[Note: I started doing an annual recap back in 2010 .
You can find other years here: | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023
2020 got skipped for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the pandemic.]
If you've been in my orbit for any length of time, you know that my new year starts on Jan 5, because that's my birthday. So yeah... Happy New Year!
Since I've been doing these recaps for 15 years now, I thought I'd go back and actually read through all my past recaps. See how far I've come and whatnot.
13 years since my first book. 10 years since my last album. 9 years since I moved to Nashville. 8 years since I first hosted my annual Creative Freedom Retreat. 7 years since my last book. 6 years since we moved to Mississippi. Almost 5 years since my pandemic wedding. 4 years since we moved back to Nashville. 3 years since I started and ended the year with COVID. 2 years since my back surgery. 1 year since I became the local host for Morning Edition from NPR News. All before I turned 50!
I found it interesting that the recurring theme of most years is how HARD things are, and how I came close, yet still missed the mark on many of my goals. This year's wrap up is eerily similar in that respect.
I'm curious about that. Curious why I've always set goals that are so ambitious that I consistently fall short. At one point, I remember telling my former mastermind group that it's because I'd rather set something ambitious and point to progress rather than hit something small and easy.
Now? Well, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm just used to things being hard and setting this ambitious goals keeps me in that comfort zone. Maybe I'm afraid to set "easy" goals because they're not ambitious enough. Maybe I'm afraid of getting complacent once I hit those easy goals.
Maybe it's a little of all of that and some other things I haven't figured out yet. Maybe I'll never figure them out.
Like I said... curious.
I've dragged my heels getting my goals locked down for this year and I sense I just got a clue as to why!
Seriously. I typically have all my goals hammered out in October and my planning calendar primed and ready to go for January 1. This year, I didn't even do my annual reading with Pam until January 1... and I had all kinds of "not enough" feelings around that.
But we've had a BUNCH of question marks and uncertainty as we rolled into the end of the year that made it challenging to have any kind of clarity on much of anything.
Jim had more surgery, changed jobs a few times, resulting in a significant net income drop that made hitting our goals almost laughable. More on that in a bit. The radio station gig became something entirely different once I got there. That's both a good thing and a less than desirable thing.
I generally set my goals using my Dreamblazing program, and as I've done for the past 10+ years, you'll see a breakdown below by each of the 5 Key Area of Success. I also typically review and re-set my goals at semi-annual planning, but this year, the second half of the year went a little off the rails. So you won't see a mid-year reconfiguration in my goals.
Enjoy!
At the beginning of 2024, this was my number 2 goal - and it was hella ambitious.
I play Lisa Robbin Young full out - to the hilt - and show the world who I am, while confidently trusting that the Divine supports me to thrive - I can only WIN!
Like I said, hella ambitious.
I think I checked this box as far as my capacity would allow. Another case of progress on a very ambitious goal. Maybe ambitious goals are more inspiring to me? Hmm... hard to say. Still being curious.
I definitely went full out in just being Lisa Robbin Young more intentionally in public. At the station, I've somehow empowered a whole much of folks to wear more sparkles. They'll come up to me and show me their sparkly thing - a sweater, a dress, a pin or a pair of earrings - and say "I HAD to show you my sparkles!"
It may seem trivial, but those are ripples in the pond, baby!
I wear something that sparkles, shimmers, or shines every day. That was a commitment I made to myself after I went through the STAR program a couple years ago. Some days, I'm head-to-toe in sequins behind the board in the studio. Other days, it's just a pair of bedazzled shoes or a sparkly necklace with my station T-shirt. But EVERY day, I sparkle, shimmer, or shine.
To see that commitment having even a tiny impact on a workforce where women are in the minority and often have to show up in very male-dominated spaces makes my heart happy. that they feel comfortable enough to bring more of their own sparkle to work is one thing - but then to share it with other people? That's impact and I am HERE for it!
Showing the WORLD who I am? Well... MY world this year was limited pretty much to Bloomington and my extended family and friends around the globe. I think, for THEM, they got an eye full of who I'm becoming.
I was very visible locally: Emcee for two entrepreneur pitch competitions and at TEDx Bloomington. Hosting a trivia night for the radio station, and meeting a bunch of our listeners at the station Open House.
I was also on a few podcasts in 2024 that won't air until 2025. So those ripples are still pending!
The hardest part of this goal was trusting that I was supported to THRIVE. I look back at 2024 and don't necessarily FEEL like I was thriving. It felt like a lot of hard work and very little return on investment. Seed planting. Nurturing. Watering and tending, but not much growth, blooming, or fruiting.
So, perhaps I needed to be more specific? Trust that I would thrive THIS year, instead of just thrive in general? Because it feels like the seeds I planted will mature and bear fruit this year... and maybe I'll feel more like I'm thriving then.
Trust, in general has been a hard one for me over the years. When you come from a traumatic background where trust was a tool for manipulation and a weapon held against you, it is very difficult to trust other people - let alone trust the Divine - for anything. This is an ongoing practice for me. Therapy is definitely helping. And, to quote Robert Frost... I have miles to go before I sleep.
This was my number six goal for the year. While I can mark this goal as technically achieved, it was also probably one of the biggest disappointments of my year.
I am deepening my family bonds with new experiences and positive memories.
This was ranked number six because I felt like my family bonds are pretty strong in most cases. My extended family has been harder to stay connected to, and both my kids have their own lives now that they are adults. The three most important things for me this year were seeing my youngest graduate from high school, and visiting my families for the holidays (and hopefully seeing my oldest child somewhere along the way.
I wasn't able to attend graduation, but I did watch it on the livestream that the high school made available. I'll save my salty comments about ex-husbands being uncommunicative, or work schedules making it nigh on impossible to be there.
I did make it back to Michigan for Thanksgiving. My extended family convened at my cousin's house for the evening meal and some great conversation. I've missed those times. Everyone was in a great mood and we were all smiles. Oddly, there wasn't a single game of Euchre or Cribbage, but otherwise it was a fun time.
And we made it to Nashville to visit Jim's folks. Also a good time.
As for new experiences... well, maybe I should have been more precise. My oldest has been struggling with housing and job insecurity. It was an emotional Thanksgiving, seeing him clearing out a garage for the winter so that he and his dog would have a clean, warm place to sleep. I won't tell his story for him. Suffice it to say that, as a mom, it's hard to see your kids going through hard things.
After Christmas, Jim and I went a little farther south to Louisiana. No... not NOLA. This time, we went to check out Lafayette and Baton Rouge. We were supposed to meet up with some of Jim's friends, but the storms blowing through cancelled those plans. We DID get to have a quick coffee with another of Jim's long-time friends as we were driving through Birmingham, though, so that kind of made up for it.
All told, it wasn't exactly how I hoped it would be, but it was goal number 6, so that's par for the course.
My number one goal this year was to have the resources for proper & timely healthcare for my total well being. My other fitness goal - at number 5 - was to expand my social network by 204 people and actually go DO things together!
I started my year with a birthday celebration with two new, local friends. We saw each other a few more times during the year, but the radio station job made it difficult to connect on week nights.
We rolled into year two of our local D&D group. They meet at our house and they are a fun group of "kids" (they're in their 20s-30s). Jim hosted a bonfire over the summer and our work friends came out to toast marshmallows and talk late into the evening.
I really needed that.
The gig at the station became more of a lifeline than a fun project by summer. My "work friends" were giving me life on the daily and having even one of them come to just hang out on a Saturday night meant the world to me.
I've been grateful that I had much better medical care this year, thanks to the University's insurance. Probably the best medical insurance I've ever had. I will miss it when I'm gone. My heel lift (that was a problem in 2023) was FINALLY resolved after another extensive round of PT and medication to help with the heel lift issue. I also finally got in to see a therapist and she is FANTASTIC!
This year my goal was much more succinct than last year: continue to prepare for Jim's retirement & still be able to make 3+ trips/vacations during the year.
I mean, we did that, but not NEARLY at the pace I'd planned.
See, this radio station gig was supposed to be a fun "extra" to help us pay off some bills and sock away money for Jim's retirement in 2026. But...
Not long after Jim returned to work post-2023 surgery, he resigned. There were financial shenanigans afoot at his place of employment. The CEO and office manager ended up getting removed from the property for misappropriating funds. that explained why they were cutting hours and payroll, but they couldn't provide a clear timeline on when employees would be restored.
Jim resigned... without having anything else lined up.
It was a bit of a shock, since I was only a week into this radio station gig at the time. But, we do what we've gotta do to keep the ball rolling.
He eventually settled into part-time work at a local school. But his pay was effectively cut by more than 50%.
So, my "fun little extra" became a significant part of our income (and health insurance!) for the year.
We did manage to pay the extra tax bill from my student loan forgiveness, thanks to a part-time gig working at the mall for the first part of the year.
Yes, you read that right. I was working part time at the mall to save money for the taxes, full time at the radio station, AND running my business, which did surprisingly well this year, too!
Normally, I would not advocate for this kind of lifestyle imbalance. It was definitely a year of what I call compassionate hustle. I started the year with the capacity to do this much work. Looking at this year, I may need to re-assess.
I hired an amazing video editor. He's been busy cutting together the remaining episodes for Season 8 of Creative Freedom. We've got about 2 episodes left!
The reason for the delay in the broadcast schedule?
My VA had a medical crisis early in the year that necessitated a leave of absence. I made a decision to shoot all the episodes first and THEN finish the release of the season, once she had returned to work.
Let's be clear: many companies act like giant machines that keep steamrolling into the night like Snowpiercer... when one "part" goes down, we just replace it with another human and keep the train going.
While I think my work is important and valuable to the world, my work is not life or death. No one is going to die if Creative Freedom doesn't have any new episodes for a while. I don't need to put undue pressure on myself to pick up the work that would normally be done by my VA, and hiring someone else would create a different kind of disruption... believe me, I've been there before!
Our business is cruising along in a state of stability. I have contracts with clients and about 90 people in our membership community. There's no need to put extra pressure on myself to "grow the business" and create more work that only I would be able to do!
Plus, Creative Freedom is a cost center. It doesn't make money directly. It drives new business from viewership, but social media has made that lead time even longer in the last few years, so I'm in no hurry to throw money at something that won't generate immediate revenue in return.
So, I made the decision to put distribution of the show on hold and keep working behind the scenes to create new episodes with my video editor. We would "stockpile" them and be ready when my VA was able to come back to do the marketing and distribution of the show.
That happened near the end of 2024. We are putting the finishing touches on a few episodes and expect to re-launch everything in the next month or so.
This was my number three goal for the year: I have the freedom to create, explore, and just BE on my own terms.
HA HA HA HA HA.
Freedom looked very different this year. I wanted freedom in all ways - in my body, my life, my work. I wanted freedom in all forms: time, space, financial, energetic.
This was a mixed bag.
In one sense, I had a LOT of freedom to work: freedom to take on a part time job, a full-time job, and keep working my business at the same level as last year. At the radio station, I had some freedom to be able to create and launch a new music history show. The Influencers is a multi-media music and music history show that connects the dots from pop artists of today to the historical influences in their musical family tree. Think: Finding Your Roots meets American Top 40... but without the countdown.
The show has great potential, and it's been a LOT of work to get even the show announcement trailer launched. All my years making Creative Freedom has been put to good use. Which is another reminder to STOP waiting to get discovered and just do the work you love. The right people will find you and opportunities will come to you in time.
But taking on three different positions over the course of the year didn't leave me with much freedom from work! Time freedom was not really a thing for me this year. In the process, I learned a few things about myself that probably wouldn't have come to light otherwise:
Don't get me wrong... I enjoy coaching. I'm GREAT at it. I've also hit a couple of walls in the past few years where I've felt more like a crutch than a problem solver. Solving problems delights me. Performing delights me. Intensives are a way for me to do both simultaneously.
That Manifestor energy is perfectly suited to being an entrepreneur - because telling your boss you're going to do something and then DOING it without getting a greenlight can be a recipe for stress... and I felt that a LOT this year.
The original premise was for me to design a radio broadcast show that would eventually become a weekly series. But as I looked at the station's strategy and vision, it became clear that they needed something else - a vehicle that could bridge the gap between their existing audience and a new audience they wanted to attract. That meant using video and/or podcasting in some way, since that's where the new audience was "hanging out".
The station has never developed a multi-media, cross-platform show before. But I had. I knew that it would take a bit of logistics to do it in a sustainable way. And they're actively working on building out the infrastructure to make this kind of work more sustainable. But the path to getting there has been BUMPY at best. It involves enlisting talent from multiple departments in our unit. It means a lot of ASKING FOR HELP and then WAITING to get it.
If you know me, this is NOT my zone of genius.
So I practiced a lot of patience this year - or at least TRIED to. I pitched the idea for this show in April... our first video episode just went live over the weekend.
Yeah... a LOT of patience.
In the interim, we had regime changes. People who consulted on the original idea left the organization. The shape of the show changed a few times before we landed on a format that everyone could get behind. It meant a LOT more work for me: shooting, revising, and re-shooting. But we're inching our way toward a workflow that's doable for anyone in the department. My goal was to create something that had legs like RadioLab... and could continue on long after my departure in a few years.
I never planned to stay at the station more than 3-5 years (to get vested and see the show take off). I developed the whole thing so that it could be a profit center for the station... if it ever gets the green light.
We've got a 6-episode mini season for the first half of the year. After that? Well, there's a lot up in the air right now.
I'm glad I didn't "wait around to see what might shake out" with Jim's employment situation. The radio station gig has been a lifeline for us this year. It's helped bolster my own visibility in the community and nationally. I've been a "cover girl" twice this year for the station and have a feature article in a local magazine due out next month! We even have donors who are worried about "losing me to NPR national", they think I'm THAT good... and they haven't even seen the new show yet!
That said, my desire for Jim to take some time to find something that suits him didn't really pan out. He fell into a groove at the elementary school and just kept working it until the end of the school year. He picked up another job for the summer that really just filled a gap until he could return to the school in the fall.
By fall, things were on the ropes, financially speaking. He was more and more disenchanted with his job. Plus, you'll remember that his pay had been so significantly reduced that we weren't making much headway on his early retirement goal.
We've had almost three years in B-Town. I thought we'd be farther along on our goals. It triggered in me this old story of, "I can't count on my spouse. I have to do it all myself." This time, though, I refused to give into it and I actually talked with Jim about it.
I guess that, coupled with my frustration at how something that was supposed to be a "fun extra" had become our lifeline, lit a fire under him to start looking for a job again.
And he's looking everywhere.
Which means we may be relocating again this year.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I'm staying open to possibilities. I always say I'll go wherever the Internet is good - so who knows? Maybe we'll take a 6 month turn in Cyprus, or Greece, or Panama... or maybe make a permanent move overseas - or maybe just down the road to another pat of Bloomington.
I'm learning to let go and accept help in whatever form it arrives.
As for my business, I'm refocusing my efforts on developing a reality show around writing my next book (about the Star Power framework) and bringing folks along for the ride as I put MYSELF through the framework over the course of the year. We've still got a few VIP backer seats left to fill, but I feel pretty good about how it's developing.
Last year's word was LUXE... signifying luxury and luckiness and in many ways, we were incredibly lucky! We made it through the year a bit better off than when we started it. I'm grateful for that, AND I'm wanting bigger wins for this year. I want to feel more expansive in the moment. Less pressure. More ease. More joy. More connection - which might actually make things more complicated, but if it leads to more joy, I'm willing.
I tried finding words that gave me a sense of lightness... joy.. possibility. I turned to Katy Perry's Roar... but the language was too much about overcoming oppression. I don't even want a hint of oppression. I'm not trying to call more of that into my life!
I moved on to Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke, which is a great tune, no doubt. I call on it a lot. But not exactly the lyrics I was looking for, either. More of a listicle than a calling in of all the good feelings I was looking to embody this year.
Then, I went to Jon Batiste and rolled through a bunch of his music until finally landing on Freedom. A song about embodiment, dancing, joy, doing my own thing and enjoying the hell out of it.
OH HELL YESSSSSS!
This year, the thing that gives me the ultimate feeling of joy, ease, lightness, and expansion is a sense of true freedom. "Free to live how I wanna live."
So many good lyrics. "We're overdue for a little more prancing."
Um. Yes please.