Episode 165: 3 Ways to Reflect on 2021
Hello, and welcome back to Live Free Creative podcast. I’m your host Miranda Anderson. You’re listening to episode number one hundred and sixty-five, three ways to reflect on 2020 with special guest Vanessa Quigley. I’m so excited to share this conversation that I had with Vanessa.
If you’re unfamiliar, Vanessa is a superhero, powerhouse woman. She’s a trained opera singer, a mother of seven, an author, a podcast host, and the co-founder of Chatbooks. Vanessa is a storyteller and a true creative, and it was so fun to chat with her about how to reflect and reminisce on the year that we’ve just been through and help us prepare for the year to come.
Decluttered Registration Is Open!
Before I jump into our conversation in this episode, I want to make sure that you know that the doors are open for Decluttered. Decluttered is my six-week intentional living master class, where we spend some time reestablish what matters most to you and creating space for it in your life. This online masterclass is for those of you who want to declutter your home, your schedule, and your mindset.
As we jump into 2020. It’s like the perfect reset. The thing that we’re all kind of looking for after a wild year, especially a wild couple years, like we’ve had where I don’t know about you, but sometimes they open a closet and wonder where all of this stuff came from, especially right after the holidays.
Didn’t you feel just a little bit inundated by stuff by advertising, by things around the house, by activities, filling up the schedule and you’re ready to just pop. And reset and rethink it and begin the year with some focus and with some clarity and with some abundance, that is what decluttered will do for you.
It’s really a full mindset reset. I’m so excited as well, that this is the first time that I’ll be offering along with the six-week guided course. That includes lessons that you can listen to on your own, a workbook and live webinars during the course that you can either listen to live, join the Q and A, or you can listen as a recording and fit it to your own schedule.
Also this coming year offering a 12-week accountability group designed specifically to help you implement the physical decluttering that we talk about in the course, rather than finishing up and thinking, “okay, I’m going to get to that.” And then not quite getting to it. Each week for the 12 weeks after the course, I will give you specific tips for one area in your home will declutter and organize it together throughout the week. And we will come together for a show and tell, to ask questions, to check in, to be accountable and to feel that real progress that happens when you return and report to someone.
Did you know that there is a study that shows that you are 72% more likely to accomplish a goal when you’ve written it down and told it to someone and then checked in with that person until the goal was accomplished. 72%.
My goal with decluttered and with the accountability group is that we are able to help you move toward your goal of feeling more abundant, more hopeful, and like you have more freedom in your home and your schedule and your finances, and to live your life more aligned with who you are.
You can hop on, learn more and register for a decluttered. I livefreecreative.co/podcast. Look for episode 165 and I will have it right at the top of the show notes. You also can just go to live free creative.co and look on the home page. You’ll see the decluttered workshop available there to check out and sign up.
I cannot wait. We begin on January 10th. So fun to enjoy the last couple of weeks of the year, knowing that you’ve prepared to start your new year, clearing some space for the things that matter to you. Now, let me kick off this episode with some peaks of the week.
Segment: Peaks of the Week
in this segment, I tell you about a couple of things I’ve been loving lately. And today all three things that I want to share, have to do with fire. Not because I am a pyro, but because I feel like it’s that coziness, that time of year where I’m just like loving everything cozy, you know, that hygge feeling.
Trader Joe’s Candles
The first thing I want to share, I have mentioned before, I’m obsessed with trader Joe’s. They are $4.99. They come in this, these cute little recyclable aluminum tins, and they have the most delicious smells. Right now for the holidays, there’s a Cedar Balsam candle. You walk into my house, and it smells like you’re walking into a delightful Christmas tree farm.
It’s the coziest smell. Not only that I found a couple years ago that lighting candles makes me just feel cozier. I mean, there’s something really to that hygge feeling of candlelight. I light them on my entry table. I have one next to my bedside table. My good friend, Rachel Nielsen from the 3 and 30 Podcast gave me the sweetest gift of a Sawtooth when I was up visiting her in Idaho and I light it at night when I’m reading in bed, that little flicker at dancing on the wall, the incredible smell coming from the candle. I just absolutely love it.
If you want to elevate your everyday in a very simple way, light more candles. They’re so fun. And in particular, the Trader Joe’s ones, I just think are super great because they’re low cost, they’re high quality, and they have some amazing scents. So, light a candle this week to feel that coziness,
My number two peak of the week is it’s so funny. It’s my new perfume. I love a delightful perfume. And this one is a surprising perfume. It’s called. I’m not joking. It’s called By The Fireplace. It’s by Replica. I got a little tiny sample when I was visiting Nordstrom earlier this year with my little sister, she gave me a little sample pack and inside was By The Fireplace perfume. And I kind of laughed when I saw the name. because I was like, who wants to smell like they are sitting by the fireplace? That’s like a smell that sometimes you try to avoid or, you know, it it’s delightful when you’re camping, but not for every day.
And then I spritzed it and smelled it and melted into love, it’s got this warmth, like how does this smell, smell warm? It’s got this warm smell. It’s a little bit musky. It’s a little bit sweet and yeah, it’s a tiny bit smoky in the best way. So, I used the sample. I decided I needed to order some, so I ordered the little one-ounce bottle, the smallest one that isn’t like a travel size. I just got one for my stocking because it’s been like six months and I’m completely out of it.
I ordered myself a larger four-ounce bottle that I plan to use for the remainder of the winter, By The Fireplace by Replica. I will link it in the show notes. It’s so good.
My final peak of the week about fire is our propane fire table.
I talked a little about it in my episode about Enjoying The Outdoors All Year Round. I will link the exact one that I have in the show notes. I’ve had a couple of people ask about it. It’s really special. Like it looks like it’s wood, but it’s not it’s metal. It’s really cute. It’s the perfect height for sitting around the fire.
And it also has a wide edge, so you can set your drink down. You can set a cup of hot cocoa there. You can have your smores ingredients around the outside. It’s really cute. And in the winter, even though it’s a little, counter-intuitive, it’s kind of a great place to be outside. I know that you would like to sit around an indoor fireplace and that’s fun too.
However, how perfect is it to come in from skiing or from going on a walk and to be able to turn on with a flip of a switch, this nice warm fire to sit around, warm your hands, make us more and be outside even in the winter, making me so happy. Those my friends are my peaks of the week.
Now let’s jump into this episode with Vanessa Quigley; Three Ways to Reflect on 2021.
Three Ways to Reflect on 2021
M: Vanessa welcome to this show. I’m so glad that you’re here.
V: Thank you.
M: So why don’t you go ahead and introduce a little bit about yourself for my audience.
V: My name Ms. Vanessa Quigley. I am a seventh generation Floyd in who now lives in Utah. I’m looking out my window and it’s. At first now, today, right now, which is late in the season. And I’ve been like, the anxiety has been building. Cause I have to admit the first snow. I have a good cry and then I get over it. No, I’m married. I’m married to a man who loves to ski his family’s all skiers. And so grateful. I’ve learned to ski. So, there is the bright side to snow. We get to ski. Yeah. I live in Utah with my family.
I have seven kids and I started a business with my husband about eight years ago, called chat books to help people hold onto their memories. And it’s been really fun. I am not a true red-blooded entrepreneur. Um, I’m more of a creative, I studied music in college and wanted to be a professional opera singer, but I graduated with my degree and.
Which made it really hard to all of that. Yes. So, I just saying as much as I could in community theaters and a local opera program and, um, kept having babies. And when my youngest was going off to school full time, that magic moment where I was going to have all my days to myself, um, I was preparing to go back and get my master’s.
Singing again and working at my auditions when I had this idea that if I could just print my Instagram, my poor little boy who had nothing to show for his life would have at least something to hold onto because I was a diehard scrapper with my older kids. Poor Declan had nothing like no printed phone.
It was just, just our annual Christmas card, which she didn’t really care much about. So anyway, that was the idea for chapbooks and, uh, my husband and I have just been working on that together. We have an incredible team, about 150 people helping us continue to grow. And, um, I’ve taken up a new torch to help show people the importance of family memories and the narrative, the stories that we pull from those, those memories and how important those are and strengthening us.
M: Yeah. Wow. That’s so awesome to hear about the sort of different pivots of thinking. Things were going to go one way and then having these sort of flash realizations or ideas and having things end up a whole different way than you ever could have even planned.
V: It’s the story that life. And in fact, when I had this idea for this business, my husband’s a real entrepreneur and he had actually been working for a few years to build what was, it’s kind of like a, an online journal. It was in the family history space. It was a little too complicated for me and it turns out everybody else. So, it wasn’t really working. So, I took my brilliant idea to him. I’m like build the business around this. And, uh, I wanted actually nothing to do with building the business, but it became obvious that a man was not going to build the product that women wanted.
And most of our customers are women. And so, I. So, I joined the team and, you know, I used to work at Walt Disney world as a, as a storyteller singing and dancing. And all of the importance of storytelling was ingrained in me as I was working there. And also, as a performer, it turns out that building a business is just a lot of storytelling telling stories to your customers, to investors.
And so, I was able to take some of those skills that I had developed over the years and really hone them in this new space. And so, it’s been an exciting creative, new development in my own personal life.
M: Yeah. And such a cool connection to not only on the brand side. I mean, I think you’re right. That building a brand is all about telling your story and your particular brand is helping other people write their stories, collect those stories and, and remember those stories. That’s a little bit what we’re going to talk about today. That we’re coming to the end of the year. I feel a little bit like crazy. I’m thinking about this, that we are weeks away from 2022, the last couple of years, especially have just been like a total whirlwind, I think for everyone. And this is the time where, although I think a lot of things also feel rushed.
It is a good time to sit and reflect and do some reminiscing on what just happened. How are we emerging? Different. Stronger better, you know, maybe, maybe with some hard things that we’re going through or have gone through and what are we going to, you know, how are we going to use those things? Like how, what is this chapter that we’ve just been through look like, and then how does that help us contribute or build moving on to this?
You know, flipping that page. I kind of. I love the new year. I feel like we get to new year’s. I think the new year and also the new school year, every year, it feels like also a new chapter. It’s just, it’s a, it’s a great time to reflect. And so, you have some ideas. I mean, this is what you do. Like teaching people, helping people, families facilitate memory, keeping ways to collect their memories and then also to use them to reflect and become stronger as families.
First of all, why do you think that reflection. Or thinking about what we’ve been through is important. Why does that matter as an individual or as a.
V: Wow, well, life is going at a breakneck pace, right. And just days just meld into each other and weeks and months. And here we are at the end of the year, I’m kind of like YouTube.
I’m just slack-jawed. I can’t believe we are here in Christmas in two weeks. And how did we get here? Um, there is something really important about stopping and thinking about like what just happened and it’s, unless you force yourself to do. All of a sudden, another year has gone. And so, um, I try to have little habits, weekly habit, a monthly habit, and then a yearly habit to stop myself and reflect.
I’m really good. Also, at spinning lessons out of things, especially the hard things. Probably exclusively to the hard things, the good things happen. I’m just like, oh yeah. Okay, good. Now, moving on to the next thing. Totally hard things that make us be like, I wonder why that happened. What did I have to learn from that?
What is going to come from this? You know, um, I, my brain is really good at doing that for myself and for my kids. Probably, you know, to the point of that, it drives them crazy. They’re like, mom, I don’t need a lesson. Thank you. I’m just going to move on. Exactly. You know, we’re creating the story of our life, but if we want to get to the end of the year every year and be like, oh, that was a mess.
It’s easy to feel like a failure in December when you’re trying to do all of the things and all the school things. It just feels like if you, if you’re running a business, that’s like the always the busiest time of the year professionally, it’s easy to feel like a failure or the end of the year. And you’re just like, oh, I just want to turn a new leaf.
Thank goodness for January. I also love January and September. Those chances to do start fresh and be a new, you know, Take on new things. And so, for me, it is, you know, when I look reflect back on the end of the year, it’s always that week after Christmas, it’s really hard to be reflective when you’re just still doing, going, shopping, rapping, hosting, all of those things.
Uh, but the week after Christmas is just such a gift for, for me to all the work has been done. And. Start thinking and reflecting and writing in my journal, even if I haven’t run my journal all year long, I that’s, I’ll start writing and, and recapturing the year and preparing for the new year because a big part of preparing for the new year is thinking about what just happened.
And it’s not all just craziness and frustration. There’s a lot of magic things that have happened. Good things, lessons learned. And without taking the time. To think about it. You’ll just, you’re not going to gain anything from it. Yeah. I think it’s really interesting that we, you have to set the time aside, like you said, it doesn’t just happen.
We don’t, it’s not really all that natural to ponder things that we’ve been through because we’re so forward focused. I think a lot of times, if people are thinking about something that they’ve been through, it’s with sort of. Wishing they could rewrite it or kind of worried about the way it went or, you know, rather than just allowing to allowing yourself to settle into it and think, huh, that’s interesting.
Like what, what was good about that? What would we do differently when we have the chance rather than, you know, not just rehashing the past and always moving forward, but allowing some positive space of intentional reflection. I love the word reminisce, you know, reminiscing on some of these really wonderful things.
I’m really grateful my brain doesn’t rehash and like, oh, how could I do that again? And partly because, you know, seven kids, big busy, busy business. Um, I just like, well, oh, what could I have done differently? Moving on. Um, but I’m thinking about my kids right now and how they, the pace of their life. And they don’t ever even get quiet time.
They’re always like watching a show, listening to music, being with friends like. I I’m grateful that I’ve learned the benefit of reminiscing and having a quiet time to reflect and I’m hopefully teaching them how to do that and why it’s important as well.
M: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that there’s a lot of adults that haven’t really mastered this yet or aren’t taking the time for it.
V: So, it starts with. As moms, you know, saying, okay, this is something that we’re going to do together. And hopefully then it kind of trickles down and it becomes a habit. It becomes part of their sort of year recap. Um, or even like you said, weekly and monthly sort of check-ins or even I was just remembering how we started a tradition at family dinner of going around the table and doing our highs and lows sharing the high and the low of the day.
And I know a lot of other families do that. And I didn’t, I don’t think I realized until years later, like how healthy that was to give each child, especially when you’re in a big family, there are kids that don’t feel heard and they get a chance to say, not only like they’re high, the good thing that happened, but reflect on like, what was something hard and how did I get through it?
And how did I feel and learning to articulate that. And of course, then the lessons from it is, you know, that’s, that’s an exercise that hopefully was building them.
M: Yeah, we do the same thing in our family. We somehow, we, we call it pits and peaks. It’s really great. And my kids are still all pretty young. My youngest is almost eight and my oldest is twelve. And I think that they’re just kind of developmentally to the place where they’re starting to do. Be able to recognize some of their own lessons. You know, that, that, that thing was hard.
And because that happened, then I was able to do this or that.
V: And just say, I heard the episode you did with your son, and he is very reflective and articulate. And so maybe that had something to do with it. I was super impressed with him.
M: So yeah, he’s, he’s a cool kid. I really am lucky. Oh, what are your ages of your kids?
V: So, my oldest is 25. Um, and then youngest is 13. He’ll be 14 in January. So, I think this is another reason why I am. This is something that I’m passionate about now is I turned 50 this year. So, my whole life has kind of behind me and like trying to make sound saving your whole life is behind you. At 50. It is.
Um, and so I love to go back and watch old home videos and read my old journals and look at old photos. And it’s such a reminder, especially, you know, it’s easy to get down on yourself. As you know, here I am. I’ve I feel like I’ve a lot of my chances to like to teach my kids are. You know, their past, like I’ve, I’ve done this great work, and did I do it well and going, looking at home videos and reading my journals and, you know, scrapbooks is, has a chance to make me feel really like, yeah, what I did was heroic actually having seven kids all at home, like.
Within 15 years, that was crazy bonkers. I am a hero and I deserve all the gold stars. So, if ever I have a day on moment as a mom, like that is an instant pick me up. And also, even my husband and I, we met when we were 18 as freshmen in college. And we wrote letters for years while he was away serving a mission for our church.
And, you know, we were madly in love. Then we are still very madly in love, but you know, every marriage sometimes has moments where you’re like, how did we end up together? But going back and reading through those letters is a beautiful reminder of our love and obsession with each other. And that’s, that’s kind of a fun thing to reflect on too.
M: Yeah, that’s really cool. Dave and I have written each other just like simple anniversary cards each year. We don’t do a lot of. I mean, our first communication was my space. So, I did have the site to download and print those before my space like disappear, you know? Um, so there’s somewhere in our history scrapbook box somewhere, but we, uh, we do write each other just like anniversary cards each year.
And we just recently had our 15th anniversary. And when I went to put our cards, You know, all the other ones are there. And it was really interesting to just look through a couple of them and remember these phases of like, I mean, phases that feel so long ago now, like when we just had one new baby and how different our life is now than it was then, and, you know, just every, every chapter and season. Ups and downs and ins and outs. And you, when you’re in the middle of it, you sometimes think that this is like, it’s either really good the way it is, and this is the way that it is. Yeah. And there’s something really cool about remembering that there are, that there is change in a positive way that like, you know, good things get better, bad things can get good.
You something that’s hard. Doesn’t last forever, you know, and we do change like that.
V: That is a fact. I am a very different person than I was when I was 18 in a lot of ways, but there are some things that at the core sometimes get muddled a little bit that are really there. And I have to say. My husband had back surgery yesterday and he was on, I don’t know what drugs they gave him, but they were good.
He was so loving. And so like, effusive with his praise. I mean, just, I got flashbacks of when we were 18 and he, this morning, he’s like, I know I was on drugs last night, but I want you to know everything I said was true and real. And I really do mean. That’s sweet. I know, but usually if I need a little hit like that, I’ll just go back and read those old letters or something.
M: So, you have some very specific, obviously you’ve made like a whole business out of helping families capture and record and remember their lives and their stories. As they’re telling them, as we’re coming to this end of the year, you have some specifics. Recommendations ideas, simple things that my listeners can do to help them reflect and reminisce on the year that’s passed and prepare for the year that’s coming up.
You have three let’s start with your first one.
V: Okay. Well obviously, my business is built around photos in capturing moments and photos. And what we try to tell people is it’s not just the graduations. The big fancy things. It’s those everyday moments. And when you have eyes to see the magic in every day, like the littlest thing is going to be elevated and that’s going to be the thing that you really hold onto.
And even years down the road is going to bring back this flood of emotions and memories. And so, it’s about capturing your everyday. And so, we, you know, through our products, we have month book. 30 photos every month, straight from your camera roll. And it as a subscriber to month books, if you’re conscious that like I’m looking for, you know, 30 photos that are going to be a reflection of this month, it actually becomes a daily practice, like a gratitude practice.
You see things that you think, oh, I want to remember that. And this is your private family collection. It’s not stuff that you put on social media because. Let’s all admit, we have a very different face on social media and things that we share, but sometimes the messy things are the things that are really, that’s really at the core of who we are.
And so, I say capture all of those everyday moments. Put them in your month books. And then at the end of the year, create a yearbook. And even if you don’t do month books, you can make a yearbook. If you are organized with your photos, um, if you’re not organized with your photos, contact moose, Friday
bootcamp, I’m probably one of miss Friday’s worst customers. We’ve never completely finished the project because I am so scattered, but there are people out there that can help you get organized with your photos. Um, but there’s something about going through your photos, whether you’re doing it on a monthly.
Or a yearly basis. Looking at photos brings floods, the endorphins of like the good things, the gratitude for being able to get through the hard things. You start to piece together, lessons learned. And by being able to make a book like a concrete book, something that you can hold onto, that your kids can hold onto, um, is an invaluable gift and a treasure for generations to come.
So, it’s. It’s the best of all worlds. You, you can enjoy the benefits of it throughout the year as you’re creating it or at the end of the year. And it’s something that can last forever. Um, I do have a pro tip though. If you have older kids who have their own phones with cameras, get your kids to submit pictures for your yearbook because there were years where I just made them with the photos on.
Phone and on my husband’s phone. And then all of a sudden, I was like that photo come from. That’s amazing. So, um, now I just ask them to submit, you know, a dozen or so they’re, they’re very picky about their private camera roll, but yeah. Get your older kids to submit some photos from your yearbook. So, it really, truly for flex your whole family.
M: I love this idea. I’m going to confess that I have had as my new year’s resolution for the last 12 years. Make a family photo book for this year. So, I was an avid scrapbooker like, it sounds like you were. Yeah, I, my mom, wasn’t a great, she was a great photo capture, but not, and my dad too, but not great. Um, photo organizers or memory bookkeepers.
And so, I took over my own personal family photos. When I was 12 in seventh grade, I made a scrapbook for seventh grade. I made one for eighth grade. I have a scrapbook for every year of my life. From the time I was 12 until I got. Um, and my marriage, although the best thing that ever happened to me killed my journaling and my scrapbooking, and also like digital media.
Right. I got married in 2006 by then we had a digital camera. We did our photo book, like for our guest book, for our wedding. And then. I think we’ve done maybe too specific. Like we went on a family trip to Italy. And so, I took all of those pictures and made a family trip book from that. But every year I’ve thought, you know, our first couple of years of marriage, I was like, oh, this will be easy to catch up.
And then I had my son and I like started one. And then. Life is just happening. Life is happening. We’re moving. We were in school. I was working full time. I started building a business, we had more kids, we got chickens, we have dogs, we’ve got cats and you have a puppy. And all of that documented in a book.
So, right. It’s so interesting though, because something that, uh, your assistant sent over as one of her recommendations, like she, she pulled a couple ideas and one of them was for your family yearbook to have each of your kids choose 10 of their favorite pictures. For the year. Yeah, just all of you, each one of the family members go through, don’t try to Chronicle the year, everything that happened, all the ups and downs, just choose 10 fun pictures from the year and put them in a book that, and make it as easy as that.
V: So, key. At the end of the day done is better than perfect.
M: Right. And I think for me, that was so overwhelming even that’s ultimately why quit scrapbooking, because I could not keep up with all the photos when we transitioned to digital photos and I just had thousands of photos and I just like, I can’t, I’m just going to quit.
So that mentality you’ll regret. So that is such a genius idea. Yeah. I mean, I kind of feel like, so we started using chat books at the beginning, so I have hundreds of Chatbooks from my Instagram, from the time my son was born because he was born. I mean he’s 10 now, but I was able to go back, you know, so I have, I have chat books from when I was pregnant with my second, all the way to, you know, recent.
Um, so there’s some gaps, you know, there’s like five or six years where there’s just not like all of the photos are digital and there’s, there’s no books, but me. Love going through the automatic populated Chatbooks. What happened on my end was that my Instagram became more business than personal. And so, my kids stopped showing up as much.
And then I was like, I don’t really need books. I have a blog. I don’t need books of these pictures. So, I love the idea of the month book cause that’s easy. And I really, really, I’m going to take this one. Like my new resolution for this year is. Just to do one yearbook of our 10 favorite pictures. Each one of us can choose our 10 favorite pictures from the year.
And that seems easy enough that I’m like I did use miss Freddy’s backup bootcamp. I have all of my digital pictures organized by year back to 2006. So, we can just go in, you know, maybe we take a night a month for the next year, and we make up for the next 12 for the last 12 years by doing our 10 favorite pictures.
You know, this could be our year. So. If you, if you’re listening and you’re thinking I really want to do a family yearbook and I don’t do it, I’ve been trying for like 15 years and I haven’t done it yet. Maybe it’s that taking, like, making it, lowering the bar so far that it actually happens. And I think.
Everyone’s using their 10 favorite pictures. And, you know, that is kind of fun, even that your kids, what their favorite pictures will be, are probably not the ones you would choose as a mom. And that’s kind of a cool memory as well, you know? Like what is the picture you love and why do you like it? And let’s put them all together for my family.
That would be 50 pictures. Like that’s doable. So honestly, anything more than that is just overwhelming. Yeah. Well, and you don’t, you don’t, I mean, we do not need for as much as we all take a picture of. We don’t need to Chronicle every single one of those it’s fun, but we don’t need that. So, um, if you’re feeling.
You’re listening and you’re thinking, yes, I want to do a month book. I want to do a yearbook. I’m already on top of this. That’s great. And if you’re like me and you’re like, I’ve been trying to do this for 15 years and I’m not doing it lower the bar, make it as simple as possible. And just start with now, start with this year with 2021, choose 10 favorite pictures and print it out.
V: And reminisce something is better than nothing and done is better than perfect. Or my mantra is I live by and that applies here. Yes. So, photo book, yearbook. That’s number one.
M: What is your second tip for reflecting or reminiscing on the year that we’ve had?
V: I call it a Remember When Celebration. Actually that name came about last year, we’ve been having these yearly holiday dinners where we all talk about the years and it’s like, high-end highs and lows on steroids. Right? Like the big things of the years. And I, you know, like I said, I like to pull out lessons learned and, and gear up for like, what do we want to accomplish in the new year?
Um, but my friend shared this idea that they do in their family, um, where they have, you know, a fun dinner and they, everyone. Prepares ahead of time with some questions to get them thinking. And then they write down five or six things to bring to the dinner table that they’re going to share things about.
Like what’s the most important lesson you learned this year? Or what skills did you learn or. Do over last year, what would you do differently or something, you know, just to get their minds, um, working and thinking. I think writing it down is really key because, um, you know, how it is when you asked your kids, well, like what did you do at school today?
Um, you know, it’s hard to know, but give them some, some time to reflect and then write it down. And then they, we, we just go around the table, and everyone just keeps sharing as we have. We eat, um, black-eyed peas and collard greens. Cause I’m from the south, that’s our new year’s Eve dinner. Um, and, and remember together, these things that we’ve learned and how we’ve grown, and it’s actually surprising what I’ve learned about my kids, you know?
Cause they, they don’t tell you everything, but if you give them a chance to think about it and then share, like it’s been just treasured experiences and sharing these things. So. For me, I like to do it on new year’s Eve. Um, but you know, again, with older kids, they also have a lot of other plans. So, find a time where you can get your family together.
Maybe it’s Christmas Eve, maybe it’s one of those quiet days in between the holidays. Um, but preparing them ahead of time with some questions to reflect on, have them come with them written down and then make a moment of it. Yeah, I love that. I remember when celebration thinking back on the year, reflecting not only you personally, but involving your families and your spouses, I’m sure that highs and lows for everyone.
Aren’t all aligned. Like what has been going on for someone is different than what’s been going on for everyone. So, I love that idea and I, I love any sort of family celebration. Like any little thing we can do to just make something a little bit special. That’s not like a huge party and there’s no gifts involved in.
It’s not like overwhelming. It’s like, you’re going to have dinner anyway. Just bring this element. That’s still a little element of preparation. I will say when my kids were really young and unable to participate in that kind of way, my friend gave us a family journal once for Christmas, and it was really cute with a cue on the front of it.
She kind of crafted it, but she gave it to us with the purpose of, as things happen throughout the year that you want to remember. Write it down in this book. And she said, at the end of the year, you’ll pull it out and you can read through and a chance to reflect. And so, we, we didn’t fill the whole book that first year we actually use it for years and years, but that was really fun to be able to, the kids all knew too, like, oh, we know what we want to remember that, go get the book and then we would write it down.
And then we’ve got like this little family journal of little things that we wanted to remember and. Easy to look back and reflect on. So that’s another way to do that.
M: Yeah. I think that’s also something that younger kids, like I can think of. Eight- and 10-year-old for sure that they would be the monitors for that. I mean, every time something funny happened, they would say, oh my gosh, you got the book. We have to bring this down. Yeah. Cause they love recounting those stories. And they ask me all the time about, you know, what was it like when I was little or what, what was my first word? Or what were those things that I said, you know?
And sometimes I know right off the bat, sometimes I’m like making stuff. I guide them, you know, I’m making stuff up. Uh it’s. They, they love hearing about that. They love remembering. And I think that. In the habit of writing those things down as they happen, you recognize how special it is in the moment, even if it’s a little thing.
V: And then yeah. You’ve captured those so that you can think about them later. So, I love that. Well, that brings me to my third tip, which is to keep a journal. And I have a love hate with journaling because I want to be a diligent daily journal. And there have been years of my life where I have been, there are years of my life, which I would like to burn those journals because I hope that no one ever reads them.
They were important for me to help process through some hard things, but I don’t really want anyone reading them. Right. The reality is again, the life life’s crazy. And back to my mantra that something’s better than nothing. You know, you don’t need to keep a daily journal and you can have a moment journal.
Like we just described, you can do a weekly journal. I know I’ve had kids that have lived abroad for years. Sorry. Serving missions for our church. And, um, I have a habit of writing them a letter, which is basically a journal entry. And so those letters that I’ve written have served as my journal, or, you know, uh, just end of the year in that quiet week between Christmas and new year’s, just go through your year.
And for me, I like to look at my calendar because I put everything on my calendar. So, my memory, and it feels like a hundred years ago. I’m like, how has that just this year? Yes. And you don’t have to have a detailed, like, this is what I had for breakfast, and then I did this and then I went here, and I wore this, you know, those are interesting, but really not that interesting if you have, you know, years and years of detail.
Yes. Um, but just at the end of the year, you’re reflecting on each month. Really stood out in your mind. And again, the lessons that you learned, um, I think I used to write journals thinking these are from my posterity. My great grandchildren will read these. And, um, except for those years in college, a little too detailed, I don’t know who I was writing this for.
M: Yes, absolutely.
V: But I have learned that journaling is for us. It’s for us now, like don’t write and put it on a shelf and never look at it again. Um, a couple years ago I was asked to speak somewhere, and I wanted to remember the feelings I had around having a miscarriage. I was speaking about grief and grace, and I remembered the feeling, but I wondered how did I articulate that back then?
And so, I dug through and found that journal and reading those pages. Uh, heartbreaking, but also so beautiful how I handled that it’s such, you know, new, totally new devastating experience. And I just, I was like, how w how was my brain in that space? How was able to do that? And so, I just kept reading and reading and reading, and I was just like, man, I was impressed with myself.
You know, like, it’s so easy to get down on ourselves because. Isn’t perfect. We’re not perfect, but there was something about reading my journal, which strengthens me. And so, whether you’re writing daily, weekly, who wants at the end of the year, just do it because it can help you in your life now.
M: Absolutely. Yeah. I fully agree. All of that. And I’ve, you know, similar to my relationship with scrapbooking, I have been an avid journaler at times, and then I’ve been a very spotty journal at times. And I have, you know, actually, even on this podcast, I’ve shared a few different ways over the years of, of journaling and making it work for you.
And I think like you mentioned at the end, the, the most important thing is to just to get something down sometime, you know, it doesn’t have to be a whole Chronicle of your, of your life. And even if you write it down and no one else ever reads it, or, you know, you lose it or you decide to throw it away, like processing it in the moment is important.
It’s, it’s nice to have things to look back on. And actually, one of my favorite kind of weird memories of when I was a teenager, my mom had these huge bookcases, like kind of like a library almost, but it was around the entryway of my house on the. Just about up the, up above the series, you’d walk up the stairs and they were just these massive bookcases with thousands and thousands of books.
And, um, we, I was, you know, a reader. And so, I was always looking through the bookcase and she’d always pull-out books that she thought would be fun for me to read. And one day when I was in high school, I was looking through for a new book to read, just to see I’m just looking for a fiction novel, right.
I’m looking through. And I find this little book that had been tucked in there that as I opened it up, I realized that this was one of my mom’s journals from when she was in her. And she had just popped it in there with all the books. And I don’t know if she had meant to, or if it would just, you know, she was like, oh, just put it on the shelves with the books.
Uh, and so I, you know, brought it to her and we read through a couple of these things together and just stories. I mean, this is my mom is a 16-year-old and I was, you know, 15 or 16 at the time and thinking like, how would you, how were you ever like this? You know, um, like you, you know what, I’m going through it, like, I mean, life was a little bit different for her than it was for me, but just so interesting to see.
Gosh, we, I think journaling humanizes people. Yep. And it humanizes us, like even you are going back and reading your own experiences for your own benefit, you gain compassion for yourself. You gain an understanding of yourself. You can see your depth in ways that you can’t just in your head today.
Think about, you know, I think, uh, there’s a whole level of self-awareness that comes both as you’re processing and writing. And then is you’re able to go back and look, you know, look back. And there’s no wrong or right way to do it. So, I think that sometimes we get frozen with like, oh, I don’t have the right tools or app or whatever.
I’m not doing it at the right cadence, but that we just got to get rid of that kind of thinking.
V: It doesn’t need to be all or nothing. Um, and like you had, you mentioned that sometimes it’s the only way to process through some hard things. I know I sometimes. I’ve written out notes on my phone. Like things that I am having a hard time with that I really don’t want to say to anybody I don’t intend to keep anywhere I just need to get through.
And then I just delete. And there’s something about that sound of just, it’s just I’ve released it. And someone just recently told me that, that this is what they would do. They would write them down. Yeah, those journal pages. And I could see that could be very cathartic too. So, there’s lots of different ways to use writing in journaling, but for reflecting on.
Even if you haven’t written one word this whole year, take some time at the end of the year and just write out the story, the story of you for this year. Um, one of the things I wanted to mention is, especially when it comes to photo books, a lot of people feel like they can’t order that book because they don’t, they haven’t written all their captions.
They haven’t written all the journaling piece. And I have totally gotten over that. One of the things I loved about my, about my chat books that come straight from Instagram is you automatically get that caption. Yeah, journaling, you know, and it was just, it was a beautiful combo, but, um, so many people are not using Instagram as their personal journals anymore.
They’re, you know, family scrapbooks. And so, a lot of photo books are missing that. That captain Germany’s. Yeah, but again, something is better than nothing. Don’t keep that from you ordering it because there are some things you can do by looking at the book and talking about the stories they become, part of the fabric of who you are.
They become. Lord of your family. Cause you’re not supposed to just get the books and put them on the shelf and just be like, okay, that job is done. You’re supposed to look at them and talk about them. Especially if you have young kids, there are so many benefits that come from elaborative reminiscing together about your stories.
Seriously. Chapbooks did a whole study in conjunction with HP and the university of Utah and BYU about how. Reflecting together on photos in detailed ways. It improves self-esteem it improves problem solving it lowers anxiety. It helps parents feel like they’re doing a better job. So. Don’t worry about the journaling.
If that’s getting in the way, just order the photos, talk about them or order them without taking the time to type it all up and then grab a little Sharpie and write in a button. Then you have that little handmade, um, you know, personal touch with your, with your handwriting in there. So just to get over that hurdle, if you have a little voice in your head saying, oh, I just, I can’t do it.
It’s too hard. Yeah, I think the easiest pathway, like sometimes we just try to over-complicate things, right. And just the easiest way to get to the finish line and like, yeah, that’s just recently someone said they have a sign in their bathroom that says one day or day. It took me like a second to be like, wait what?
But then I was like, oh, that’s good. You know, one day I’ll be a journaler or one day I’ll print that photo book or one day I’ll do that, you know, or it could be today. You could just do it today. And if it doesn’t have a date tomorrow, So I love that mentality too. Yeah. I love that. Yeah, this is, this is the year and now is the time.
M: We have a couple more weeks until the end of the year. And I mean, for as much as I do love January 1st, I really do love like that. I think there’s something magical about that. Turning of the clock. I rarely stay up to midnight these days, but you know, even, so I wake up on the first day of the year feeling like it’s a new year.
It’s okay. If you’re listening to this leader, if you’re listening to this in January or February or. Taking time, whenever it is to reflect, to pull together some favorite family pictures, or if you’re not married or you don’t have. No take you’re worth it. You’re worth looking at your own year, your own camera roll. You scrapbook your own life all through your time.
I know. And actually, I’m just thinking about that. I, all of those scrapbooks are just in a box in the attic. Like I should pull them out and show them to my kids. You know, Dave will roll his eyes. Scrapbooks are coming out like those big, padded binders, you know, like. No, your kids. I promise you; they will love it.
V: My mom was a good documenter and she had scrapbooks of her high school and college years too. And those were my absolute favorite. I just wanted to be just like her. So, so get them out, get them out, put them on the shelf, get him out.
M: So, we’re going to work on our scrapbooks. We’re going to do what, remember when celebration I love this idea. And the final takeaway is just to write your story. Some reflections for this year. And maybe you want to begin a habit of writing down those moments with your kids as they come up in like a family journal. I love that idea. I think that’s such a cool idea. Um, whatever way you do it, there’s no right or wrong way, but just write some thoughts, spend some time to think about the highs and lows of this year and what you hope going into the year to come.
I think it’s a really beautiful time to think about all of the possibilities that await us.
V: Thank you for inviting me to come talk about it. I’m excited already just thinking about that week after Christmas. That’s my glory time. It’s your time. It’s our time.
M: Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate all of your tips and just admire so much that your example of following your creativity, of raising your family with all of these cool ideas and creating tools for other families to also. Capture those special moments and to make it as easy and accessible as possible to do these things, to reflect, to reminisce, to collect and to remember.
So, thank you.
V: You’re welcome.
M: Thank you so much, Vanessa, for being here and sharing those fun ideas with us, making a family yearbook, having a remember when dinner and keeping a journal, either a personal journal or a family journal to help you reflect on the year that we’ve been through and prepare and look forward for the year ahead.
More excited than ever for 2022. It’s going to be an amazing one. I want to thank you for tuning into live free creative podcast. Thank you for being here. I hope you’ve enjoyed this show. If you have share it with a friend, text it to yourself. Take a screenshot and put it on Instagram, letting people know you’re listening to and enjoying the free creative podcast.
If you’re not yet subscribed, make sure you hit that subscribe button. So, you don’t miss an episode. I’m here every Thursday. I hope you have a fantastic week, and I will chat with you next time. Bye-bye.
