Noticing

diane terry
Jan 4
7 min read

January 2026: Bliss, Bravery, and Beautiful Souls

Dear Readers,

While it seems the rest of the world is intent on goal setting and planning this week, this year feels really different to me. While I wholeheartedly still believe in looking back at your past year and knowing your numbers, your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, for me this year is more about what not to do. (All our business planning was done back in November.)

For example, in what universe would I not publish this blog “on time” until now. Whose "on time" am I trying to live up to? This is one of the many things I realized this year:

That I am fundamentally too hard on myself on many things that really don’t matter.
That I could lighten up a little and the world is not going to fall apart.
No one is going to think less of me.
Even more accurately no one is even paying attention. Amen.

Here are the things I will be doing differently this year.

When we were in Japan on vacation, we woke up when our bodies told us to. And once we were over the jet lag, there were mornings we slept in till 0700 and I could not believe it. No more 0500 Club. Why? I don’t have Littles to get off to school. I don’t need to eek out Me Time. My life is now primarily Me Time and work brings me immense joy. So unless I have a pressing need, I plan to get up when I want.

This blog could go out as it should have on January 1 but did it have to? Probably not. This is not a paid Substack. I think it is more important to take my time to say what I want than to get it out “on the first”.

I used to always say how you show up in one place, is how people perceive you to be everywhere. Well yes, that is still fundamentally true, but I think I have decades worth of consistency with most folks that overrides the stuff that doesn’t matter.

My solid 5 x 8 practice that I have had since the beginning of Covid will undergo a revamp. If you don’t know, my 5 x 8 practice is to encourage 5 people by 8 a.m. The purpose is to send out the energy of encouragement before my day begins. Does it have to be 5 daily? Does it have to be by 8? Probably not. Some days it may be more or less and it might be by 9 and not 8. But the point is I want to lose rigidity over the things that don’t matter. People like me, who are supreme control freaks, are reacting to something that happened in childhood. Well I am hardly a child any more. Onward!

I do love my recent practice of writing down three new ideas or things that I learned. I get great pleasure going back over the pages and realizing all the new things I now know that I did not know a week earlier. But I won’t be beating myself up if I miss a day.

On Dec 29th I was feeling like I did not accomplish a darned thing this year. Um, why are we all so hard on ourselves? I decided to talk to myself as I would my coaching client. How about if we get a legal pad and just scroll through your 2025 photos. As we do, let’s just jot down things you did that required bravery. How about a bliss column? How do you experience true bliss? Who were the beautiful people who were notable in your life in 2025? Oh! Well now! That took over three hours! Something must have been good! Lol. There is something to be said about actually writing it all down.

From there, I ask, when you started the year, how did you want to feel at the end of the year. I see that my goal was peace and serenity. While neither is fully true with the state of our country, in what I can control, I have made great strides towards feeling serene and peaceful. So more of that please!

By the time you reach my age, of 66, you have a pretty clear idea of what brings you joy and while I am always up for trying some new things, I think it is important to pre-plan opportunities for that joy to be able to happen. In business planning, we call these the Big Rocks. When I am coaching, I ask to see someone’s planner for the year. If I cannot see where the strategies that support the goals are not broken down into tactics that live on a calendar with a firm date and time and who is responsible for it happening, guess what folks? It usually doesn’t happen. After the mandatory clock hours, birthdays, anniversaries, school holidays, doctors and dentist appointments are put down, how are you going to make sure what makes you deeply happy has the room to happen? You plan it into your year. For me that means a minimum of a day and night with my Realtor friend, Kristin Stavros from Whidbey. Last year we got TWO days in. She treated me to a floral class and she came to the city for a Sushi Suzuki dinner. I know that makes me deeply happy. Most of my bliss moments are around flowers and food. I think what I appreciate about Kristin is she asks for my opinion and then actually listens. She may not agree and we have room for that but she is not spending her time with me trying to impress me with all that she is but rather really wants my input. That is actually quite rare. Most people think they are listening but they are just waiting for their turn to speak. If my friend Peggy is coming into town, I know a few hours around my kitchen table and a great fresh salad is just what is called for. My friend Todd knows that a nice dinner to which he gallantly chauffeurs me to and from is pure bliss for this gal. So find YOUR bliss but schedule it in. Otherwise the year WILL get away from you.

Now you may notice the title of this blog was Bliss, Bravery and Beautiful Souls. Let me now speak to the Bravery part.

I don’t know if you follow Susan Cain. I call her the cult leader of the Quiet Introverts. I am in her cult. I happen to believe that quite often the best ideas come from the most quiet people in the room but they are rarely heard from. So believe me when I tell you, when I look at my list of what I accomplished in 2025 and see that I was a guest on a podcast, taught at my favorite brokerage: Ensemble, taught the Art of Listening at Windermere Shoreline, got my Transitions Certification at M.E.A., was a guest speaker at the kick off meetings for Windermere Mt Baker, Windermere Company offices talking about Word Choices, taught the Midtown New Agents, taught the Chrissy & Lisa Team in VA via Zoom and hosted my own Transitions Workshop for 50 at the Seattle Yacht Club; that ALL required bravery. I am not a natural public speaker. I have to work very hard to put myself in front of a crowd and share my ideas with a room. But I do firmly believe deeply in my messages and so I keep trying. I am going to give myself kudos for bravery and deep gratitude for those who invited me to speak or helped me with my workshop.

The other massively brave thing I did in 2025 that I won’t linger on since I wrote about it all before was that I traveled solo to Santa Fe to study under Krista Tippett at the Modern Elder Academy. It is not something I could fathom doing alone in my wildest dreams but I did it. And along the way, beautiful souls appeared. First of all Gail, who I only know through Facebook graciously picked me up at the Albuquerque airport and drove me to Santa Fe. So generous! Then when the first day started, I very quickly felt like I was the least qualified, least accomplished attendee. I was sure they would ask me to leave after day one. It seemed everyone had advanced degrees and had authored several books and I cringed every time I was asked what I do. Yet there was an angel there named Darby Rose who was our smaller group facilitator, who created a safe space for us to share. On “Graduation Day” there was the symbolic ceremony where we go up and get our “diploma” and Chip Conley whispers something different in each of our ears. I am such a cynic I was sure he was whispering the same damned thing to us all. And besides with my hearing loss, I probably wouldn’t be able to capture what he said anyways. But my name was called and I went up there and low and behold, I could hear his whisper in my bad ear, crystal clear. He said, “When you speak, everyone listens.” Oh!

I quickly realized that underneath it all we are all human. All very beautiful souls. Two in particular at MEA gave me great confidence in my worth. These Elders spoke to me in the way my precious Other Mothers, who have all passed now, had spoken to me. With a deep knowing and recognition of my soul. They reminded me of what I bring to the table and how important it is that I keep talking even if I am not the most dialed public speaker. That the truths I know and the messages I bring are from a very sacred place and are meant to be shared. And so it is: bliss, bravery and beautiful souls.

My wish for you is a year ahead where you push yourself in the things that really matter: the deeper connections, the heart to heart. That you identify what your true North is and stay focused on it. That you work hard and not fritter your time but also rest and replenish deeply. That you befriend uncertainty and wobbly moments. I believe that is where our growth takes place.

My only ask for you as you embark on this new year is to decide: