very clear to me, what's important to me still remains, my vision, my purpose about the kind of mother I want to be, the kind of person I want to be around my family. That's very clear, and the kind of coach I want to be for my clients and the way I want to show up as an employee in my job. So, all of these things like it's all kind of wrapped around this whole idea of the kind of person I am. So that is very clear to me, and um, I I will have clear goals. Of course, I will have clear business goals. I mean, in the job, we kind of have targets that are given to us that we need to achieve. But when it comes to your own business, it's also good to have very clear goals. They don't um, of course, ultimately, it's good to measure our revenue goals, but you know, the revenue number it is the final outcome of many, many, many, many, many steps in between. And so I'm gonna have you know other momentum goals, other milestones to just keep me on track because working backwards, if you want to hit a certain revenue, then you gotta break it down to okay, what are the things you need to do quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily. So we need to break it down into very small steps, right? And so that we can take those small little steps every single day because we are all very busy. Um, moms, we have lots of things going on. So, the other lesson I have learned this long time ago. I I used to be very, very ambitious about the goals I set for myself, which is not bad. You want to have ambitious goals, but when it comes to the daily tasks, um, you also want to be, you know, um realistic to a certain extent, what you can get done in a day. Uh, and when you try to do like put in so much and you don't get not even like most of it done, it can be demoralizing. So have a more objective view about what's doable in a day, and what is it that they say we always overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can actually accomplish in a decade, right? So that's kind of the same concept, okay? So the big ones, the big goals, your big annual goals, they can be big, but then we want to break them down into digestible pieces, daily pieces, right? So I'm gonna keep my vision and purpose clear. That's the first thing I'm gonna do in 2026. I'm gonna have clear goals, right, and milestones. And then the third thing I'm gonna do in 2026 is to remind myself again that what gets measured gets improved, right? And so I want to stick with the measuring, evaluating, um, doing my own debriefs, reviewing what's worked, what hasn't, what needs to be improved. Um, and I'm gonna do that by blocking off time, as I always do. To block off time is one thing, but to actually follow through with that time blocked out is another thing. And so I also know that even though sometimes we block out time, but then we don't use that blocked off time for the intended purpose, we end up doing something else, and that is really more an interesting question to ask. Okay, why is it that my actions, my intentions, and my actions are not the same? Like I intended to block off calendar to look at my numbers, and yet my actions ended up being something else, there's something going on there. So for me, I will continue to work on my mindset. My emotions, I think these are the things that are the reason why what your intentions and your actions are not quite the same. Um, so I'm gonna be looking at that, working on my mindset. Obviously, for me, using map a lot to kind of rewire, reprogram the way I'm thinking, um, and my emotions, you know, managing that, and also my energy. So now that I've got human design, I am definitely going to be working a lot more with my own unique human design and optimizing my energy in a way so that I can do these things without burning out. So, um, yeah, these are kind of my own reflections for the year, and hopefully offered you some good insights, lessons, and tips maybe you can try out for yourself as well. And so, yeah, so like I said, this is an exercise. My annual um review is something I do every year. I always put in also quarterly reviews because I think a quarter is a good time frame to actually um it's it's enough, it's long enough to get certain things accomplished and and short enough for you to course correct so you don't wait until a whole year has gone by and then you try to fix it, right? So, this is what I do uh every year, every quarter. So if you are interested in um learning more about my process or maybe watching me as I work through it, reviewing my 2025, solving the problems that came up, and then planning on the 2026 how to um set the business goals, how to achieve the goals, then you can also um come along for the ride, you know, like join me. I'm going to be doing a free live workshop. It's called Create 2026. This is my live workshop. I started doing it last year, and uh where we will review what your 2025 was like, what worked well, what didn't go so well, what you want to change, and then how you are going to uh what are some of your priorities for 2026, how are you gonna go about accomplishing them? So that's gonna be stuff that I cover in my free workshop. So if you want to come in and uh join us to do that, you're more than welcome. There's something that I do, especially designing it for working moms who may not have a lot of time. Um, so we want to make the action steps easy, doable, simple. Uh, that is not going to make you, you know, burn out. So uh you can sign up for that free workshop at my website, which is sharensidu.com forward slash create2026. I will put that link also in the show notes, and um it's gonna be happening on the 29th of December at 9 30 a.m. Singapore time. Yes, I am taking a day off from work to run this workshop just because I I mean for me it's a relaxing time, right? I want it to be a relaxed pace. And uh when you sign up, you will also get my free business planning guide so that you can do a little bit of pre-work to think a little bit, reflect a little bit about you know what's happened for you in 2025, and then when you come for the live workshop, we'll work through we'll workshop through the whole thing uh in reviewing your 2025 and then defining your vision for 2026 and setting some specific goals and action plans that you can then take so that at the end of the workshop you have something tangible that you can work with. Okay, so I really hope to see you there uh and I will catch you again in the next episode. Bye.