Welcome to your Confidence Catalyst Newsletter Helping you speak up, step up, and stand out.

As we come to the close of 2025 and look ahead to 2026, I want to invite you into a different kind of reflection.

For many years in my corporate leadership life, I spent most of my time focused on my business plan and my team’s goals. Ironically, the thing I spent the least amount of time on was my plan for myself.

The result? I was constantly in reaction mode – responding to everyone else’s priorities, expectations, and demands.

Over the last few years, I’ve made a deliberate shift from reaction to creation. That shift has allowed me to design my life on my terms and build a business that I genuinely love.

As we head into a new year, this feels like the most important shift.

Let’s look at creating your best year yet through our three lenses: mindset, behaviour, and compassion.

Mindset: Choose creation over reaction

As we start a new year, it’s worth asking an uncomfortable but powerful question:

How much time do I actually spend thinking about my life?

Where I am.

Who I want to be.

What growth is required for me to step into that version of myself.

If you feel constantly busy, there’s a good chance you’re in reaction mode – responding to work, family, expectations, and “shoulds.” Creation requires something different: space, intention, and conscious choice.

Before you get busy with plans, goals, or resolutions, start here:

Decide to be in creation of the life you want and the person you are becoming in 2026.

That decision alone changes how you show up. It also means carving out time to reflect, think strategically, and get honest about what you want – rather than defaulting to what everyone else needs from you.

Behaviour: Build your year using the stacking effect

Here are three simple questions to help you reflect on 2025 and shape 2026:

• What brought me joy this year?
• What sapped my energy this year?
• How can I decrease the sap and increase the joy in 2026?

As you look at your goals for next year, I encourage you to think about the stacking effect.

Your goals don’t exist in isolation – they stack on top of each other.

You might want a promotion, more visibility, or to grow your business. But if your health is poor, your energy is low, or your confidence is shaky, those goals become much harder to achieve.

When you strengthen the foundations, your wellbeing, energy, mindset, and confidence – you stack the odds in your favour. Career success becomes more sustainable, not just something you push for at the expense of everything else.

This is why it’s so important to look at your life and goals holistically, not in silos.

This is also exactly what we’ll be doing in the Best Year Yet planning session inside my Confidence & Career Success Club – creating a year that works with your life, not against it.

Compassion: Course-correct, don’t criticise

As you reflect on anything you didn’t achieve this year, please don’t beat yourself up.

Instead, ask:

• How much did I really want this?
• Is it still a priority?
• If it is, what needs to change so I can move towards it in 2026?

Course correction is far more powerful than self-criticism.

And before you rush into next year, pause to celebrate your wins, big and small. They matter more than you think.

You will undoubtedly have achieved things you didn’t even set out to achieve. You will also have dealt with challenges, curveballs, and moments that required resilience.

As Wayne Dyer said: “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Give yourself credit. What did this year teach you about yourself, and how can you leverage those strengths in 2026?

What’s next?

If you’re already a member of my Confidence and Career Success Club, here’s what you can expect over the next couple of months:

• Bi-weekly group coaching
• A Best Year Yet planning session
• An accountability partner (if you’d like one)
• Monthly co-working Get Sh*t Done sessions
• A monthly wrap-up to celebrate progress
• February’s training: How to stop tripping into a fixed mindset

I’m going to do everything I can to make sure my members get the start to the year they want, with the right support, tools, and motivation to create ongoing success.

If you’re not yet a member, you can check out the clubhere.

And if you’d prefer 1:1 support, you can also book a one-off coaching session with me (£175 for one hour). You can book that here

Wishing you a happy healthy and successful 2026.

Kirsteen