#91 - A Year in Business and Craft; my Tools for Reflection

SUMMARY
Hi friends! I’m wrapping up the year with a heartfelt reflection on growth, creativity, and intentional living. I share how tools like Bullet Journaling and the Year Compass help me process my year, lessons I’ve learned about overcoming self-doubt, and the joy I’ve found in crafting as therapy. Looking to 2025, I’m excited (and a little nervous!) to start a “no-buy year” to encourage mindful consumption. On the business side, I’ll focus on refining what I’ve built instead of chasing the next big thing. Join me for a mix of vulnerability, inspiration, and practical tips as we reflect and grow together.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Reflection and Planning in Slow Fashion
• 17:08 Yearly Reflection and Personal Growth
• 26:34 Crafting, No-Buy Year, Business Reframing
• 36:29 Listener Gratitude and Community Connection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, lovely listener, welcome, or welcome back to Pattern Shift, the podcast where we explore the intersections of needlecraft, slow fashion and running a business that is as balanced as the stitches in your favorite piece. Okay, that is horrible. What we basically do here is we talk about running small businesses in slow fashion and how I can support you with that, because I believe in marketing, branding and selling in an ethical way and building your business in a way that really just respects your boundaries and knows about your values and what you need. And, yeah, just running a business so that you can still enjoy actually crafting and the rest of your life and all of that kind of thing. So that's what we do here. Welcome, I'm so excited that you're here.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I'm actually recording this for the second time. I don't know what's been going on lately, but I think my hard disk must be too full or something and things are going wrong. It's fine, though. I prepared this. I have some sort of a script in front of me that I can. What do you call that? Riff-off-off, riff-off-off, riff-off-off, riff-off-off, scruff-ruffle, scruff-off-all. Anyway, I can use the words that are in front of me to basically tell the whole thing again, and it's actually probably good, because then it really helps me. The whole thing is about reflection anyway, end of the year reflection, the tools that I use to do that, how helpful they are to me and, hopefully, how helpful they can be to you. So we're reflecting on the reflection that I've done earlier and it's just basically like filtering coffee, which can't be anything but good, right? So positive vibes, welcome, welcome, welcome. It's the end of the year? Well, not really, but it feels like it doesn't it? It just really feels like it's the end of the year, like it's the end of the year, and for me it does, and that brings me into a certain vibe. I usually take two to three weeks to really reflect on what's been happening, and I have a few tools that I use for that. I go into this mental state of being all calm and collected and reflective and journaling and doing all the things to process what's been happening to me and what I've learned from that and how I will use that to take with me in the future, and I hope this helps you too. So some really cool ideas in this episode, some free things to download for you as well, that can be helpful. So sit tight, get something cozy, get your craft of choice, your warm beverage of choice, and settle in and settle in.

Speaker 1: 3:23

So, first of all, I want to start by sharing my tools for reflection on the year. I cannot tell this story without mentioning my bullet journal, my beloved bullet journal. In fact, I'm happy that I'm doing this for the second time now, because earlier today, when I was recording this, I went into this whole kind of love letter to bullet journaling, which might have been fun, interesting or completely weird. So let's keep it a little bit more focused now. I love the bullet journal. Here I go again.

Speaker 1: 4:05

It is my day-to-day tool throughout the year that helps me be mindful and productive and combine these things into focusing on what my intentions and goals are for my life, myself, my business, everything and by the end of the year it becomes this incredible record of everything that I've done accomplished big, small, messed up even and I can look back at my spreads and my notes and I can see patterns and moments of growth and even things I'd like to improve on Bunch of them, actually. So I've got my new bullet journal ready in front of me. I'm going to just say this right away If you like 10% discount on bullet journal products. You can get them with a link that I share in the show notes and on my website, patternshiftfm. If you have any questions about it, you can always email me. I love to hear from you so that out of the way, focusing back on what it actually does for me. So I'm not going to talk about what the whole bullet journal system is. That's something for another episode. I really should, really should, do that a full bullet journal episode and I will. If you want to learn how to do it, I do workshops. I'm actually the first official bullet journal trainer in the Netherlands and I speak both Dutch and English and also some other languages, but I'm not sure if I could teach that in those languages. So, yeah, you are very welcome to go on my website and learn more about that.

Speaker 1: 5:54

But today we are going to talk about how I use the bullet journal for reflecting on the year. So can you hear this? These are the pages, so I'm going to open it up and then the biggest thing, or not the biggest thing? It's part of a whole ritual, but I'll share with you one part of it that I think will be useful for you, even if you're not a bullet journalist, even if you don't use it, you can do this anyway.

Speaker 1: 6:26

So open up a journal in a spread and if you open it up into empty pages, that's what they call a spread an empty page on the left hand side and one on the right hand side. So add the year on top of in the middle of those two pages somewhere, and then on the left-hand side, you divide the page into two. The right-hand side page you also divide into two, leaving you with four equal parts Top left-hand side, you write worked. Bottom left-hand side, you write didn't work. That talks about the process. And then on the right-hand page, you are going to focus on the purpose or your purpose, and you will write more of on the top right-hand side and less of on the right bottom side.

Speaker 1: 7:25

I'm so confused now I hope you are following and then you basically collect your thoughts, you think about it, you think about the year, you go through your calendar your photos are actually really helpful for reflection on the year you sit down with friends, you get into this stage of really thinking about the year and then you write down what worked for you and what didn't work for you, what you want more of and what you want less of. So I'll give you some examples from my list here. So I hope that is helpful for you and I'll just give a few, because I can get really lengthy with these things I've noticed and you might have too. So what worked for me is to set better boundaries. What worked for me is to visit festivals as a customer and talking to people and building relationships with businesses. That was really helpful for my business.

Speaker 1: 8:30

What also worked for me is organizing my home room per room and not necessarily month per month. That is in the section didn't work. What also worked for me is going to bed at 10 o'clock as consistently as possible, because that is just the beginning of a circle. That is the most healthy for me. Going to bed on time means waking up rested, means having enough energy to have a decent breakfast, means having enough energy to work through my phases of hyperfocus and not getting totally dehydrated and starved so that I will overeat by the evening. Too much information, I know, but these are the things that you start to see patterns when you use a journal and I've noticed that just going too bad on time is the beginning of the solution for a lot of things.

Speaker 1: 11:03

So what didn't work for me was I tried the building a second brain thing with the Para dashboard. Don't know if that says something to you, doesn't really matter. It didn't really work for me. It was fun in the moment, but after that it just kind of yeah, didn't really. I might go back to it one day.

Speaker 1: 11:29

What didn't work for me is oh, this is an interesting one Sending consistent newsletters. This is something that the marketing people always say consistent, consistent, consistent and it's just just not working for me, and I wish it was. No, I actually don't. This is something I learned. It's not working for me. And remember, marketing is just trying different things out and see what works for you and your customer. I think it will work for my customer to have consistent newsletters, but I feel like I've really there's some moments where I'm really into it and some moments when I'm not.

Speaker 1: 12:10

So what I need, completely turning this into a learning moment is to use those moments when I'm really wanting to write and in that vibe, to write a couple of them and just plan them out and not wait, and that's what I already know that works. That's also what I often share with people that doing a lot of things at the same time. It's kind of also it has also to do with figuring out where your energy peaks are, and those things are all connected. So that's kind of a journey where you some things work and some things don't, and figuring out why doesn't it work. Are you writing your emails too long, and is that why you kind of are looking, you're dreading to write it because it's just too much work at that moment? Can you change it into a different format? So that's what I'll be thinking about in the next couple of months and how to make that work better for me and you, of course.

Speaker 1: 13:25

So what do I want more of? I want to see more movies in the theater and not only at home. I want more of not buying new things. I will get to that in a minute. I also want more of yeah, more festival visits and shop visits and connecting with shop owners and small businesses like yours. And I want less of everything Less gluten, just less, just making things smaller, just not hopping onto everything. That tickles my fancy in the moment, which is going to be hard, because I might have shared this with you.

Speaker 1: 14:14

I got the official ADHD diagnosis this year and now everything makes sense, so it's hard for me to stay focused on one thing for a long time, or it is super easy, depending on what it is and so I want less of everything, everything, and less of worrying, and also less of YouTube, because I seem to have replaced Instagram with YouTube there. So there you go. I will dip in and out of Instagram, by the way, every now and then, just to see if somebody's sending me an important or a nice message, and then I will click a heart here and there and then I'll quietly leave again or share that I have a new episode, but that's basically all I am doing on Instagram. I don't feel the need to scroll as much or not as much at all, but now YouTube has taken that role, so there's another thing to battle in 2025. Right, moving on swiftly.

Speaker 1: 15:16

Moving on swiftly this was one of the things that the bullet journal helps me with to go through my whole journal and look at the bullets. There's a way that you can scan your journal and really quickly can see what you felt like in a certain month, what you accomplished, what things were hard for you. The way it's set up is you really really can scan and find the story of your year quite quickly, even though it's not going to be an hour. I mean, the process of reflecting is just a longer process. You also kind of have to walk around with the ideas and let it sink in and then think about it, and all of that. So bullet journal one Next thing is long form journaling, like the morning pages that Julia Cameron writes about in the artist's way. That was also super helpful for me and I kept them as a practice, not necessarily every day, but every time I need to really go deep and figure something out, to find out what it is that I actually think. And sometimes I do that by writing, and sometimes it doesn't work writing and then I simply speak into my phone using the app ottercom not sponsored and that can be really helpful because that is a tool that records meetings and gives you a summary of your meeting and your task list, and it's also really helpful to kind of organize your thoughts, and I need that sometimes. So that's what I use as well. And the last thing I want to talk about is my.

Speaker 1: 17:08

One of the things that I look forward to at the end of the year is the year compass. A group of people have built this tool that is amazing and I keep sharing with people every year. I've done it with a group of friends before and it is transformational. It is a little booklet that you can print out it's free, by the way, totally free and half of the booklet focuses on the past year and the other half focuses on what's to come. It asks you questions, it has you go through your calendar and write things down and it's similarly to the bullet journal gives you a full view, panoramic view, of your year. You have to sit down to do it, you have to take some time, it takes some effort, but it's really really helpful, and so these are my favorite tools that I use, and if you want to know what they are, go to, perhaps, and shiftfm for information in the show notes. So in the end, there's three main questions that I focus on at the end of the year with these tools and with this moment of reflection, and that is one, what went well this year? Two, what didn't go as planned and what did I learn from it. And three, what do I want to carry forward into the next year. So these tools helped me uncover something really personal this year.

Speaker 1: 18:51

I'm still in reflection mode. I haven't finished, and I was talking to a friend the other day and because with this on my mind, I started to talk about it and then I realized something that was really quite profound and it's kind of hard to share it, but I think it's important and I'm feeling kind of like my cheeks are becoming red. I'm kind of blushing because, yeah, it's, it's it's not easy to to talk about, but come on, let's go. So sometimes I really can, can get uh disheartened. Um, it feels like the.

Speaker 1: 19:34

The vision I have and the mission that I'm on uh are too large. It's too big. I won't never be able to find enough business owners to help them make a change in the world, or aspiring entrepreneurs who truly see the importance of what I'm talking about and what I have to offer. And when they actually do, I wonder if they will find it worth their time and money. And I end up feeling a little bit like a fraud, because who am I to teach about marketing and branding and selling when I only have a really small community myself? If the people aren't lining up to work with me, does that mean that I'm failing? But then, through my reflection, I realized something and it was quite amazing. It's quite powerful.

Speaker 1: 20:30

I've actually been fully practicing what I preach. I live and work according to my values and boundaries and I keep my goals in mind, and the result is that I've created a super loving and warm community an actual community, not a marketing buzzword, where people or people where businesses talk about community and you like, subscribe to our newsletter and become part of our community. That's not a community, but I've created a community that is full of people that genuinely help each other, support each other, are open to all kinds of conversations, find each other in things they have in common ideas that they share, specific things in their life that are going on all that kind of thing and this year I actually gained new customers for all of the products that I offer. So I was able to serve people and be there for them, even when I was going through a rough time for a few months, and all of that is because I've set my business up to function with my needs and my boundaries in mind. Exactly what I'm teaching and money has never been the main drive of my business, though I do stand by the line your business is not your hobby, and for me, the amount of profit I make is not nearly as important as the amount of support I can offer, and so I can look back on this year and really say it's been a successful year, because it does fully align with my personal definition of success.

Speaker 1: 22:27

And those I'm imagining like a Harry Potter scene here, like the dark voices that whisper to me it's not enough. That's not really true. Those voices are how should I say that? They're kind of echoes of a society and a way of working that I don't even subscribe to. So next year, one of my goals is to quiet those voices and to really trust that what I'm building is enough, or more than enough, because it is built according to what I think is important. And that was such a deep, deep insight I got from my reflecting, and it was more than an insight, it was kind of it felt like I was comforting myself, my dark voices, with just doing the job that I'm doing, like it was quite meta.

Speaker 1: 23:33

Anyways, let's get a little bit more practical again, shall we? So, this year, my personal crafting projects, and what was I able to do? And how do I reflect on a year of crafting and making my own wardrobe? Well, one of the things that I did in the process is. I made lists of this year. One of those lists is a list of projects that I finished, and in the earlier recording that I did for this episode, I was going through all of them and that is perhaps a little bit too long winded, but, at the same time, how do I? How do I? How would I otherwise do it? Um, I just made so many things. I made a lot of things a dress, um, my ski pants, uh, another pair of pants. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna list them all again Lots of things that I loved making, the things that I needed, and, um, making the things that I needed and things that I did for the first time and learned a lot from.

Speaker 1: 24:57

I used the pattern blocks that I learned to make from my own body measurements and I used them to make a dress and a pair of pants, and my ski pants as well. They're all based on my body measurements and not based on existing patterns, which I thought was amazing and so empowering. And it feels so good to be able to dress your body instead of what would it be instead? Like, feels like it's something the other way around, like, put your body into something that has been made. You see, that's kind of and then using patterns feels like the in-between from that and I felt like it really felt good to kind of skip the step of using a pre-made pattern but kind of design it yourself. And I won't say that I can replicate all of that now, because that is just really hard on my brain. I have a teacher. She's amazing and she takes me through the steps and I just have to do it a lot of times before I can do it myself, but I did it anyway and I have grown my wardrobe with things that I love and needed and, yeah, and I've learned how to spin flax into linen, which was amazing. As a result of that, I'm going to grow my own flax in the next year, which is something I'm looking forward to, and I'm really curious about and also a little bit scared. I don't know why I'm scared, but you know, never know.

Speaker 1: 26:35

I made weird things, like I crocheted a dice back for my eldest daughter. I have learned to do clay hand building is what they call it. I think. I've learned how to make a quilt, which is something I didn't know how to do, and now I do, and I'm probably not going to add that to my regular hobbies. But I do have a set of wonderful, really pretty William Morris Christmas quilt cotton that's the word, I think so at one point perhaps next year, perhaps another year, I don't know that is going to be a quilt and I know how to do it now and that was great, so just bringing that all together.

Speaker 1: 27:23

This year has been a lot about crafting. As I said before, I was struggling with my health and coming to terms with my diagnosis and I just had a rough couple of months and I had no energy and motivation was really hard and I felt like nothing interests me and that is not like a normal place for me to be at all, although I did have. I do have moments like definitely have had moments over the years when I felt really low, even depressed, and now I can turn to crafting, which was so amazing. And crafting is like meditation and I need both of it, both of them but it's hard for me to remember to meditate every day. I need to find a way to put that into my routine. I'm not there yet that's another thing for 2025.

Speaker 1: 28:31

But the crafting has helped me to take time for myself and rest and I can do that while I'm crafting because I feel like I'm. There's a lot of fireworks. I don't know if you can hear them. Yeah, I think you'll be able to hear them. I'm just going to go on and talk. This is the second recording and I think that's enough for a day.

Speaker 1: 29:00

So the crafting really helped me to relax and to take time to rest because I feel like I'm doing something. I feel like I'm like it's. It's like they had something in the in the Catholic Church that I learned about in school A flat brief, yes, they call it in Dutch, which is you pay the church so that you don't have to feel the guilt for something. So I am almost feeling like working on craft is like I'm working, so I don't have to feel guilty for sitting on the couch and watching a movie, because I'm also producing something which is really helpful. I mean, it's probably not fully, fully healthy, I don't care. It was helpful. So, yeah, that's about my crafting this year and loved it. Visited a couple of festivals, couple of places. It was amazing. So Berlin wool weekend, the wedding wool weekend, and helped Lisette of Schapendraak with two festivals that she was on and I was helping in the stand in the booth, and that was extremely tiring if you're not used to it anymore, but also very, very fun if you're not used to it anymore, but also very, very fun.

Speaker 1: 30:30

So, looking ahead, I am going to do a thing that I've done before, and if I'm going to say it out loud, I'm going to have to do it. So I'm well aware of that, but I think I'm ready. Actually, it's not about being ready, it's definitely. It's a choice. I've done it before and it felt really great and I want to do it again.

Speaker 1: 30:46

I want to do another year of not buying anything, and that means not buying anything for me personally doesn't include my family and everything the stuff that we need for our family and my kids. It doesn't include personal hygiene items and other things, but it does include the things that I have been buying in the last couple of years, and it's not been a huge amount. But what I've been noticing is that I have been buying different kinds of shoes via Vinted and I think, honestly, I'm very disappointed, but I think about 80% didn't fit, wasn't comfortable, wasn't what I expected, all of that. So I don't want to do that anymore. In one way, I feel that I buy things that are already there. I don't want to buy new things from the shop, but I do want to be able to wear them and not having to send them over across Europe again. I mean, yeah, that's something I really need to think a little bit about.

Speaker 1: 32:08

I have enough shoes for the coming year. I don't need anything else. So I'm good there. I have enough yarn. I have enough fiber. What's the word? Textiles no, cloth, no, no, uh. Cloth, no, uh. Geez, what is it? Wool no, the stuff you use for sewing. It's too late if it's past four o'clock I'm done and it's 4 23. Fabrics Thank you very much. Got enough fabrics for making things. I've got enough books to read.

Speaker 1: 32:52

And the things that I have been buying is when I get into these rabbit holes, into these things that I temporarily focus on. They usually come back in another year or part of the year and it's usually the same kinds of things. So it's skincare, makeup, fountain pens and obviously, everything needle craft. Those are my focus areas and rabbit hole issues, and sometimes I tend to buy things that I don't need from those um yeah, from those topics areas. So, a year of not buying anything, and I uh already know that how. I hope that it will have the same effect as it did four years ago.

Speaker 1: 33:45

I did it then because I moved house and I felt so spoiled with the house I was living in and how we were able to make it look great and cozy and beautiful, and feeling that spoiled. I wanted to kind of stretch that feeling and so I enjoyed what I had for a year without adding anything to it, and it was just very, very mindful. It was very easy on the brain because you don't get all of those choices that you have to make or the research that you have to do that I tend to do. I tend to do a lot of research before I buy anything and then I leave a website again and then I do another session of research and it just takes a lot of time and effort and it's just really easy to just not buy anything. So, yeah, that is going to be interesting, that's going to happen for next year and it's also going to. That kind of mindset is also going to hopefully help me reframe how I approach my business.

Speaker 1: 35:03

So I tend to constantly want to try new things, because that is what I did. The cortisol is just. It's just this, not cortisol, it's a dopamine type hunt where I'm like, ooh, I love this new idea. I love the way people do this. Can I do this? Can I use this kind of app? Can I use this website? But I already built a bunch of amazing things a course and a membership and a community and everything. This year, I want to use what I have and work on the quality, not the quantity, of things, and it's going to be hard. It's going to be so hard for me because I'm going to have to find that rush somewhere else and I'm not sure what that'll be, so bear with me there.

Speaker 1: 36:01

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. By the way, have you ever tried a no-buy year? Are you considering something like that? Just drop me a message, let me know what you think and we'll talk about it in the community as well. So, yeah, I really want to know what are your experiences with things like this. So, before we wrap up, I want to say thank you.

Speaker 1: 36:29

If this has been your first episode you ever listened to or you're a returning listener, perhaps you've been here ever since it was called A Smaller Life and I just want to say that your listening, your support, means so much to me. I don't ask for it a lot. This podcast is really a labor of love and it helps me to know if it helps you. So please let me know if it's helpful for you, or even just diverting fun to listen to these episodes. You can do that by sending me an email. Honestly, that is the best thing, but it's also easy to just give it a few stars and just write a little review. I am always on the lookout for what people think of the podcast, so if you could do that and could be my little Christmas present, that would be so amazing. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 37:31

Reflect on your own journey. If you want to learn how to bullet journal, just go to my website, patternshiftfm. You'll find all the information there. And yeah, come hang out in the community with us and talk about all these kinds of things and hang out with people that have nothing but love and support to give, and I can't wait to see what the new year will hold for all of us. And I might drop in an extra episode, but this also might be the last one of the year. It kind of depends on what's happening in the next couple of weeks. I don't wanna be super, super rigid about things anymore, at least not this time of year. So thank you again and have a lovely 2025. 5.