I want to tell you about a New Year’s Eve that changed everything for me. Not because of fireworks or champagne, but because of a big Post-it notepad, a few honest questions and a moment with my husband I had been waiting years for without even knowing it.
Broken on the Inside, Showing Up Anyway
It was the end of 2023. From the outside, the business was running, the team was there and I was showing up every single day. You would never have known how broken I felt inside.
I had spent that year being turned on by people I had given everything to. I felt invisible in my own business. After 23 years of building something real, I was questioning my worth, my place and my purpose. And I did what so many of us do. I kept it to myself.
Five Honest Questions
That New Year’s Eve, my husband and I had a quiet dinner, just the two of us. We both knew the year had been hard, and we were both ready to turn the page. Instead of our usual vision board, I grabbed our big Post-it notepad and wrote one question on each page:
- What hurt me this year?
- What did I learn?
- What will I do differently?
- What am I letting go of?
- How do I want to feel in the year ahead?
We each answered on our own, quietly and honestly, then read our answers to each other.
When it was my turn, I cried. Not angry or frustrated tears, just honest ones. I told my husband, my partner in life and business for 36 years, how hurt I had been that he hadn’t had my back when our team turned on me. I wasn’t angry. I was soft, open and completely honest.
He held me and he apologized. He had heard pieces of it before, in passing comments I had probably said with more edge than vulnerability. That night, because I came to him soft instead of sharp, he truly felt it. It reunited us in a way I didn’t know we needed, and it opened up what was possible for the year ahead.
The Question That Changed Everything
When we turned to the year ahead, I asked myself something I had never truly asked before. Not what do I want to do. Not what do I want to achieve, or what my revenue goals are, or what’s on my to-do list. How do I want to feel?
The answer came before anything else: joy. I wanted to rekindle something in myself that had been slowly going out under the weight of everything I was carrying.
So I made a decision. Not a plan or a program, a decision. I would not stay stuck in that sadness. I would choose joy, one small thing at a time, until I felt like myself again.
And I did. We made almost every vision from that night a reality, some intentionally and some in ways we never could have planned, including selling our business 18 months later at the best moment of its 25-year life.
You Don’t Need Perfect Conditions to Begin
You don’t need a retreat. You don’t need a program. You don’t need to wait until January 1st. You need a quiet evening, an honest question and the courage to answer it truthfully, even if only to yourself.
So tonight or this weekend, ask yourself just one thing: how do I want to feel? Not what do I want to do or fix. How do you want to feel? Write it down, even if it’s one word, and let that be your beginning.
If this found you at the right moment, share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear it too. And subscribe to At the Heart of It All with Pierrette on YouTube for more.
