175: Looking back and ahead - 11 reflective prompts to set achievable goals for business and life in 2026
11 Reflection Prompts to Set You Up for Success in 2026
The end of the year can feel like a total whirlwind, especially for us entrepreneurs sandwiched between wrapping up business loose ends, closing final sales, and trying to create holiday magic for our families - both the young ones and the older ones.
Maybe you're like me, heading into 2026 feeling a little disheveled, discombobulated, and disorganized. The holiday chaos feels like it's pulling me in every direction.
But here's what I know: reflection helps us uncover the wisdom of the past year and set clear intentions for what's to come. So I've created 11 prompts to help you honour your wins, release what didn't serve you, and create a roadmap for 2026.
I wanna give a shout out to Kara Loewentheil from the UnF*ck Your Brain podcast and certified coach Jennifer Horvath, who inspired some of these questions with their reflective practices.
So grab your favourite journal and pen, light a candle or cozy up by the fire, and settle into a comfy spot to ask yourself these questions.
Celebrate what worked
Prompt 1: What were your biggest wins in 2025?
Think about your favorite moments over the year. What are you grateful for in 2025? List your gratitudes, your wins, and your celebrations for both life and business.
Prompt 2: What worked in 2025?
What do you wanna keep doing in 2026? These are the strategies, habits, and approaches that served you well this year.
Release what didn't serve you
Prompt 3: What do you wanna stop doing?
What do you want less of in the coming year in your personal life and your business? This is your permission slip to let go of what's not working.
Prompt 4: What do you wanna add into your business or life?
What do you want more of? What were you missing in 2025 that you wanna add in 2026?
Prompt 5: What are you gonna do in 2026 to care for yourself?
This is such an important question. Self-care isn't selfish - it's strategic.
Dream bigger than you think possible
Prompt 6: What could be possible if you knew you could not fail?
We are in a time of incredible abundance and opportunity. The universe is truly limitless with potential and possibility. There are more resources available for you to tap into than ever before.
From this place of limitless possibility, what is the biggest, boldest, raddest vision you have for yourself and your business in 2026?
Get specific about your goals
Prompt 7: What are your specific business goals this year?
List out your goals for 2026. Maybe chunk them into quarters - Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Think about things like increasing sales, launching or filling your mastermind, filling your one-on-one client calendar, growing your team, or decreasing costs.
Prompt 8: What support do you need to achieve those goals?
Do you need business coaching? A community? More networking? Tech support? Marketing or sales help? Therapy? Be honest about what you need to make 2026 amazing.
Create your action plan
Prompt 9: What are your one or two priorities for the next three months?
Between now and the end of Q1, what needs to happen to move you toward your goals? You might have to reverse engineer from your big goal to figure out what you need to do first.
Prompt 10: Where should you focus your time, energy, and budget?
This is a two-parter. First, think about:
If you're focusing on visibility and marketing, do you need to nurture your current email list? Start or grow your list? Get in front of partner audiences? Speak on stages?
For leads and sales, do you need to run ads? Host webinars? Join communities? Improve your sales calls?
What systems and support do you need? Time blocking? Project management? A CRM? An assistant? A new tech platform?
What support do you need for household and personal goals? Meal planning? A housekeeper? Childcare? Therapy sessions? Fitness programs?
Now for part two: What content, copy, or marketing assets will you need to achieve those goals?
List out all the assets and supporting copy you'll need to advance your Q1 and Q2 goals.
Make it happen
Prompt 11: Add it to your calendar
Take time to actually schedule these things. First, add your self-care appointments - doctor visits, therapy, yoga, fitness, massage, facials, walks. Get your kids' school holidays and activities locked in. Add your parents' medical appointments and needs.
Now that all those life blocks are in there, block time for thinking, planning, and doing in your business. Block time for client calls and client work. Add anything else that will help you move closer to your goals and create that biggest, boldest, raddest vision.
If you assigned timelines to those copy assets or goal steps, put those in your calendar too.
Don't do this alone
Full disclosure: I'm pretty frigging terrible at time blocking and following a blocked schedule. So this is a big goal for me in 2026 - creating a calendar that supports my life first, then my business, and actually following it.
Don't forget to revisit these prompts periodically throughout the year. You can't take action on everything at once. These prompts are meant to guide you back to clarity at your own pace.
I return to them throughout the year with my clients inside my messaging incubator, Pivot to Premium. We do this quarterly, allowing time to reflect through the seasons of business and life and refocus on the messaging needs in our businesses.
Growth accelerates when you're surrounded by a community who understands the path you're walking.
Inside Pivot to Premium, you'll find that community of women entrepreneurs with diverse identities, backgrounds, and lived experiences, all building businesses that honour our ambition and reflect our real lives.
The biggest bottleneck in our business isn't that we don't know enough or need to learn new things. The bottleneck is implementation - taking action to get things done. That's why the final prompt is to look at the messaging and copy assets you need and get them on the calendar.
I'd love to invite you to join this supportive community that helps you take action and implement. You'll refine your messaging, ramp up your sales, and share more authority-building content to attract quality clients in 2026 and sell your premium offers.
If you join before December 31st, you'll unlock a special bonus of a two-hour one-on-one planning and co-writing strategy session with me.
In these two hours, I'll support you to create a plan and clear some writing off your to-do list. These sessions are very effective, so don't miss your chance to get one for free when you join before December 31st - it's a $500 value.
Ready to make 2026 your most successful year yet?
Join Pivot to Premium before December 31st and claim your free two-hour strategy session at kimkiel.com/pivot.
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[00:00:50] Hello, my sweet friend and welcome to this episode of the Ill Communication Podcast. Now, I don't know about you, but the end of the year can feel like a total whirlwind, especially for entrepreneurs sandwiched in the squeeze of life between wrapping up loose ends at. Closing a few final sales and trying to create magic for our whole family, the young ones and the older ones.
[00:01:16] The holiday chaos feels like it's pulling me in every direction. Maybe you are heading into 2026, like me feeling a little disheveled, discombobulated, and disorganized. So as we wind down 2025 and unwrap fresh 2026 calendars to look toward the year ahead, it's a good time to pause and reflect. Reflection, helps us uncover the wisdom of the past year and set intentions for what's to come.
[00:01:45] So I've created 11 prompts to help you honor your wins, release, what didn't serve you, and set intentions for the year ahead. And I wanna shout out a couple folks who helped inspire some of these prompts and questions. Carla Ental, who [00:02:00] shares her reflective practice, or at least she did many years ago on her podcast on Fuck Your Brain and Jennifer Horvath.
[00:02:07] A certified coach who I've had the pleasure of working with in the past, both have a couple of questions that you'll hear inside this list. So take a deep breath, make yourself a cuppa. Grab your favorite journal, pen, journal and pen light, a candle or a cozy fire, and settle into a comfy spot to ask yourself these questions.
[00:02:30] Prompt number one. What were your biggest wins in 2025? Think about your favorite moments over the year. Another way to explore this is to ask yourself what you're grateful for in 2025. So list your gratitudes, your wins, and your celebrations for life and business. Prompt number two, what worked in 2025?
[00:02:52] What do you wanna keep doing in 2026? Prompt three, what do you wanna stop doing? What do you want less of in the coming year in your personal life and your business? Prompt number four, what do you wanna add into your business or life? What do you want more of? What were you missing in 2025? That you wanna add in in 2026.
[00:03:14] Prompt number five, what are you gonna do to in 2026 to care for yourself? That's a really important question to ask. Prompt number six. We are in a time of incredible abundance and opportunity. The universe is truly limitless with potential and possibility. There are more resources available for you to tap into than ever before.
[00:03:40] So from this place of limitless, what could be possible for you in 2026 if you knew you could not fail? What is the biggest, boldest. Raddest vision you have for yourself and your business in 2026.
[00:03:57] Now once you've spent some time reflecting, [00:04:00] dreaming and visioning, it is time to set some goals and some next steps. So now we're gonna get a little more into the nitty gritty prompt. Number seven, what are your specific business goals this year? List out your goals for 2026, and maybe you wanna chunk them into quarters like Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4.
[00:04:20] Think of things like you wanna increase sales into a course. You wanna launch or fill your mastermind, fill your one-on-one client calendar, grow your team, decrease your costs. What are your specific business goals? Prompt Number eight. What support do you need to achieve those goals and make 2026 amazing for you in your business?
[00:04:41] Do you need business coaching? Do you need a community? Do you need to network more? Do you need tech support, marketing or sales? Do you need therapy?
[00:04:50] Prompt number nine. Keeping in mind your biggest, boldest, raddest vision of yourself. What are your one or two priorities for the next three months, for the first quarter, so between now and the next quarter, what do you need to happen to move toward hitting your goals? What steps do you need to take to move toward those goals?
[00:05:14] You might have to reverse engineer from your big ass goal to figure out what you need to do first and then next in the next quarter or two.
[00:05:23] Prompt number 10 is actually a two-parter. The first part is, given your three month priority business and life goals, where should you focus your time, your energy, and your budget? Now, I want you to think about a couple things. If you are focusing on visibility and marketing, do you need to nurture your.
[00:05:44] Current email list. Do you need to start or grow your email list? Do you need to get in front of partner audiences or speak on stages? Are you focusing on local business before scaling online? Think about leads and sales. Do you need to run ads? Do you need to [00:06:00] host events like webinars? Do you need to join communities or networks?
[00:06:04] Are you wanting to improve conversions or perfect your sales calls? What kind of systems and support do you need? Do you need time blocking project management? A CRM? Do you need to get an assistant? Do you need a new tech platform? What kind of support with the household and personal goals do you need?
[00:06:20] Do you need to set up meal planning or a meal delivery service? Do you need a housekeeper or a laundry service? Do you need to line up carpooling for your kids therapy or self-care sessions? Do you need to book in some fitness programs? So spend a little time thinking about where you will focus your time, energy, and budget in this first quarter.
[00:06:40] And now for part two of this question, because I'm a messaging strategist and a copy coach, and you're listening to the Ill Communication podcast. What content copy or marketing assets will you need to achieve those goals? List out all the assets and supporting copy. You will need to advance those Q1 and two Q and Q2 goals and the final prompt.
[00:07:04] Is to add it to your calendar. Take some time to add the tasks or events to your calendar. So first, add your self-care appointments, those doctor's appointments, therapy, yoga, fitness, massage, facials walks, put them in, get your kids' school holidays and activity schedule locked in for the quarter or even for the year.
[00:07:27] Add your parents' medical appointments and needs. Now, now that all those life blocks and rocks are in there, now block time for thinking, planning, and doing in your business. Block time for client calls and doing client work and add in anything else that will help you move closer to your goals and create.
[00:07:48] The biggest, boldest raddest vision you have for yourself. If you assigned any timelines to the copy assets or the steps you need to take to achieve your goals, put [00:08:00] those into your calendar as well. Now, full disclosure, I am pretty frigging terrible at blocking time for myself for following a blocked schedule, time blocking.
[00:08:10] So this is a really big goal for me personally in 2026, is to create a calendar and a schedule that supports my life first and then my business, and that I actually follow it. And finally, don't forget to revisit these reflective prompts periodically throughout the year. You don't have to take action on everything at once, and you absolutely can't.
[00:08:31] So these prompts are meant to guide you back to clarity at your own pace. So come back and revisit them from time to time. I return to them throughout the year with my clients inside my messaging incubator. Pivot to premium. We do this quarterly. It allows us time to reflect throughout the seasons of business and life and refocus on the pieces of copy and the messaging needs that we have in our businesses throughout the whole year.
[00:09:00] I. And I wanna remind you that growth accelerates when you're surrounded by a community who understands the path you're walking inside, pivot to premium, you'll find that community of women entrepreneurs who have diverse identities, backgrounds, and lived experiences, all building businesses that honor our ambition and reflect our real lives.
[00:09:23] And I know that. The biggest bottlenecks in our business isn't that we don't know enough stuff that we need to learn new things. That's not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is doing the thing it's implementing and taking action to get those things done, and that's why the final prompt. In here is to look at the messaging and copy assets you need to advance your goals and to get them on the calendar.
[00:09:48] And I'd love to invite you to join this supportive community and space that helps you take action, that helps you implement, you'll refine your messaging, you'll ramp up your [00:10:00] sales and your, you'll share more authority building content. To attract the kind of quality clients you wish to work with in 2026 and sell your premium offers.
[00:10:11] So please head to kim keel.com/pivot to find out more and big news. If you join before December 31st, you'll unlock a special bonus of a two hour one-on-one planning and co-writing strategy session with me. In these two hours, I'll support you to create a plan. And to clear some writing off of your to-do list.
[00:10:35] These sessions are very, very effective, so don't miss your chance to get one for free. When you join Pivot to Premium before December 31st, it's a $500 value. Again, go to kim keel.com/pivot and reach out to me to claim this bonus and lock in before December 31st. Now, when this episode airs, it will be December 24th, Christmas Eve.
[00:10:58] And whether you celebrate Hanukkah Christmas, or the winter solstice, this entire week leading up to the new year is really a wonderful time to pause and reflect on the year that was, and think about the year ahead. And in the that spirit of reflection, I wanna send my heartfelt gratitude to you for following and subscribing to this podcast for sharing it with your peers.
[00:11:23] For leaving me wonderful reviews and for being in community here with me each and every week. Knowing we are connected through the airwaves means more to me than you know. I wish you and your loved ones the very best of the season, and I send you and your family love and peace. Bye for now. [00:12:00]
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