Blessed Solstice & Happy Holidays from RainDancer Home + 2021 Year in Review
Today I take my own medicine and transparently share personal answers to the guiding questions for a Balanced Year-End Review in the previous post.
About a month ago, in mid-November, I published my blog article BHAGs in 2021 and 4 Types of Questions For a Balanced Year-End Review.
Now that year-end is on the horizon (only 10 days away!), and today we honour and celebrate Winter Solstice, I am sending you my very warmest wishes for a Blessed Solstice, Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year ahead!
I am also glad and grateful share with you my own year-end highlights.
Today I take my own medicine and transparently share personal answers to the questions I provided for a Balanced Year-End Review.
This year’s medicine has been sweet. It’s not always like that. There have been many years when I definitely needed more than a “spoonful of sugar” to make it go down easier. But this year, I didn’t even need artificial sugar. Life provided its own sweetness, mostly because I learned to surrender and trust in the flow more, let go of a lot of stories, heal my heart, and resist less.
And yet, with all the beautiful blessings of 2021 came growth edges and labour pains. It’s been challenging in a good way.
RainDancer Home 2021 Year in Review Highlights
I share the past year’s highlights in four main areas. What surprises me the most is that this year is the most growth I have seen in some time, and yet the least stress I’ve experienced in business, ever. Hoorah for sustainable success!
1)
ReBrand & ReLaunch
· [New Website] After 2 years of spiritual chiropractic and internal revisioning, which was conceived in late 2018, I finally birthed a more integrated mother-brand (raindancerhome.com) and launched with a bang in late January with the community event Who (Re)Moved My Mask? : Business As ‘Unusual’ in a Post-COVID World
· [Corporation] Along with the rebrand, I made the core decision to register a Corporation to provide the adequate structures and supports for what I will create in the next 5 years.
· [2 Satellite Offices] While I mainly work out of my home office, I found it was important to have office space to support my health priorities as well as to facilitate high-touch relationship building, so depending on the day of the week, I was also based either in Richmond or downtown Vancouver.
2)
Clients & Community
· [VIP Days] Mindfully limiting my client load to only a handful of clients at a time and focusing on my zone of genius and their area of fastest and deepest impact, which are visioning and strategy sessions that bring clarity, direction, and healing (1/2 day or full day); YES, more of these, please!
· [Community Events] Hosted Five (5) Community Events (roughly 1 per quarter) including a never-done-before Wheel of Sustainable Success™ Workshop+Daytreat; these events/workshops have been all brand-new (including presentation materials, guides and workbooks), community-oriented, with a ‘unique and boutique’ feel ~ no two events alike!
· Ran & Facilitated 4 Niche Masterminds/support circles with 4-6 people each
· If I wasn’t working with a clients or nurturing community, I was planting seeds and seeking out potential speakers and collaborators for a multi-day summit in Spring 2022.
· My give-back highlight of the year was being a volunteer mentor for a few days at Fire & Flower daycamp and meeting the most magical, awesome, bright and creative girls to spend time and play with! Alongside that, it’s always a joy and honour to speak and mentor students at UBC Careers & Alumni events.
3)
Teaching & Thought Leadership
· [Integrated Blog] I intentionally launched a blog outside of the main website, RainDancer Ink, to honour my writer self and to make more space for other voices (besides the business one) to be heard. It was a joy to be able to share some of my creative writing alongside business/leadership blog articles!
· [Insight Timer] Along with my blog, I also launched a channel on Insight Timer. Only a couple of meditations there at this point, but I’d love to grow it further in 2022 and beyond.
· [Speaking & Teaching Workshops] I was delighted to be invited to speak at events or summits / facilitate a private workshop for organizations / interviewed for a podcast (roughly 2-3 per quarter).
4)
Internal Growth
· [25 Hour WorkWeek] This year, for the first time, I didn’t work more than 25 hours a week. This new “must have” was in response to creating a more sustainable and humane schedule to make space for other priorities like my health, creative writing, friendships and community leadership, and building a strong foundation for a conscious marriage as well as starting a family.
· [3 VAs] As someone who never had more than one VA, this year it was quite the growth stretch to recruit and hire 3 VAs to help with various areas of business growth into 2022 and beyond.
· [Retreat Centre Training] I was so glad to dedicate a weekend to plant seeds and learn how to run a retreat centre.
· [Courses, Coaching & Mentoring] This year, the growth areas I invested in include participating in the inimitable Womxn of Color Summit; training and mentoring on how to organize and host virtual summits, fast-tracking healing and optimizing my health and wellness through somatic repatterning, craniosacrial therapy and neural coherence, womb healing to optimize creativity and support fertility, and potent mentoring on sovereign leadership.
My Personal & Transparent Answers to Balanced Year-End Review Questions
Celebration / Gratitude
What can I celebrate that I / my family / my team created / what can we be proud of that was accomplished?
If there’s only one or two things that I can truly celebrate and be proud of this year, it’s having the courage to come back to coaching after a period of questioning and reckoning whether I wanted to continue in the industry. It’s also taking the steps and actions to bring my new vision to reality and re-connect with my business community after my sabbatical.
Personally, I celebrate that Honey Bear & I got hitched despite multiple layers of challenge and complexity surrounding our nuptials (Covid being only one aspect), and we also purchased our first family home, moved into it just in time for Christmas!
What deeper values do they express?
My accomplishments reflect my value of authentic and purposeful leadership, creativity and connection in my body of work, and going deeper as a form of growth just as important as getting bigger.
By the same token, this year more than other years, I see the fruits of my deep intentions, key decisions and important actions over the last 3-5 years to prioritize creating my own family.
What am I more grateful for this year?
I am even more grateful for my health and well-being, which I never take for granted but it seems this season, I’m thankful more than ever that I have the time, space and the means to continue to invest in my health and wellness.
I am so grateful for the love and support from Honey Bear and his family and all my friends who show up for us. I’m grateful to my clients and business community for being my reason, mission and inspiration.
I am most grateful especially this year that I consciously carved out time and space to honour my writing life.
What unexpected blessings and learnings came my way?
I didn’t expect my car accident recovery to take so long, but it was a blessing in that it compelled me to rethink the way I work.
I didn’t expect to be interviewed on a podcast about my intercultural and multifaith wedding, but I did and it was so special.
I didn’t expect to move into our new home before the end of the year, but we did and it all happened so fast, better than what we could have ever planned.
The biggest unexpected learning was there is truth to the expression, “slow down to speed up”. It’s true ~ surrender is the fastest way to success!
What Worked / Didn’t Work
What worked and why? How can I integrate this practice or strategy moving forward?
What didn’t work and how can I pivot to be more in alignment with my values?
I’m going to answer these questions with one thing and that is the shift to working only 25 hours a week. It worked in that I had more balance and was more relaxed, but it also didn’t quite work because I still took on a full-time workload and was just training my new VAs, and I constantly felt like I was ‘behind’ on my to-do’s. In 2022, I will be even more intentional and focused, letting go of the non-essentials, so that I can truly work 25 hours a week and feel on top of things.
What’s Next?
Based on where I am in my entrepreneurship / leadership journey, what is calling to me next?
Definitely, more writing; thought leadership (speaking/teaching), less single or multiple coaching sessions and more VIP days that are intensive and where I can have the most impact; and of course, pulling off the summit that I’ve been talking about for a year now, will be one of my BHAGs next year.
What do I desire the most to create in my personal and professional life?
If I were to be totally honest, I am no longer interested in mundane “must do”s just because some expert tells me I should. I am only interested in the areas of business that bring the most joy and highest impact (already mentioned in the previous question). As much as I have big dreams and want to accomplish more, deep down I get the most fulfillment from the simple things in life, so it’s important to stop and smell the roses and don’t forget to make time for tea.
How do I want to grow, both in the ‘taller’ and ‘deeper’ sense?
It’s my desire to grow my reach and impact through more speaking and teaching opportunities. I’d like to grow more rooted and confident in my gifts and be more unapologetic about my desires, my creations and who I’m meant to serve and let go of the rest. I’d love to be more in flow and create more abundance to support the new responsibilities and commitments to come.
What’s Yet to be Completed or Let Go of?
What remains unfinished, unaddressed, unaccounted for?
Before year-end, I’d like to take a full working day to set the stage for my summit next spring, and send out speaker invites.
Also, file my Corporate taxes!
Given that we still have about 6 weeks left until year-end, what can I fully commit myself to bringing about that will feel like I gave it my all this year, this season?
I fully commit to one of my 2022 BHAGs that is a summit which has been one of the scariest things I’ve ever committed to and yet I feel totally ready for.
Given the changes and rhythm of the past year, what can I let go of or modify to create more balance, rest and spaciousness?
I am ready to let go of Little Miss Perfect and know when good enough is enough.
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And with that, my friend, if you haven’t yet taken the time, I recommend carving out a half-day to reflect upon these questions and note them down in your journal.
If you’d like to take it a step further, schedule a date with a fellow founder, a cherished colleague or mentor, or a friend who shares your growth path, do the exercise together and share the answers.
Who knows, it could inspire your BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals) for 2022! I invite you to comment below to share how this post lands for you and what came out of this reflection exercise. : )
© 2021 Rosalyn C. RainDancer
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You can learn more about me and my offerings @ www.raindancerhome.com.