Merry Merry Christmas!

I don’t know about you, but I’m eager to turn the page on 2017 and start looking ahead to what is to come. But, before I do, I believe it is important to take a moment at the end of the year to reflect back on all that was accomplished, experienced, and learned: the good, the bad and the painfully un-instagram worthy.

For me, 2017 proved to be an unexpectedly momentous year with lots of major life change. A few of these changes included a cross country move out of Brooklyn, NY to Kansas City, MO, leaving my job and creative community at Etsy after two good years, and going back to running my own business, Makers Megaphone Coaching, full-time. There were moments of great joy and celebration and times of real challenge and uncertainty. Regardless of my personal feelings on the year’s events, objectively, all of it had to happen for me to be exactly where I am today and both the ups and downs have taught me something that can help inform the years to come.

With that, here are my top 5 lessons from 2017:

If you aren’t happy or something isn’t working as you hoped, the best way improve your situation is to be flexible and open to new opportunities.
Don’t lose hope while waiting, there is often a reason the thing you really want is taking a long time to be realized. If it’s meant to be, it will happen in time.
Taking care of your mental and physical health is the best thing you can do for your family, friends and business. Make it a priority.
Being a doer and self-starter is lifetime job security. Be a doer.
The only thing you can completely control is your attitude.

For this week’s Maker Motivation Challenge, I’m sharing an annual exercise that I do at the end of the year to reflect and recap how it all went. It’s my version of the ‘Year in Review’. If you have some downtime this week between holidays, I’d encourage you to take some time to look back before you look ahead.

This week, try to take a moment to reflect on your year by answering the following:

What books did you read?
What places did you visit?
Were there any particularly meaningful moments?
What things went really well (personally and professionally)?
What things were really hard (personally and professionally)?
What were the biggest surprises (personally and professionally)?
What were your biggest upsets (personally and professionally)?
How did you grow this year (personally and professionally)?
What did you learn this year?
How can what happened and what you learned in 2017, impact your goals for 2018?

I hope your last week of 2017 is beautiful. I have a feeling 2018 is going to be a great one, and I would love to work with you to help next year be a year of great growth for you and your business. There is one week left to book a one-on-one coaching session before 12/31/17, and get 15% off your first session by using code ‘DEC15’ when booking.

Make sure you get on my mailing list so you get a Maker Monday Motivation email sent your inbox every week, CLICK HERE!

I hope you have a wonderful Holiday!

We’re in this together,

Ashley