What Actually Got In Your Way This Year?
There’s something tender about reaching the midpoint of December. It isn’t quite the end of the year, yet it’s close enough that everything begins to soften: the pace, the pressure, even the way you reflect on the months behind you.
And in this quieter in-between space, you may start to see patterns you couldn’t fully recognize while you were moving at full speed: the places where you stretched, the moments you stumbled, the ways your energy drained without asking permission, and the unexpected sparks that reminded you what it feels like to be fully alive.
A Deeper Question Emerges
With that awareness comes a more honest question, one that doesn’t belong to resolutions or goal-setting lists:
What genuinely got in your way this year?
Not the tidy explanations you give others.
Not the ones you tell yourself.
The real ones.
Because the barriers that hold multi-passionate, over-capable women back are rarely the ones we point to such as “I’m busy,” “I need better systems,” and “I should be more disciplined”. These are surface symptoms, placeholders for something deeper, quieter, and far more personal.
The Barriers Beneath the Surface
The true barriers live in the subtle space between who you are now and who you’re becoming. That delicate intersection where nervous system patterns, past conditioning, identity beliefs, and self-protection quietly intersect.
They appear in the hesitation to take up space, the instinct to volunteer before you’ve checked in with yourself, the fear of choosing the wrong direction so you choose nothing at all. They show up in the tug-of-war between burnout and ambition, in the belief that success must be hard, in the pressure to perform rather than create. They hide in familiar habits like overthinking, procrastination, chaos, and often mask the deeper truths of fear, overload, unclear priorities, or the absence of sustainable structure.
Why Insight Matters
This is why insight matters, not as a motivational soundbite, but as a form of self-respect.
When you understand the truth beneath your patterns, you stop fighting yourself and start working with yourself. Insight gives context to your choices, compassion to your struggles, and direction to your growth. It turns your year from a list of frustrations into a map, one that shows where your energy leaked, where your resilience strengthened, and where something inside you was quietly asking for change.
And when you see your barriers clearly, the next step isn’t force or discipline, but instead it’s alignment. The kind of alignment that creates relief, clarity, and momentum in a way willpower never could.
A Tool to Illuminate Your Patterns
This is exactly why I created the What’s Really Holding You Back in Business? quiz, to help you identify the underlying pattern shaping your year. Not to diagnose or label, but to give language to what you’ve been quietly circling: the real reason you’ve felt stuck, scattered, overwhelmed, or unsure.
Maybe your barrier is clarity, maybe it’s confidence or lack of structure. Or maybe it’s your emotional bandwidth or perfectionism disguised as preparation.
Whatever it is, naming it isn’t an ending, it’s a beginning. It’s a step toward self-trust and the foundation of a year that doesn’t repeat the last one.
Barriers Have a History
What I’ve seen in myself, in the women I coach, in the patterns that repeat quietly over time, is that these barriers don’t suddenly appear in December. They’ve been with you since spring, last year, or even earlier. They’ve shaped how you plan, rest, make decisions, protect your energy, and show up in relationships and work.
This week is not about fixing your barrier, it’s about recognizing it.
Before You Let Go, You Must Understand What You’re Holding
Next week, we’ll talk about the kind of release that creates real space; the emotional unburdening that lets you step into a new year without dragging old patterns behind you. But before you can set something down, you first have to see it clearly. You have to understand what you’ve been holding, how long you’ve been holding it, and why it has felt so heavy.
That’s where this week’s reflection comes in.
So before you move onto something else, take What’s Really Holding You Back in Business? quiz.
Let it reveal the pattern that’s been shaping your decisions, your energy, and your momentum.
Let it give language to the truth you’ve been sensing all year.
Let it show you the kind of support and structure that fits you, the way you think, the way you process, the way you work.
Because growth isn’t created by forcing yourself to change.
It comes from aligning your actions with who you are and what you need.
Let this be the week where things become clearer, the week where the year finally makes sense in a way it didn’t while you were living it. Your next chapter begins with that understanding.
Ready to Move Forward with Intention?
✨ Book a Clarity & Strategy Call to explore where your energy has been and where you want it to go next.
✨ Learn more about the Blueprint for Balanced Living VIP Coaching Program designed for those ready to align their next chapter with what truly matters.
✨Check out the 2025 Holiday Specials to help support closing up 2025, and starting the new year strong and with growth in mind!
You don’t have to do this alone!
