If you want next year to be a success, you first have to deeply understand the year that was. That’s why, in this episode, I’m teaching the Annual Snapshot. Instead of journaling about your year, reflecting on your actions or trying to figure out how you got in your own way – you want to do an Annual Snapshot instead.
Tune in to learn what the Annual Snapshot is, why it matters and how to do it. Regardless of whether this year has been successful, frustrating or a mixture of the two, this episode is a must listen for all perfectionist entrepreneurs.
You’re invited to join us inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done for our annual review and 2026 planning calls that are happening this coming week. The two calls are happening at 6pm EST on Monday 15 December and Wednesday 17 December with replays available. You’ll then get to be supported inside PGSD long-term, with lifetime access to the tools and coaching that will get your perfectionist mindset on your side so your business can finally grow.
To be part of it, sign up for PGSD by 6pm EST on Monday 15 December. To find out more and sign up today, visit samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionists Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
Sam Laura Brown
Okay, so in today’s episode. Well, actually in today’s two episodes, because this is a little two part series that I’m dropping all at once. And I can do that because I’m the boss, and I can just decide to put out podcast how and when I want. So there’s a two part series. This episode is called the annual snapshot. The next episode is called the annual forecast. And in these episodes, I am bringing together more than a decade of goal setting, reflecting being a perfectionist entrepreneur, and then coaching hundreds of perfectionist entrepreneurs to achieve their goals and to do so without burning out or neglecting the things that are important to them and putting so much pressure on themselves and all of that.
And what I am doing in these episodes is sharing with you two concepts that I have created that will help you to understand yourself and the year that was and create the results you want in the upcoming year in a way that I have been doing myself without having words to put to it like what I’m sharing with you in these episodes is what I have been doing for years now to really be able to create massive change in my own life and my business that I’ve had to understand. First of all, get the snapshot and then do a forecast, and I’ll share exactly what this looks like. But first, I want to let you know that inside perfection is getting shit done. We are doing this work. We are going to do two live calls. The first one is at 6pm eastern time on the 15th of December, and then 6pm eastern time on the 17th of December.
We are doing the annual snapshot that I’m just about to talk about. We are working through that together, doing all the implementation, the coaching, and also then doing the annual forecast together in the second call. So everything that I’m sharing with you in this series, I want to invite you into pgsd to do this work, to get coached by me, to be supported by the pgsd community, to just really set yourself up for such an incredible 2026 and not from this place of like, hopefully this year will be different and, like, New year, new me. But like, what I’m talking about here is how to actually create a new me. And it’s not from it being the new year and it ticking over to January. It’s from the work that I’m talking about in these episodes. And I’m giving you the the overview of the foundation of but what we are doing in pgsd Is this work, and then you get lifetime access to pgsd. You get to learn power planning and to set your growth goal and to do all of the incredible things that are going to support you, to have your perfectionist mindset on your side, so you can follow through with your plans, so you can show up consistently without burning out.
So you’re not just, like, inspired about the year and you do a little bit of work, but then, like, you fall off. No, like, pgsd is the long term implementation support. We teach you how to implement, and we support you as you implement. And it is just the best community and just the best place to be. And if you resonate with what I talk about, this, about this podcast, you want to be inside pgsd. So you can join us inside the program we have opened the doors just for, like a mini enrollment so that, like, as I was creating a list, I’m like, oh my god, I can’t talk about this. And be like, okay, but you can do it next year with us. So you get to do it this year with us, but you have to be inside pgsd by 6pm eastern time on the 15th of December, and that’s why I wanted to release these episodes a little bit early, and then both together, so that you can listen to these and then get yourself inside pgsd to do this work with us as a community. I’ve been getting so many messages from our PGSDers about how excited they are for these two calls and to come together and to do this work. And I just want to invite you in. So with that said, let’s talk about what the annual snapshot is.
So the annual snapshot is really the most simple and powerful way that you can understand the year that was. So at the time of recording this, it’s December, 2025 so I’m talking about, for the context of right now, reflecting on 2025 but not in this kind of like. And I’ve done all sorts of reflections, and it’s helpful to have journaling prompts about the year and like and things like, what worked, what didn’t work, what to do differently. And I’ve talked about those before, and and and high level, what’s most important isn’t doing that kind of reflection, and oftentimes as well, when we do that kind of reflection, we just end up with this laundry list of things to do the next year. And we can feel like I’ve just really thoroughly debriefed the year. But when this happens, if you don’t do the annual snapshot, you can just repeat the same year that you had, and that might be something that’s beneficial, because you had a great year, and you just naturally continue it, though oftentimes, and I’ll talk about that war this episode, we have a great year, but we don’t understand what actually made that happen, and so we don’t stay in the thought and feeling pattern that created it, because we just don’t have the awareness over it.
So I’ll give you a specific example in this episode of when that happened for me, one of the many times. But if we don’t have this understanding of either how a great result was created or how a result that we didn’t want in the business was created, then no matter how you approach your goal setting, no matter how you approach your different strategies, or how much time you have for your business, or any of that you will keep getting an undesirable result, or you won’t be able to repeat a desirable result unless you have your annual snapshot. And this is why, when I’ve been reflecting on what I want to lead the PGSDers through with our annual review call, because we’ve had in the past, like different prompts to go through and things like that, super helpful our PGSDers love it, but really, as I’ve had so many lessons in the last few years about how to create massive change, and also why things stay the same and why we end up in certain cycles and we’re not able to break out of them.
Really, this annual snapshot has been such a key tool that I have been really unconsciously, well, consciously using, but I didn’t have a way to articulate it yet. And so I’ve been in pgse. I posted in the forum about, how did you feel about 2025 and what are you feeling about 2026 like? And what do you want help with as well for these two calls we’re having next week, and just reading through all of the responses from the PGSDers, the biggest thing that came up for me was that all of the questions everyone’s asking and that everyone’s talking about is really downstream from something that’s incredibly important, and they aren’t aware of and I wasn’t aware of it for so long. So I’m going to be telling you in this episode what the annual snapshot is and how to create your annual snapshot. And then again, I want to invite you into pvsc to do this work you want to be inside to have your annual snapshot and to know what to do with it.
So with annual reviews, I already mentioned some of the issues of it’s just prompts, and it just has us have this, like, laundry list of things that we need to do differently, and all of that. Another issue, and this is just to help you have the context of why the annual snapshot is so important. Another thing that can happen with doing an annual review and a reflection? Well, first of all, let me back up. Most of us don’t even do that to begin with. We don’t reflect. And I know that when my perfectionism handbrake is on and I’m getting in my own way, I skip things like my weekly review. I skip doing things like a quarterly review or an annual review. So even, like, if you have the awareness of what that is, and maybe this is the first time you’re even hearing that people do this kind of thing, because a lot of people out there in the world don’t do this kind of thing or talk about that kind of thing. It’s like, do you have any new year’s resolutions? Is about as detailed as that conversation tends to get. So maybe you just haven’t even had any awareness at all that people even do an annual reflection.
So if that’s the case, welcome to hearing about it. Amazing, amazing episode to listen to, if that’s you, if you do have awareness around it, but and that being a thing, that you skip it, that alone is something to be paying attention to. And often it’s because we feel like, well, I already know how the year went anyway, so there’s no point, like, thinking about it in more detail, or, like, I really didn’t like the year, so I really don’t want to have to, like, look at it in detail. Or I had a pretty great year and I feel good about it. I’m just happy to move on. Or as well. It can just be like this. I just, I don’t have the time. I have so many other things that I need to be doing. I just like, you know, it’d be helpful, but like, other things would be more helpful, like posting on social media or writing an email or creating content, or like pitching someone or whatever it is you do day to day in your business, that because this is a high level but non urgent thing that we can do, it’s very easy for our perfectionist brain, especially if there might be pain associated with doing a review where you’re looking at at how you’ve been showing up and what’s been happening. In and maybe you don’t like what you see, that we can be quite avoidant with it.
Or another way perfectionists tend to approach an annual review is like, I need a whole week, like a cabin in the woods situation, to fully debrief, and like, to fully just understand every little bit, and like, write out all my plans. And if I can’t have that, then I’m not going to do it at all, or I have to do it that way, and I’m going to, like, exhaust myself with all of this time spent reflecting. And what I want to do with this annual snapshot is really just direct you to very simply, what is the I believe the most effective way to understand the year that was. And you can also do this about past years, like I’ve been doing a lot of this when I’ve reflected on, for example, why 2022 was such a successful year for me, even though, in a lot of like, the day to day, I felt like things weren’t working. But that year was very successful, and I overall felt pretty successful in that year as well understanding, like what went on in that year that I want to replicate, and then in the year following it, that felt very stressful, and we had much lower revenue, even though I was working harder and like what went on because I was doing a lot of the same activities.
I was podcasting, we were doing pgsd launches, like there were a few differences in the actions, but overall, we weren’t doing that much that was different, but we had a dramatically different result, and I had a dramatically different experience. And so why is that the case? And the annual snapshot is the answer to that. And I’ve been doing these annual snapshots, and like, looking at different years, and it doesn’t have to be a calendar year. It can be you could have a quarterly snapshot where you look at like, what was that quarter? You could look at a year, you could look at a week, like, we do that in our power planning. That’s one of the things I’m doing, of like, what was the main thought and feeling that I was in that week? What was the main thought and feeling that I was in that year, that quarter, whatever time period it is? So it could be a random period, like four months from April to whatever. Like, do you know what I mean?
You can have this applied to anything, but I think having it in the context of a calendar year is incredibly powerful, and this approach of the annual snapshot really moves us away from the approach of looking at actions and being action focused and looking at what worked was me posting on Instagram, and what didn’t work was me being on Tiktok, for example. Like, what worked was me working three days a week, and what didn’t work was me trying to squeeze in things in my non work time. Those insights can be helpful. I’m not saying that they’re not helpful things to have insights on, but if we don’t understand the thought and feeling and see and have awareness over the thought and feeling that was behind the action, then we either can’t replicate it. If we want to, like we just happen to, we just need to get lucky at replicating the same thought and feeling that we had that created what we wanted, or we’re going to keep creating an undesirable result, even if we change our goals.
One of our PGSDers we’re saying like I achieved my growth goal for the year. That’s something we teach in pgsd, your growth goal. I achieved my growth goal, but I felt so I feel so tired, and I felt so stressed about how I achieved it. And now I’m thinking for next year, I don’t want to have a financial goal, because I know it was my thoughts and feelings, but really I think, like, I could have a different kind of goal that would help me have better thoughts and feelings. And I get that and like, it’s kind of like, that’s half of the way there, but the full insight needed is like, oh, like, What, was I thinking and feeling this year that had me achieve my growth goal, but in a way I didn’t like? And can I really understand that? And a sign that you really understood that is that we then, if we understand it’s the thought and feeling and not the goal, we’re then willing to have the same goal, but change the thought and feeling and go, for example, in that case, okay, next year, I’m going to set myself the same goal.
For example, I’m going to set myself the same financial goal, but I’m going to achieve it in a way that I like that feels very sustainable, because it’s not the goal that was the problem. It’s not the goal that stressed me out. It was my thought and my feeling that I was operating in like high level, there’s lots of different thoughts and feelings, of course, throughout the year, but high level, I was in a thought and feeling that had me achieve that goal in a way that didn’t feel in alignment with what’s important to me. And once you really understand, like, oh, the thought and feeling was what created the result, not the focus on the finances or having a financial goal, that’s when you can really start to create incredible results in your life, because you’re actually focused on the thing that creates results, which is the thought and feeling, not the goal itself, and like trying to get yourself to feel a good way or to feel a certain way by having a certain kind of goal.
Instead, we want to just really understand the role that thinking and feeling plays in achievement and in achievement in a way that we like, like that’s what we’re always doing inside perfectionist getting shit done. We are achieving our goals in a way that’s in alignment with our values. And sometimes it happens, the part of figuring that out is you achieve the goal in a way that’s not in alignment, and then you have another go, and you change your thinking and feeling, and you achieve it in a way that is in alignment, instead of saying, Okay, well, I can’t have that goal again. So we want to be focused, not on when we’re debriefing a year on, here are the actions I took, and here are the actions I didn’t take. And I want to do more of this action and less of that action, but really, what is the thinking and feeling behind it?
And just to give one more example that I’m just going to lay out exactly what the annual snapshot is, I’ve already been talking around it when it came to earlier this year for me, a realization I’ve had in my business, or something that I’ve had awareness over, is that something that will help the business grow is having more people come into my world. So some people call this lead generation. Other people call this audience growth, other people call this marketing and traffic, so many different words for it. But what I realized had happened because of a thought and feeling pattern that I had been in, is that earlier in my business, I was very focused on lead generation and traffic and having people come into my world, but I wasn’t yet selling. I didn’t yet have the emotional capacity to sell. It just my perfectionism break came on like nothing else. I was just so scared of rejection and judging myself and all the different things.
So I wasn’t yet in a position where I was willing to sell, but I was willing, and I had developed the willingness to be seen, to be visible, to build an audience, to create my own concepts, to be saying things. And so I was building an audience here, on the podcast, on my email list that I have, on my Instagram account, I had a YouTube channel at one point, I was on Snapchat. Like I’ve done all sorts of different things, Pinterest at different times, I’ve done all different ways of doing it, and then at a certain point, I decided, okay, I I’ve figured out that bit, and now I’m going to figure out selling and how to sell, and feel comfortable selling, and actually even love selling, and I want to do that work. And so I did. And so when I married the two together, I had built an audience, and then I learned how to sell. I then went into the multiple six figures per year of revenue.
But then what happened was, because of my thoughts and feelings, so important because of my thoughts and feelings, that I didn’t continue doing the things that were generating traffic for the business and new people in our world, and people hearing about pgsd and the podcast and all of that. So it meant that even though I was continuing to sell, there were just less people to sell to. So all of that to say earlier this year, I was in the thought and feeling pattern that my thought was, I need to do lead generation, and I need to reinstate lead generation, because I realized, like, I do know how to do lead generation. I’ve done it very successfully, and I was doing it all these different ways it worked, and then I stopped doing that. And what I just had this pattern of, like, something’s working, then I stop it. So I had this awareness over a pattern. And then I was like, Hey, I just need to reinstate lead generation. But I was finding myself just, like, not being able to do it. I was like, Hey, I was on Pinterest, so maybe I can do Pinterest again. And I was showing up on Instagram, so I’ll show up on Instagram again. I was doing new podcast episodes, so I’ll do that again. Like just and I had an opt in for this, and I’ll do that again, like trying to do everything, and, of course, my perfectionist brain wanting to just try and optimize it, make it all better at the same time as reinstating it.
And it just had me spinning that thought and that feeling of pressure and feeling wrong, because I had my thought was like, I stopped it and I shouldn’t have stopped it, and then when I was able to zoom out and actually see for me, the thing that worked wasn’t Pinterest as such or Instagram as such or podcasting as such. The thing that worked, and that made each of those things work for me was that I felt clear because I had the thought, I know what I’m doing, and it’s not like. I know what I’m doing, and I’m an expert at this. The thought was, I’m clear on what I’m focusing on. I’m focused on getting figuring out how to have people see my Pinterest pin, for example, back in the day, see my Pinterest pin, and then they go to my blog post, and there’s a pop up there with an opt in, and then they sign up for the opt in, and they’re on my email list. And I know what I’m doing. I’m focused on that or when I was doing my daily YouTube video. I know what I’m doing. I’m doing a YouTube video every day. I record them at the same time as I’m doing my makeup. I upload it a week after I actually did it. So like, if I miss one, it’s not a big deal. So I was just very clear on I know what I’m doing, as in, I have a plan that I can actually follow whenever I’ve been in the thought. And this is why power planning exists, because it supports that so much I have a plan that I can actually follow.
That has me feeling clear. And when I have that thought of I know what I’m doing, I have my plan that I can follow, and I feel clear the way I show up and I troubleshoot, because it’s not like that plan always effortlessly works, but the way I show up and then I troubleshoot, and I get supported, like because I’m clear on what I’m trying to do and where I’m trying to go, I have a clear goal of what I’m trying to achieve and when I’m trying to achieve it, and I want that. I’m not doing it because I should. I’m doing it because I want to when that’s all in place. Those things for lead generation worked, but it wasn’t because it was some kind of strategy magic that I’d fallen upon. It was because I was in a thought and feeling pattern that had me stick with it and figure it out. And yes, I did change to other strategies, but then I kept that thinking of like, okay, well, I’m going to figure this thing out, and as long as I’m clear, I figured it out and it worked.
So instead of me having to try and reinstate everything, I’ve been able to like, oh, actually what works for me? And this is really, like a recent, this is, why am I able to teach what I’m teaching now in this episode? Because I was like, oh, like, really, it was the thought and feeling that had me have people come into my world, was I know I know what I’m trying to do, and I know how I want to do it, and I’m going to figure out how to do it the way I want to do it. And so I could just think that again and then see what different actions flow from that, because it might not be the same as last time, but it’s the thinking and feeling that creates a result, not the action. So it’s okay if it doesn’t mean I’m on Pinterest or it doesn’t mean I’m on YouTube or wherever it is, that I can just take the thinking and then see what action that generates in this era of business for me, and in this era of like, where marketing is at and how algorithms have changed and all of that, like taking that into account, I don’t have to try and like retrofit or like force this past strategy onto my current business, but I do want to have the same thinking and feeling that created success for me.
And I have seen time and time again that a key piece of that thinking is I know what I’m doing. I.E. I’m clear on what my plan is, and I have a plan I can actually follow and figure out, and that plan is very and we’re going to do this inside pgsc for the annual forecast. That plan is very constrained. It’s very simple. It’s very clear. There’s a not to do list attached to it. Of here’s all the things I’m not going to be focusing on. I’m not trying to be everywhere at once and do everything at once, and like working very short term, I’ve zoomed out, I have an overall plan, and I’m executing it. That’s what creates so much success for me and my clients as well. And so we want to look at with this annual snapshot, what was the main thought and feeling pattern that you were in this year, and what we’re going to do it in pgsd when we go through this, I’m going to be coaching on different examples.
So you can see this taught, like from all different examples, of people who had a great year, people who had a year that felt not so great, people who achieved their goal, but it was stressful, people who didn’t achieve their goal, but loved being in their business, like all the different things. So you can really see this, and you can also understand exactly what yours is, your annual snapshot, but understanding with your year high level, there was a dominant thought you had that created a dominant feeling that then created a set of actions and inaction, and then created a result. And because I love to look at revenue as a really tangible way to do this, because you could look at all kinds of different results and things like that, but such an incredible part of business is the tangibility of revenue like you can actually look at a number that tells you something important.
And in other areas of life, save it’s like just, you know, your general satisfaction is it’s much more like esoteric, harder to like, put your hands on and rate and understand and have that measurement around. But in business, it’s not that revenue is the only thing that matters, but it is the oxygen of the business. It is the the thing that allows the business to be alive. It either needs cash flow from the business itself, or it needs cash flow from your job or an inheritance or your spouse’s income or like cash, there needs to be cash flow. This is why charities get donations. They also need cash. So whether you’re profit or non profit, or whatever your views are on that like cash is needed and revenue is needed. And if we look at your result that you created this year, and then reverse engineer, okay, what actions created that result and what inactions?
And then, okay, what was the feeling behind them? And then, what was the thought behind that? And again, you’re going to have so many different thoughts, so many different feelings. We’re looking for what’s like, the dominant overall, like if the year was a book and it had us had a title on it, on the front cover, what was the title of your book? Was it I’m behind? Was it I should already have a full time business and I don’t? And then you felt inadequate, and then everything you tried was from a place of inadequacy, so you probably didn’t then create an adequate result. Or if you did, you really didn’t like how it felt to do that. So we want to understand what that dominant thought is that created a dominant feeling that then had you taking action and not taking action in certain ways, which then created the result. And we want to understand as well in the context of that.
So if you look at the circumstance that you’re having, the thought about this comes before the thought there’s a circumstance in the world that you were thinking about. It might just be your business in general. It might be that you did have a specific have a specific goal, like if you’re inside perfectionist getting shit done, and you have a growth goal, or even if you have a momentum project, that you have something you were thinking about. So we identify as well, and in pgsd will do that, because oftentimes our perfectionist brains, like I have thoughts, I don’t know exactly what I’m thinking about when I think them, but I have thoughts. I just don’t know how to separate out the thoughts, like the drama, the story, from the fact. So we will do that together. I won’t go into that in this episode, as it’s not essential to this for me to teach this right now.
So we want to really understand that what was your main thought and your main feeling that created the result, and the actions and inactions are really much of a muchness, because if we look at what creates results, and I’ve been talking about this, I mean, since day one of this podcast, but I’ve been talking about it more explicitly in the last few episodes as well, that your thoughts are what create your results, and the feeling that comes from those thoughts that then impacts the way you take action. And one of our PGSDers on that thread that I posted about, how did you feel about 2025 and how are you thinking about 2026 and she had shared about, and maybe I mentioned this in the last episode too, but she had shared about, I was just reading it this morning, that she was doing the same strategy this year as before, which was posting on LinkedIn four times, inviting people to like a meet and greet call. She’s a career coach, and then signing clients. She had been doing that before, but it hadn’t been working, and then she changed her main thought and feeling about it, and she has been to a lot of coaching calls watch replays, like being doing the pgsd process and getting support.
And so her dominant thought and feeling has changed. And so her same strategy that she was doing that hadn’t been working started working because of the thought and feeling behind it, because she’s feeling so much more connected and convicted and compelled. She then says different things in the post, not from a place of, I need to say the right words, or, like, I gotta say the hook, and then I gotta say a little story, and then I gotta say the CTA. Like, that’s how we think when we’re in that trying to get it right cycle, when we’re in that insufficiency of I have to get it right and optimize, but then we end up taking insufficient action and creating insufficient results. I talked about that in the episode on how to get into a sufficiency cycle. We want to be in the sufficiency cycle, which is what my client that I’m talking about got into, where she shifted her thinking and feeling and then could just execute the same strategy and create a different result.
And it’s the same for me. If you look at my business, I’ve had this podcast since 2017 but I have got wildly different results in terms of revenue based on how I’m thinking and feeling when I record the episode. And doesn’t mean I’m always feeling positive. It doesn’t mean I’m always feeling inspired, but when I’m feeling connected, when I’m feeling convicted, when I’m feeling clear, when I’m feeling compelled, that is when it translates, when I’m trying to get it right, when I’m trying to say the right. Thing when I’m trying to be more articulate, when I’m trying to be more strategic, when I’m trying to optimize, that is when the episodes don’t connect and don’t create the result. Even though I’m working, it’s so much harder for me to create that kind of episode. It’s so much harder for me, like so much more work to try and be strategic about it and optimize it, than to just let myself chat like this episode.
I just was like, literally 30 minutes before recording. How could I teach this concept, like, what name could I give it? How can I bring this together? I did a little bit of thinking about it. I wrote out three bullet points, and then I chat like that. For me, is what works. I know what I’m doing. I know how to invite you into pgsd. I know how to talk about mindset in a way that resonates with you. I know how you think like there’s so much I know, and when I’m in sufficiency, I’m really focused on what I do know. And if I don’t know something, I just fill the information gap. It’s not a dramatic thing. I just get the information needed. I don’t spin, I don’t procrastina-learn and procrastinati-research just like, oh, there’s this thing I don’t know. Let me just solve for that. So that is what we’re going to be doing in the annual snapshot call. We are going to have you identify your annual snapshot, and it is going to be the most illuminating thing you have done all year.
Because I know I do this with PGSDers on calls, like every call we have, we’re doing some version of this, just a different context. And it is just going from feeling like you have to try harder and be better and be more motivated and get the right strategy, and finally, like, nail the niche and all the different things, to like, Oh, I get it, and I know, and here’s how I just shift, which is also what we teach inside PGSD, is like, well, yeah, you have awareness, but then, like, how do you get into I’m going to talk about in part two, the annual forecast. How do I get into the thinking and feeling I want, but just having the awareness alone, which most people never have, we’re not taught this, that it’s your thoughts and feelings that create the result. It’s not just the actions that once you have the awareness that alone is often enough to create the shift.
And if it isn’t, we can then just do very specific, simple work to have you shift into a different thought and feeling pattern, like I was saying with my client, who was like, Oh, I’m literally doing the same actions, but I’m getting incredibly different results in my revenue and in how many clients I’m signing and how I feel about my business, just because of exactly what I’m talking about, her being able to understand, oh, this is the thinking and feeling that has been running my LinkedIn strategy. Oh, and now this is me shifting into the different thinking and feeling. And it, it works. It’s like, it’s, it’s what I want to say, like psychology, like the law of the universe, essentially, like your thoughts are a self fulfilling prophecy. And so if you don’t know what your thought was, that self fulfilled in 2025 then either if you liked how it’s self fulfilled, you can’t really replicate it, or if you don’t like how it’s self fulfilled, then you will unconsciously just repeat it.
And for me, like in 2022 because I said I’d give this example, then I will wrap up. In 2022 my main thought of I know what I’m doing, even though I didn’t feel day to day like things were working, but I had that clear, as I mentioned, like I know what my plan is. I had all of the launch dates for pgsd mapped out. I knew that I’m just selling pgsd. I’m not doing any one on ones. I’m not doing I had all this like stuff I’m not doing. All I’m doing is selling pgsd through the podcast and Instagram and email, with the main priority on the podcast, I’m doing a five part podcast series. I made that up. No one told me to do that. I just people already listened to my podcast. Why didn’t I just do a five part series to invite them in talk about a topic I’m really excited to talk about? So I just made up my plan. I didn’t go hunting for this perfect strategy. I made it up. I stuck with it. I troubleshot it from the thought of, I know what I’m doing.
And then towards the end of 2022, with the fact that this is so important to like, part of my circumstantial change was I was about to give birth to twins, and I already had a toddler, and so all of that uncertainty, like the way that part of the way that I tolerated that was by creating, essentially, like trying to keep the business small, unconsciously because I consciously wanted to grow, and making decisions that then made it hard for the business to go into a period of uncertainty. It just like, kept things small and certain. And part of that thinking was, I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to marketing and sales. Even though I literally had my most successful year ever in selling, my thought was, this is just why it’s so important to know. Like, just because, like, when people like, when people like, oh, you know, once you’re successful, then you’ll and I talked about this last episode I think. Once you’re successful, then you’ll feel confident. Well, no, or imposter syndrome wouldn’t exist, but there are so many people who have a lot of success and do not feel confident. It’s not a given. That’s just not how it works.
So I’d had my most successful year, and then my thought was, I’ve gotten us as far as I can take us. I need to have a marketing manager who actually knows what they’re doing, because I don’t know what I’m doing, and just like that, with that thought like, that was my dominant then thought and feeling for 2023 was, like, downstream from that was okay. We have to figure out the messaging, we have to figure out the launch format, and we have to, like, just all these have tos and shoulds from this thought error of, I’m not the person to lead the marketing and sales anymore. Instead of, like, oh, wow, I just had a killer year. Maybe I’m the best person to keep leading it, and maybe I do know what I’m doing. But I had just gone from like one line of thinking with because I didn’t see the thinking that created that year and that result, I then switched into a different flavor of thinking, which felt true. I just need to figure out the messaging. Even though I had literally figured that out, I had literally figured out the messaging the pgsd in 2022 and I spent the whole of 2023 trying to figure out the messaging and trying to figure out how to launch when I literally figured that I just didn’t have my annual snapshot, and so it’s only doing a lot of reflection on that period and trying to be like, what went on there that I can see, oh, this is how I was thinking and feeling in 2022 for the most part, the dominant thought and feeling.
And this is how I was thinking in 2023 and that is what created the difference. And then now I’ve just been able to switch back with that awareness into the thinking that I had before. And this is what we’re going to be going through in the annual forecast. Is looking at when you know what you’re doing again, it’s not, I’m an expert at it. I’m perfect at it. It’s like, I’m clear on where I’m going, and I’m clear on what I’m going to do to get there, and I’m clear on what I’m not going to do. So important, you’ve got to have a not to do list. You’ve got to have an opt to do list. If you’re a perfectionist, your brain will want to latch on to every little Oh, this person’s doing that, oh, this person’s doing that. And you’re an entrepreneur, so you have a million ideas. So having that constraint creates clarity. That’s so important, we want to have your annual forecast, and I’ll walk you through what that is in the next episode. And we do the work in pgsd, so join us. But you want to have your annual snapshot, and then do your annual forecast, and then from having the annual forecast, an action that will flow from you doing that is that you will then set your growth goal for the year.
And in pgsd, we teach you how to set your growth goal, but that comes after you identify the thought and feeling that’s going to create the result that you want to create. So I invite you to listen to that episode, the annual forecast, and I want to invite you into pgsd to do this with us. Oh my god, I’m so excited to teach this to have a name for it, to guide everyone through this, and to really have this just completely shift how maybe you haven’t been debriefing on the year, so this alone is going to be a game changer, but maybe you have, and you’ve just been doing a bunch of different journaling prompts, and it’s it’s so lovely to reflect, and I get it, and, this annual snapshot is the most tangible way that you can quite quickly as well. It doesn’t take a whole day to do it. The most tangible way that you can really capture and get a snapshot of tangibly speaking, how you created, the results you created in 2025 so that next year, we can use that same tool to be able to create a forecast, so that you have the thought and feeling in view that you want to have, so you have awareness over exactly what that looks like. It’s just, it’s everything. It’s just like the core of of what I do.
It’s the core of how change is created. It’s the core of how to go from being in a situation your business that you don’t want to be to being in the situation you do want to be. If you want to have a full time income or hit 100k or a million, or whatever it is that you want to do in your business. And for the people I work with, they want to do that, typically. In part time hours or constrained working hours. They have other stuff they want to do in their life. You don’t want to burn out. You don’t want to do things that aren’t in alignment with your values like you want to actually be you want to be you as you build your business. You want to feel more like you, not less like you. So that’s what we do in pgsd, and this, I’m just so excited to teach it and to coach our PGSDers on it and implement it and have this be such a powerful guiding force for the coming year, and it’ll be something we continue to talk about as well. So with that said, join us in pgsd. Doors are closing at 6pm eastern time on the 15th of December, so like very soon. And also listen to part two on the annual forecast, which is going to detail how to do your annual forecast for 2026 what that is, why it matters. And yeah, I’m going to walk you through that in that episode. So with that said, I hope you’re having a beautiful day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.