#123 Year-End Reflections
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It's an interesting feeling, and maybe it's a feeling of being a new mom. I'm realizing that I'm capable of so much more than I did before. And while before I never got a fulfillment, I felt like I'm doing a lot of things to invest into my future. And that typically would bring me to like this close to burnout state when I feel that I exhausted all my resources. This year, I just didn't feel

the burnout state. Very often, I felt like it's crazy, it's messy, my life is chaotic, but I never felt the feeling of burnout or exhausted my resources just because I feel like maybe having the baby fills you with so many more emotions and energy that you never experienced before. I just didn't feel like it was exhausting. So yeah, it's crazy that I do a lot of things somehow, but I think our bodies and our minds are fantastic. It learns to adjust to opportunities. ♪

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the last episode of this year. I'm very, very excited to talk to you, Anna, because I typically really looking forward for those yearly recaps. We have been doing this now for about four years, I believe, or maybe even five. I don't know. I'm losing count. No, four years. For sure, it's four years. And we started during 2020, so it was a COVID.

Yeah, it's been a while since we started doing those recaps. And now subconsciously, I'm looking for those opportunities every year to start making the notes and kind of then see which one do I want to prioritize and mention in the last episode of our Youngness UX Talks.

And before diving into today's episode, I also want to thank VicStudio for supporting Honest UX Talks. VicStudio is the intuitive way for designers and agencies to design exceptional websites with full-stack solutions, multi-site management, and a built-in AI. And one thing that I particularly appreciate from VicStudio is the fact that they help me saving time.

You know, as a mom, I basically have no time at all and efficiency becomes super important to me. And today I want to focus on a tool called Figma to Vick Studio plugin because it helps me to save hours of exporting my website directly to the Vick Studio. So imagine now after designing your website in just one click,

You can export every asset, every section, the layout directly to Vick Studio and start focusing on tweaking the details, right? You can preview how your design will look on different breakpoints using responsive AI tools, of course. You can then start playing around with no-code animations, AI tools, business solutions, and so much more. And really focus on what truly matters.

crafting design and not focus on figuring out how to use tool, going through the learning curve, coding things out, right? You really can focus on design. And that's what I think really matters. So thank you again, Vic Studio, for saving my time with Figma to Vic Studio plugin. And if you also want to check it out and play out with the tool, definitely go and do this. You'll find the link to it in the show notes. So thank you again, Vic Studio, for supporting our episodes. And now let's move on to the podcast episode.

If somebody haven't listened to our previous yearly recaps, what we typically try to achieve in this last episode of the year is to recap on how this year went down, what are the highlights or the themes of the year, as well as how do we think the podcast will evolve in this year versus the next year.

with these few thoughts we have in mind, let's start from a positive note and kind of let's look back and maybe discuss what you were proud of this last year of 2024. Maybe there are some highlights that you want to share with us, Ioana. Hi, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. This is going to be a very reflective episode like these ones always are. I think all our episodes are very reflective, but this one in particular. So going down this path, I can talk about how my year started on a very high

high note, I think. Depends on the criteria you're judging it by. But I remember that in January, Jacob Nielsen had reached out to me personally. Initially, I thought it was a prank, but he reached out to me to talk about AI and design. And then that was the moment when I realized I'm establishing myself as a voice in this space. And I'm being recognized by the father of UX himself. And he reached out to me. And this is just an incredible career moment. Like I can retire now.

I made it. I'm validated by this person. I'm a person who cares about external validation. And yeah, it was a very interesting moment. So he had reached out. And I think the first podcast episode I recorded this year was with Jacob Nielsen himself. And it was still one of our most listened episodes about AI and the future of design roles and so on. So that was kind of like the moment when I realized I'm in this space now.

I'm about this now, right? And then shortly after, I traveled to the US and I went to Austin at South by Southwest and I talked about AI and design for one hour on stage. It was my biggest keynote up until that point. And the first couple of months rewarding in a way, right? So the hard work that I had put into experimenting in this space, talking about the space, like it felt like it got somewhere, right? Yeah.

And then I had a lot of talks and my job at Miro was very interesting on exploring more AI things. And I learned a lot. And it was a very professionally rewarding year. But it was also kind of, I don't know if we're talking only positives. Yes, these were the positives. I had a very interesting year. And I realized that now I can maybe just do speaking stuff and rewatching.

do research about AI and uncover patterns and document them and then talk about them and work with brands or do consultancy work. So I realized now I have an opportunity to diversify the work I'm doing in the space. And it was a moment where I felt like, okay, now I understand what my professional definition is, because I was for many years experimenting with so many

things and I was led by FOMO and I was just wanted to be everything and do everything and say yes to every opportunity. And so now I felt like I'm grounded into a place in the world. Like this is my place. I am about this and this is my definition. And then of course,

like all narratives and stories and yeah, just the fairy tales we grow up with. I started to challenge all these concepts. And is this really my definition? Do I need a definition of self professionally? Like, do I identify myself like the person working in AI? Or what am I really about now that I got here? And I can say I'm about some things.

And then I started challenging these concepts. And that was another, like the second half of the year was very much introspective and very reflective. And it felt like I made it to the imaginary top. I made it to the place where I always wanted to get at.

where I'm recognized, where Jacob Nielsen reaches out to me and like I talked that stuff by and I achieved all of the things on my... Here's how I'm going to prove to myself that I'm valuable. And now what? Like, am I valuable? Was I valuable the whole time? And...

stuff like that. So we will dive deeper into that. But yeah, I had a very rewarding year. I'm very grateful for all the people I've met, everyone who reached out, all the conversations I've had. So it was a year where I established myself as who I am now in the industry. And it kind of gave me a lot of courage to explore what's coming next. And we will dive deeper into that. But yeah, maybe this is also going to be my keyword, courage. We'll see. Yeah. Wait, spoilers already. Yeah.

How about you? What were the highlights of your year? Well, it's hard to go after you because obviously if I were to be reached out by anyone, like grandparents of your ex, Don Norman especially, I would probably just, yeah, like you said, retire or die. I don't know. Like it would be insane.

So I cannot imagine the amount of thrill you had going through your mind as you saw the message first. And then, yes, like you said, we had this first podcast, I think, of the year. We had talked about the AI, right? So this episode was actually the most listened so far because Spotify just launched the yearly wrapped and I looked into analytics and that episode beat was like, I think it was like

500 times more than typical episode listened. So it was probably yet so far the most listened and most loved episode in this podcast. So yeah, great that he talked to him. Very good insights there. Besides that, so what about my year? Looking back, my year started obviously sitting with the baby. In the first four months of the year, I was still in maternity leave.

And I was contemplating the idea of going back to office job, like working part-time. So the first two months of the year, while still being on the maternity leave, I think as a typical like formal person, I'm very formal person, I was thinking, okay, I still have this time before I go back to job because I really wanted to go back to job. I also had formal from missing out on what's going on in my day job. But

because I still had like a few months before I planned officially to go back, I wanted to launch my community, right? I was exploring the opportunity to expand on the previously run cohort courses on the job hunting space. So first few months, I was kind of all in the grinds or in the weeds of exploring if I should be pushing the courses I've just recorded in the beginning of the year or last year into some sort of community model or any other model. What's the shape of it?

that I want to take and how do I want to explore, how much I want to explore. So the first few months, it was very much exploring their space around where to push forward my content. And then April of 2024, I got back to my job part-time after I just launched the community in March. I don't know what I was thinking to myself because how am I supposed to with the baby who's very young, under one year, how am I supposed to go back to work

but also around the community that I've just launched a very fresh new venture, as well as having the baby and all by myself. So that was something, I don't know why I did this, but somehow it always works out. So my highlights, I think the highlights of this year generally for me is I have been fascinated by my own self, not to brag about this, but really by my own capabilities of being able to manage many things. And every single day of this year, I personally felt like...

It's impossible to do it all, but I'm still somehow doing it. So I don't understand myself how I'm doing this. It's a magical feeling. It's a magical capability of a new mom to manage so many things at the same time and somehow still go through it without any damage.

So yes, this year, pretty much, this is the biggest highlight. Managing a baby who's now a toddler, one and a half year old, absolutely crazy, getting into this terrible two-stage where he's running, throwing tantrums, jumping, breaking the house apart and everything, and yet doing the community business as well as doing the job. And now I got back to job for six hours a day, so it's not the full time yet, but it's

It feels like full time when you spend at least six hours during your day job. So that's the biggest topic, to be honest, this year. I definitely couldn't boast all the changes career-wise. My biggest achievement was that I actually managed to grow so much with day job, but also other business that I still went into. So I think that was, I don't know if it even counts as a highlight, but definitely it's something I'm fascinated about.

To name a few things that I'm also feeling like a highlight, it's really all about somehow managing to survive and find the time for myself with a toddler. It's crazy because I feel like now with the baby who's one and a half years old, the first year I was thinking it's probably the hardest year, but now I'm realizing and probably I will not have any more time. But later, once he starts walking or like become a bit more independent, I will finally get my time back.

But suddenly now, with one and a half year old, I realize I have zero time for myself. Zero. And yet again, somehow I manage to do all the things that I'm doing. So looking back, and because I wanted to prepare for this episode and reflect it, this is something I'm very fascinated. So this year, with The Toddler, I've managed to do 108 live workshops in the community. So 100 workshops, besides day job. I don't know how I did this.

as well as I did a few community-free workshops. So, for example, one of the highlights of my year was that I did a workshop for 150 people live in the Fig Jam. We did a storytelling portfolio workshop all together, which I think is fascinating. I never did a workshop for 150 people live at the same time, which is crazy. The other highlight is something that we usually don't mention,

mentioned in the end of the year, but I think I should be doing this. And I'm trying to like opine all the moments to be proud of is that I finally published my portfolio. It's unbelievable because I never practically had a portfolio. I had like a multiple variations of portfolio, some in Behance, some in Notion, some in Medium, some in Figma links, Trello boards, etc. A bunch of different like sources.

to go and scrap through. But because in the first four months of this year, I had a little bit more time than typically I would have without a day job. I actually published my portfolio, which is unbelievable. So I'm definitely proud at that moment, as well as I've been talking to conferences. Like,

This is a new thing. I know that, Ioana, you started talking on conferences last year, but this year was the first time ever that for some reason, I don't know, I started talking in the conferences and I didn't expect this from myself during the maternity leave. I don't know. I love this. And I think it's such a great way to connect with the community, not just online, but really, you know, having the conversations, feel it, live it, go through it.

And one of the highlights I must mention is that we actually met this year for the first time after recording it for four years, right? And then knowing each other online for like, I don't know, eight years now or something like that. Crazy.

So we first met this year in Berlin in September and even recorded the live episode here. So it's so exciting. And I don't know what else should I mention here? Oh, yeah. I also redesigned the course website. So I've been hating my website for the courses that I recorded five years ago. For a while, for five years, I actually built this very scrappy MVP version of the website.

And then I never looked back because it was never a priority. And I hated it every time I opened the website. I hated it. I felt it was never representing my brand. It was just a scrappy version to just put something out there. And yes, this year, I'm very proud. And I want to highlight the moment that when the community member reached out to me and said, I want to help you out with your website. We jumped into it really quickly. Like, okay, we did like a few meetings. So originally, we started very slow. But

as we started and decided to go into it. We did practically in one weekend or maybe a weekend and a few hours here and there, we actually redesigned the whole website. I was struggling and dragging myself to redesign for five years. And that's definitely something I'm very proud of. And other things that I think I should be proud of or make them as a highlight is that I somehow still managed to read 13 books.

It's crazy to me, honestly. I don't know when I do this. Probably it's between everything somehow. So 13 books this year and I took a few courses. One of the things that was becoming my new interest and passion in life is like investing. And I started taking care of this particular like topic. I started thinking about my future. I started...

investing, building the portfolio for different purposes with different strategies. And my mindset is very strategic all the time. My brain works like that. I'm usually very strategic. So I don't understand why so far in the first 33 years of my life, I never thought about connecting those dots. And because I understand business and I work in product businesses, why I never thought of connecting those dots and use my strategic brain and start investing. So this year I kind of get this revelation like, oh, I should start doing this. And I started doing this and it's so exciting and fun. And

So great to see how you make the bets by analyzing the market and then you see them playing out. So I don't know, I'm really excited about thinking about my future and that I actually even managed to do this. But of course, the biggest highlight besides managing the time is starting out this first sales business, which is the community that I constantly mention here. And that this year I went through a turbulence of understanding how to build my own business.

Previously, I worked with startups. I built my own startups, which was always the sort of team partnerships sort of deal. But this time it was a very ups and downs roller coaster of emotion of building the very first subscription business.

And it's a lot of explorations. It's a lot of thinking where I'm thinking I should give up. My year started with thinking I should never do this. It's not working. It's daunting. It's not going to work. And then all the way to now feeling that it's working. I'm proud of it. I'm happy to see people. I feel energized and I learned a lot.

throughout talking to people, constantly talking on those workshops, as well as helping others and giving the feedback. And now I see even at my day job, how much I grew. It was a huge accelerator for my growths in this year. And that also impacted the way I'm thinking, which I guess I will get into in the next topics. But let's, without going into too much details, mention if there are any low moments that you feel like we need to talk through real quick.

The answer is yes. And real quick is not an option. You know me very well after four years of having these sometimes very intimate conversations. So I am a person that experiences all the range of emotions, right? Highs and lows. And like, I'm, I don't know if deep is the word, but I feel deep.

a lot. So yes, even in times of peace, I realized that there is some sort of ongoing internal process that kind of feels like a hardship. So what I'm trying to say here is that life, even when it's great, can be challenging for us. So growth is, to our points we've made many times, growth comes from this combination of doing things that you're good at and

being successful, but and also struggling with other things or experimenting, understanding your limits, understanding that, okay, you can burn out if you go down this path forever, and you can keep staying in the state where my year was very similar to all the years I have lived so far, a combination of

things. And yes, I've had lows. The lows I've had this year were very much around this, not concept of burning out. The risk of burning out has been something that felt very present in my life for the past couple of years. Like you've listed a hundred things that you were working on

I don't think that's healthy for us, right? So, and I feel that it's great. You get so much reward out of it, but at the same time, it's not sustainable. There's that cliche saying, it's a marathon, not the sprint. I feel like I've been sprinting for many years now, right? Trying to be the perfect mother and then also launch my design school and then also...

co-found a startup and then also have a full-time job so my parents would be happy and proud of me. And then also the social media stuff and brand partnerships and so on and podcasts and newsletters. So I'm doing a lot of things. And it's the question I get most often. When do you have time for everything? How do you manage all of this? Like, when did you find the time to launch a newsletter? And like, where do you squeeze that in your life? So I get these questions very often when I run into people, right? It's like the first thing they say.

And it looks like that from the external world. And it is like that for my internal world. So I'm doing a lot of things. But at the same time, this year was very much about accepting that I am tired. I'm just tired. The resources we have, they're limited. Yes, they can replenish. You can re-energize. You can, I don't know. This year, I tried to do more sports, sports.

I tried kitesurf, I started crossfit, I also just earned a big back accident from crossfit and now I'm struggling with pain and not being able to walk and move and it's like I'm trying things to find more energy, to do more things, but at the same time I'm challenging this concept much more. So for the past six months I've been thinking about what is the point of exhausting yourself to achieve stuff?

Even if you achieve them eventually, can you really enjoy them if you're sick and tired and burned out and unhappy and you've spent your resources? Can you enjoy the top of the mountain if you almost died getting there? I don't think we should force ourselves. And what also contributed to this kind of feeling that I'm tired and I need a break and I need to rethink my life and do less and

this might be my second word for the next year, less, just less, is that I think the industry is in a weird place. We've talked about it many times, but I think we're all sort of burned out. There was this wave of UX, we have to do, learn, continuously grow, be competitive, get jobs, get visibility, build a presence.

be freelancers at the same time. So there was this like ongoing hype and hustle culture that was very prominent in the design industry. And now it feels like for me, it's catching up with my health. Like I'm tired. And also I have a child. She's consuming a lot of resources. She's taking a lot. And I want to spend time with her at the same time. It's not just that that's a

big part that makes me tired but it also makes me like think about do i really want to take more boxes like this year i spoke at whatever other conference i want to speak at and this year i did is this still bringing me the value i was hoping it's going to bring and it brought a lot of value i don't want to minimize

I've enjoyed it. But at this point, it feels like it's like diminishing returns to your point about investing. Like, what do I want to invest next in? Because this thing doesn't seem to make me happier. Doing more work and achieving more things is not really moving the needle.

on my happiness levels. So what might maybe doing less? Let's experiment with that. What if I do less and that might move the needle on my happiness levels, right? I don't consider it a low. I consider it healthy. I welcome it in my life. This kind of accepting that it's okay to take a break. I don't know.

why designers are so scared of that. Again, it's also because of the state of the industry. There aren't so many opportunities, people are getting laid off, the market is shrinking, I don't want to lose my job now, I'm burned out, but I'm still gonna work. What if I can't find another job? And I'm in a toxic environment, but it's like, there's nothing else out there. And so this kind of feeling that you need to push through it. And now I'm like, do I really need to push through it? Like, what if I do nothing for one month for the first time in my life? What if that's an option? Just doing

nothing. And it feels horrible, right? So I'm experimenting with taking pauses. And I can't even take a full day without doing something for my social channels, some work, some consultancy, something here and there. But I'm really, really gonna fight to be able to pause and

And yeah, I think my low in this year was just experiencing, maybe it's burnout, maybe it's not, I don't know. I can still get out of bed, I can still show up at work, but I'm just very tired. And I accept that, and I think it's normal, and I think it's healthy, and I'm gonna listen to my body signals. And yeah, I don't know if it's considered a low, but it's definitely a struggle. How about you? What were the lows of your year, or the struggles, or the challenges?

I just wanted to say that the word that you used, still not in a burnout, is very dangerous. And it's so good you're realizing this. It's so good you're giving yourself in the right moment right now before you realize it's too late. You start rethinking how to approach it. So

It's really good to hear the word still, but also very scary, I guess. And I think that it's not just designers that are scared of letting go, but it's actually mostly us. Maybe some other people are not like that. It's just our bubble that we constantly live in and we know a lot of people who do a lot of things, right? And it sounds like, yeah, we do so many things. It's not just all the designers. It's only us, maybe. I don't know.

Just thinking a lot. But yes, I think about marathon and about stretching ourselves thin and about every single opportunity. While I actually named so many things, like a bunch of things I have been able to somehow do this year, I actually didn't feel the whole year that I'm stretched thin.

It's an interesting feeling, honestly. And maybe it's a feeling of being a new mom. Like for the first time, I'm a mom and I'm realizing that I'm capable of so much more than I did before. And while before I never got a fulfillment, I felt like I'm doing a lot of things to invest into my future. And that typically would bring me to like this close to burnout state when I feel that I exhausted all my resources and I'm not fulfilled. This year, I just didn't feel

the burnout state for some reason. And it's interesting because I love that you mentioned this and I'm reflecting as well now internally. Maybe this is not about the lows, but I'm more about like reflecting back on what was my experience this year. And I feel like I wasn't close to burnout. Very often I felt like it's crazy, it's messy, my life is chaotic, but I never felt the feeling of burnout or exhausted my resources just because I

I feel like maybe having the baby was like something that fulfilled me. And yes, I'm more frustrated because I don't have all my time. I'm a bit of a slave right now. I'm sitting at home. I cannot travel anywhere. Or I could, but it requires a lot of planning and time investment and resources. But typically, I live a much more static life, much more sitting life. I don't have a freedom of doing whatever the hell I want. My life is much more structured today. My day in the calendar is sort of broken down into everyday activities minute by minute.

And I have to be very punctual and very organized. But somehow, because I feel like maybe having a baby in your life fills you with so many more emotions and energy that you never experienced before, I just didn't feel like it was exhausting. So yeah, it's crazy that I do a lot of things somehow, but I think our bodies are fantastic and our minds are fantastic. It expands with the new opportunities. It learns to adjust to opportunities. Yeah.

which is not the low. But going back to the topic of this particular question, low moments. Again, like I said, it wasn't feeling too crazy, too burned out. But at the same time, it was very chaotic year. It was the baby who's growing to run, learn, explore the world. It's a boy, so he's very active. He's not a crazy boy, but he's very active. And like if you just record him, what he does in a typical day, it's like mindblown.

millions of things of trying to destroy this house and things that you never thought you could do in the house but you can figure it out. You're learning this new skill of getting at peace with this. Let him destroy this. Let him break this. Let him do whatever he wants to do while you're trying to stay present, while you're trying to stay in touch with what's going on with your baby but still working but still working and thinking about something else. So your brain is somehow in different states and

At the same time, it's insane. My whole year was figuring out how to do this. It's a chaos. It's a lot of, I won't call it anxiety, but I would say it's a year of living through a lot of, you need to take a deep breath. It's messy. It's hard. It's overwhelming. It's a chaotic year. And so I don't know if it's a low moment, but it's a very hard moment to live through, especially the first time. Maybe future, you accept it, you expect it. But

First time, it's very overwhelming. So time management organization, overwhelmed of everything going on and you're trying to stay calm and manage all the craziness that's going on around you when everything is breaking, screaming, dog is crying. You have so many priorities at your work. You have this event starting and soon you didn't even start working on this and you're trying to stay calm and grounded.

That's not a low moment, but it's a gross moment that comes with a lot of pressure and a lot of emotions to manage. As for the low moments, again, I don't think there were too many low moments, maybe because of the motherhood, but there were a lot of rollercoaster moments. So community was a rollercoaster for me because I've been at least three or four times at the brink of, I should quit it. It's not working. It's too hard.

I was expecting slightly different engagement. I was expecting slightly different enrollment rate, I guess, because I knew I'm solving the big problem today on the market where a lot of people are looking for a job and it's really hard and you really feel how hard it is in a moment. And I felt like this community product that I've been building will fulfill this need. But yet I

I've been experiencing a lot of resistance in the market. And so very often I felt like what I'm doing is not enough. It's not good enough. It's not what needs to be solved. Or I'm not positioning myself right. Or I am doing something wrong and I don't have energy or time at all to explore other things. I don't have time to experiment. It was a lot of mental ups and downs for me because I knew this is a good product. A lot of people love this and everybody's like being so super kind on giving me the feedback.

At the same time, you feel like it's just not working because you don't have time and energy and a space to really build it and position it and make sure it's marketed in a way it needs to be. So at this point, and again, this year, maybe three times I was contemplating, thinking about maybe quitting it. It's not working. It's not good enough. It's not, I don't know. I just don't have energy.

At this point, at the end of the year, I'm starting reflecting on how do I see evolving this product in the next year. It's just like a startup. It almost feels like it's ride or die. Every moment it's either it's not working, it's great, I did this, or next moment it's not working completely, I have to disassemble it, I have to let it go, I have to completely quit it. And now at the end of the year, my mind is trying to stay open about the future changes I could

consider and making it work, making it work in a long game. Because it's easy to disassemble the startup, right? It's easy to say, okay, you know what? I played it a little bit. I tried for a year. It's fine. It was a nice time, built great things. But you know what? I don't think I have time anymore or have no space for this anymore. But what if there is a way to move it forward? Because I know I get a lot of energy back from doing this. A lot of the times, for example, income-wise, it's not worth it, honestly. I don't get a lot of money because you invest so much back into growing it and evolving it.

But at the same time, people and seeing the progress and helping others just gives so much energy back. And it refills me. It refills the things that I did before with the social media. I just never felt fulfilled because it's just a lot of engagement. It's almost like a superficial engagement.

But now sitting with the people on those 108 workshops that I calculated before this conversation and getting the energy back and getting the notes and getting the questions and getting the conversation started and just seeing how this evolves, it just fulfills me. And I know I want to keep it up, but I'm trying to figure out how to mentally preserve the right mindset and not quit it because just impulsively thinking it's too much. This is about me. Let's talk about the keywords, Joanna.

You did mention already your highs and lows and the lessons learned. By the way, I was just listening to our previous yearly recap. The last year keyword you had was authenticity. How do you feel you fulfilled it? And what do you think it means for your next year? Maybe there are changes in your keyword next year.

Oh my god, I love this. Thank you for reminding me that I started the year with aiming to be more authentic, more of myself. I love that you're just reminding me that because it's like I feel a small win inside right now because yes, I feel much more authentic. I speak about the hard parts, I show up as myself, I'm leaning more into arts and creative outlets that are not necessarily tech

I don't care so much about being liked or being performant or being recognized. It's like I'm more at home with myself. And I feel that I was able to kind of tap into this objective of becoming more authentic, even in my personal life. I think, of course, you know that I'm a big adept of the theory that our lives intertwine, so you can't work

without having parts of your personal life show up, your childhood and so on. So everything is very, very connected. We're a very close, very tight system in a way, right? Everything connects with everything within us. So in my personal life, I became more authentic. I started to speak about the

hardest parts to talk about. I'm opening up, I'm like working with myself and it shows up in my professional perspectives, views of the world and the vision I have of what I should be doing. So yes, I feel more authentic. Yay. Here's an achievement that I want to add to my list. I made it. I feel much more authentic.

Yeah. And I think it's only going to get better. It also probably has to do with age, right? I'm 35. Like I realized I don't have a lot of time for like, I'm very young. Don't get me wrong. It's not like, oh my God, I'm dying next year. But I do feel like I have to live like myself. I have to live like who I am. The sooner the better. And I think the year I want to just assign for next year, I actually have four words that I'm trying to build into one. The words are courage, less selfishness,

settle and their fourth one which might be the one that kind of reunites all of them is balance so I feel that it's tricky it's tricky that it sounds very generic and very cliche but for me this is what I want next balancing

The good things I have in my personal life, my relationship with my daughter, with the work I'm doing and the work I'm doing should be balanced between rewarding work and some financial reward. And then some, I don't know, whatever ticks me. Recognition, doing talks, meeting people, community work, like having this kind of combination of things that give me a good balance. And it's tricky because what is balance really? Like, can you really be balanced?

Like I feel imbalanced like 10 seconds per day and then it's imbalanced all the time. Like some things we have all these, let's say, jars of needs or boxes or plates of things that we need more or less of time, solitude, rest, food, stuff. So there's always something that's imbalanced in our bodies, in our minds, in our life. But I do feel that you can like move closer to an...

let's say an ideal setup where you get the most out of the things that are important to you without it being ever perfect so i don't strive for perfection anymore because it's like ever escaping us this concept of i don't know whatever we say what this would be perfect like even when you get there it's like oh no i think the other thing would be perfect or the next thing would be

perfect. So I gave up on thinking about perfection. But now I'm thinking more in terms of what are my needs and what is a system that I can build in my life that kind of feeds, is nourishing for the main needs that I have. And I think the key word would be, yes, balance. So excited to talk at the end of next year and see how that went. What is your word for 2025?

Oh boy, can you believe it? It will be five years if we will do this next year. Fingers crossed we don't stop doing this. I don't know. Because again, balance, maybe sometimes we have to take the hard decisions and decide whatever needs to go. But indeed, I'm looking forward to the next year and seeing if we can learn from the next year as well.

But my next year keyword, it's a hard one because I haven't been able to really fully reflect on the future and what I'm planning to manifest for the future. I'm still in this whirlpool of everything going on and I'm just trying to ride it and try to go through the date without any damage or any craziness. Trying to live as stable as possible life and not go crazy. At the same time, one thing I didn't mention yet is

Maybe it's not about the highlights. It was not the right question. But one thing I didn't mention that I feel like would feed me into the next year keyword. So I'm 33 now. This particular year, I turned 33. And this year, like I've never before in my life, I've experienced a distinctive new stage of my life.

And to elaborate on what I mean is that my mind, my brain has entered a new paradigm somehow. I don't know, maybe it's a Christ. But it's an interesting observation. It's not just that I feel it, but everybody's telling me that my brain, I started seeing things in a different light, differently how I organize things and how I see things, how I change the perspective, sort of. For example, never in my life before, I was walking down the street and my mind was bombarding me with insights.

My mind started connecting the dots. It started seeing things where I've never seen them before. I don't know if this is a normal thing. Do people experience this typically? How does this typically happen? But this year, like never before, like again, you walk down the street, suddenly things started making sense. Suddenly you realize something and it's like a spark in your head. Another spark, another spark. And you start seeing things that you never thought, never connected those dots.

In like first 33 years of my life, I was just observing things or I was impulsively living, jumping from one thing to another, just embracing thing, living thing, being open and blah, blah, just living through life, whatever it gives you, whatever you take. But I've never really had this reflection and insights, qualitative insights in my head.

I was, of course, reflexive and I was, of course, learning and growing and acknowledging the growths I had. But comparing to this year, the growths I had before was very incremental and tiny. And this year, just suddenly things started making sense to me.

sense to me, which sounds very, I guess, cliche as well. And it sounds very weird. Like, what do you mean? What do you say? I cannot even explain this, but it's just the quality of thoughts I started having in my head. And this is what I'm calling this new stage, because before I feel like I was very, very impulsive, hectic, impulsive.

and, you know, just taking opportunities, living through everything. This year, I feel like I'm getting from impulsive to pensive. It's a new state of mind. It's a new paradigm. And it also probably connects a lot with this like chaos that is going on around you with the baby boy who's like destroying the house and everybody's screaming. And you're staying grounded and calm while you typically was someone before who would be screaming and running and breaking things and jumping. And, you know, I was typically the person who would just

take hitchhiking adventures for three months with $200 in my pocket and jump jobs and jump companies and jump countries and live in eight countries. My life was very crazy. And this year, it's a calm year and a lot of insights. And because I stopped down and started living a very settled life, my brain started taking this space as opportunity to connect the dots. And so yeah, my next year

It's a year that I could manifest, but it's certainly a stage that I will probably continue enjoying and living through, from impulsive to pensive, to seeing things in a different light. And it's a new state because I don't think I'm able to take advantage of it yet. It's just the thoughts that I'm having in my head. I haven't yet been able to, for example, articulate them, share them, connect those dots in the right moment. When somebody asks you a question and I'm given the answer that I feel like is the right answer,

I'm still just having those thoughts suddenly, randomly in the different stages of day. But I feel like they feed into your perspective a lot. And maybe in the future year or two from now, I will be able to be also more articulate and more connected on how I'm sharing my thoughts. So yeah, that's a new keyword for the next year. I don't know if it makes sense, but let's see. Next year, we'll check it out and see if I'm still feeling pensive or I'm feeling completely different again. Who knows?

Just to wrap this episode up, like, first of all, thank you so much, everybody who listened to all of our rumbles and check in with our lives. Well, we do those check-ins every week, but we don't really look back into the whole year and what has changed and how we have grown. And this episode was very personal in multiple ways. I think the first years when we were sharing our highlights was a lot about like,

practical things like I have grown a nice blog or I started this new business and I did a home renovation or something like this, right? This year, it was much more about personal growth for both of us. It's very fascinating and I don't know if people find it useful. But what I wanted to finish this episode with is

is first of all saying thank you everyone who listened to us this whole year. The last thing I wanted to say is that I'm very curious, how do you guys think we should evolve this podcast? What do you think should be the evolution of this podcast? We were doing this for a few years now, and we want to make sure it's still a relevant space where you can listen to us being open and vulnerable and speak about our own experiences, but also you will be able to learn something out of it.

And so we will leave a widget under this podcast. Typically, you would find the widget on the Spotify. If you're listening from Apple Podcasts, maybe it will not be here, but you will still find the link for submission for your thoughts or feedback or suggestions for the next episodes under the show notes. But in the Spotify, you will also find the box where you can submit what do you think we should start talking more about?

Or how do you think we should evolve this podcast? Should it be more guest episodes? Should we do more live episodes? How do you think we should evolve this? I would love to hear it out. And again, thank you everyone so much. I was checking the statistics by Spotify this year and turns out we have been listened in 95 countries.

And we've got 80% new listeners this year. Can you imagine this? In the last three years, we've got a certain amount of listeners. And this year, we've got 80% more new listeners comparing to the other few years, which is unbelievable.

So thank you, everyone. And I guess I wanted to ask you, Joanna, for the wrappers of this conversation. How do you think we should grow this podcast? Should we change anything at all next year? Yeah, well, it's the first time I reflect on this. And it's a good question. I feel that it evolved with us. So I love how it's an evolution of ourselves. Like I feel I was recently going through early episodes and evolution. My voice changed my tone of voice. There is some wisdom there.

behind the words now that wasn't there four years ago. So I love it as a mirror of our own internal growth, each of us and our growth as partners together, right? So I feel like we're a team and now we understand each other and we can extract the best nuances from

each other's experience. So I love how it kind of reflects our growth. I feel that one thing that we might experiment more of is maybe having more guests. So we really started out as saying, this is just between you and me and we're going to just have this very deep exploration of our own experiences. And this is kind of

flavor of our podcast. It's part of our definition. And now I feel that we can definitely open the doors more to new perspectives, invite new voices, tackle topics that maybe we don't have knowledge or expertise or experience in.

So I feel that that's an opportunity. And yeah, this is also an invitation to anyone who's still listening to submit proposals for guests. We would love to invite people that can bring valuable perspectives or that you're curious about or interested in or topics that you're interested in. So yes, just help us be relevant. And I think that's what I had in mind. Do you have anything else in mind?

No, I was thinking exactly like you. I also felt like we have shared so many different experiences we had. I'm pretty sure there's still a lot to learn from each other. But at the same time, I feel like there are so many more nuanced topics and more topics where we also would benefit from learning from others. So having guests...

is also something I was hoping we can do next year more. But again, it's more about what our listeners also think that we need to talk about. So I would love to hear your suggestions and maybe there will be a voting. Should we bring more guests under the Spotify widget? Please check it out. And also do submit what do you think we should change next year. We are very open to feedback.

end of the year is a perfect moment for reflection and adjustment and, of course, iteration. So please let us know what we can do better next year, what you would benefit best of from listening to these episodes, how we can keep it relevant to you. And thank you so much for being with us this year. We really appreciate your time. And yeah, please, if it was helpful, just let us know. Any way possible. You don't even need to rate this podcast. Just let us know. We are here to just hopefully be helpful for you as well.

So thank you everyone again. And we wish you a Merry Christmas as well as Happy New Year. Have a good rest until the end of the year and we will see you in the next year. Bye-bye everyone. Bye everyone.