← Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
129: The Year of the Horse: How to Align Your Life and Business for Your Most Successful Year Yet
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This episode is sponsored by Brevo, Collective and Shopify. Brevo is your all in one marketing and CRM platform that helps you turn attention into actual revenue. From email marketing to automation to CRM tools, Brevo keeps your audience warm without you manually following up 24. Seven and Collective helps you handle the business side of being a creator or entrepreneur. From bookkeeping to taxes to compliance, they make sure you're structured correctly and and not leaving money on the table. And Shopify your commerce engine, it's how you actually sell the thing. Whether that's digital products, physical products, or services. Shopify gives you the tools to build, market, and scale your store all in one place.
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If you're serious about building a real.
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Business, not just posting content, these are the tools behind the scenes. Get started with brevo@brevo.com Creator save with collective@collect collective.com CHC and launch with Shopify shopify.com CHC.
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Hey friends. Welcome back to Call Her Creator. Today's episode is going to be a little different than our usual strategy or business conversations, but I truly believe this might be one of the most important mindset episodes that I've shared in a long time. And it's going to be really fun. And yeah, I just. I recently had this real life realization that stopped me in my tracks. I know that sounds very dramatic, but I was listening to some podcast episodes this morning on my money walk, and I realized for the past year that I've been trying to push my life forward with the same energy I had in a completely different season. And when I couldn't keep up that pace anymore, I thought that something was wrong with me. I thought I was losing my edge. I thought I was falling behind. I thought, you know, maybe you just need to work harder. But when. What if the truth is you're not behind at all? What if you're simply just in a different season than you thought that you should be? And what if learning to recognize your season could actually change how you plan your goals, how you protect your energy, how you move forward this year? So with all of that said, I know I have a bunch of ambitious listeners here. Like, we try to plan our time. We want the best for ourselves. And so that's why I want to talk about the Year of the Horse with you guys. Okay? We're going to talk about what it symbolizes, what it means to transition from last year's energy, how ambitious women, men, how they both can align their lives with it, and how you can even use tools like Personal year numerology to better understand your own season. And I do want to say this very clearly. I am a Christian. My faith is my foundation. So this episode is not about treating symbolism or numerology, neurology as my truth or my Bible because God gives me my guidance. But just think of this as like a fun little learning experience about the seasons in nature. Like personality frameworks, like psychology tools. You can take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't. I do not want to make anyone feel uncomfortable listening to all of this. It's just really fun for me to learn about and I thought it would be fun to talk to you guys about sometimes understanding patterns can give us this language for what we're already experiencing in our lives. And that is where my heart comes from during this conversation. Now, real quick, before we dive in, Stan is hosting their dare to post challenge right now. It's an easy peasy, 30 day posting challenge. And if you complete the challenge, you get to share a hundred thousand dollars with everyone else who completed the challenge. So this is how you're going to show up for 2020. Are not giving up this year. You are becoming that full time content creator. I'm going to do the challenge with you. So I'm going to link it in the show notes. I'll be growing call her creator account. We are almost at 10,000 followers over there, guys. So if you're not already following me, call her creator on Instagram. I will be over there. I'll be cheering you on. I'll be doing the challenge with you. So I'm going to link everything in the show notes register right now. Okay, so let's start by talking about where we're coming from, right? Because we don't want to to step into this new season without leaving something else behind. So last year was a crazy year for me. I. I've heard a lot of other people say it was a crazy year for them, but it was crazy for me. And symbolically, what's crazy about it is that it was the year of the snake and the snake represents something very specific. Have you guys, hopefully y' all have heard about it, but maybe you haven't. The year of the snake was the year of shedding. It was transformation. It was growth that was very uncomfortable. It was letting go of old identities, outgrowing environments, releasing things that no longer fit. All of those. I did all of those. And if you think about a snake shedding its skin, it doesn't happen easily. And I didn't know this either. But, like, when a snake sheds its skin, it's uncomfortable and it's messy, and it requires friction for it to happen. Right? Like, let's. Let's really think about the snake shedding. Like, he's having to pull out of that skin, and there's a lot of friction involved. And when I look back at the past year of my life, that feels incredibly accurate. This past year forced me to shed so much. I shed things in business. I shed things personally. I shed things with family. I shed things with friends. Like, it was a freaking hard year. I. I had to shed the version of myself that believed that I could run at full speed forever without any consequences. I had to shed unrealistic expectations about what success and productivity should look like. I had to shed patterns of overworking, over giving, and pushing past my physical limits. Navigating my Hashimoto's forced me into a kind of shedding that I did not choose to do. Okay. But I desperately needed to do it. And maybe you experienced something, your own version of shedding this year. Maybe you got a divorce. Maybe you broke up with someone. Maybe you left a job. Maybe you left a friendship. Maybe you. Gosh, there's so many things. Maybe you outgrew old mindsets. Maybe you faced burnout. The snake year is about stripping away what is no longer sustainable to us, to our bodies, to our soul, to our minds. But the shedding of all of that is not your ending. It's actually preparation for what's coming next. And that's what excited me about all of this. Because, like I said, with this hard year, I struggle deeply with depression and anxiety. It's something that I've literally lived with my entire life. But reading about the snake shedding kind of made me feel a little bit normal with what I was going through. So I think that's why I'm so interested in. And I. I hope that some of this will resonate with some of y'.
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All.
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Even if you're my Christian girlies out there, like, take what you want from this conversation. You don't have to take it all. But if you felt some kind of way in the last year, it was not on accident. It was probably you shedding because it was the year of the snake. But here's what's exciting. Today marks a new symbolic season which is associated with the energy of the horse. The horse represents movement. It represents freedom, courage, momentum. It represents endurance. It represents forward progress. Like, sign me up, sister, let me. I need all these things in my life right now. But something that's really important to understand with all this is horse energy doesn't mean chaos. It's not chaotic movement. It's directed movement. Right? If you think about a horse, what is it? It's this powerful creature that God created. It can run super fast, it can carry weight, it can take you great distances, but only when it has a clear path and strong guidance. A horse without direction becomes a very restless, scattered, exhausting thing to manage. Right? And this metaphor is just so powerful to me, especially for ambitious women and men, because we are incredible at movement, right? We are incredible at doing. But sometimes we struggle with the clarity of it all. Sometimes we struggle with our pacing. Sometimes we struggle with our direction. This year is not technically asking you to do more, but it's asking you to move forward with intention. And that's why it resonated so deeply with myself, because I am slowing down a little bit. I faced burnout at the end of last year, and then I had my health problems that. That got worse. So I can't keep up with that chaotic go, go, go, go, go that I was doing all the time. Like, I have to slow down a little bit, but I can still keep moving forward as long as and direction. And so that's why it's just such an incredible time. To learn about the Year of the Horse and to celebrate it, we're actually doing a little party in the office to celebrate the Year of the Horse. I'm having all of the girls set goals for themselves. We're gonna really work on, like, what are your intentions for the year? What did you shed from last year? We're gonna enjoy some fun Chinese food, and we're just gonna, like, goal plan, kind of. Like, I've got stuff to make vision boards for us. I want to, like, connect with them on a human level. Not just like their boss level, but, like, on a human level. Like, what do you want out of your life? Okay, let's go chase it. I'm gonna give you some direction, but we gotta plan it all out together. So I'm super excited for this little party. Something to understand is that we live in a culture that celebrates constant hustle. And I don't care if people say, no, we don't. Yeah, we freaking do. Like, it's gotten a little better, but we're still. Is still going on. Everybody's always producing. You get on Instagram, there are millions of photos being posted, videos being posted. People are always scaling, people are always pushing. But real life doesn't operate that way. If you want to Be healthy. Let me say that, right? Our bodies can't constantly be on. Our emotions can't constantly, constantly be on. Like, we have to rest, right? We go to sleep at night. We have to get our emotions in line and chill. You know something I've been hearing about with other ambitious entrepreneurs, they've been talking about remaining neutral, which is really interesting for someone that's very emotional, like me. I am very high, high, high, or very low, low, low. Like, I'm like, am I bipolar? But the doctor hasn't told me I'm bipolar yet. But they say the best entrepreneurs just live a neutral life. Like, you can't ever get too excited about something. You can't ever get too down on something because there are just ebbs and flows, sister. And that's for anyone in life. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. You just be a person that is living in this world. It is always going to be up and down. There are seasons of building, There are seasons of rest. There are seasons of healing. There are seasons of going through it, man. There are seasons of leadership, and there are seasons of listening. And when we ignore the cycles, we end up fighting against ourselves instead of working with ourselves. So learning to align with your season can actually change your entire life. It can reduce burnout. It can clarify what your priorities are at this time in your life. It can help you make wiser decisions about where you want to invest your energy, where do you want to invest your time, all the things if you can live in alignment. So I've got five different tricks to aligning on a deeper level with yourself and in business so that you can just live a more harmness. I don't know if that's a word. So you can live in more harmony, I guess. Harmony. Harmony. I don't know. If you're a mom and you've watched Trolls, that's all that reminds me of. But living in deeper harmony, right? There's five things that you can align to make your life a little less chaotic. So I want to walk you through five of those things, kind of give you some real life examples of what I've done to get through those things. And hopefully this will give you a little bit of direction once you, you know, get off this episode and. And you keep trucking through life. So the first way we align with this Year of the Horse Energy is by choosing direction over constant motion. Okay. And I think this one is super huge for ambitious women because we are incredibly good at staying busy. We're always doing something we're posting, we're creating, we're working, we're planning, we're managing our homes, we're supporting our families, we're answering messages, we're thawing the kitchen, the chicken, we're cuddling the babies. We're putting out fires. Our calendars are full. Our to do lists are endless. But busyness is not the same thing as progress, right? And this year is really asking us to slow down enough to just ask that simple but powerful question to ourselves. Where am I actually trying to go? Where am I trying to go? Because a horse can run incredibly fast, but if it's running in circles, it's not getting anywhere. And so I think that many of us have felt like that at times in our lives. We're moving constantly. We feel busy, but we don't feel like we're moving forward. Alignment this year looks like clarity. It looks like choosing fewer priorities but going deeper with them, right? And that's the kind of person I am like, with friendships of all. I want that deep relationship. I don't want small talk. I don't want to see the girl in the grocery store that I'm not really friends with, but we're friends, and I have to say, hey and ask how she's doing. But I can't be like, no, actually, like, how's your mom and dad? No, like, hey, did you have a good day today? Like, I want those deep relationships, and that's what the year of the horse is. It's about getting deeper. It looks like saying no to things that don't move you towards your real goals, even if they look good on the outside. They sound good, but they're not. No, they're not gonna move you. For me, this has meant simplifying my focus and my business. It means protecting my time and being really intentional about what I say yes to. Because this isn't a year for scattered movement. It's a year for purposeful direction, especially for me, who is trying to work on their health. And I've got to save my energy. Like, I don't have. I don't. I don't get to choose. Like, I. I have to be very picky about where I spend my energy. So with that, I have to be more aligned and more simplified with my focus in life. And so do you. If you want to stop chasing the next best thing. Like, really focus on what is it that you want? What direction do you want to go in? So that's your step number one.
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Podcast and my business constantly asking myself, what if no one listens? What if no one buys? What if this just doesn't work? But choosing to take that leap was.
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One of the best decisions I've ever made.
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Once you've got your direction, then we can build stamina and not just hustle, right? So the second way that we align with this energy is by building stamina instead of hustle. When you think about a horse, it's not just fast, it's enduring. It can travel long distances. It knows how to pace itself. It doesn't sprint at full speed, not nonstop until it collapses. And this has been one of the hardest but most important lessons for me this past year. Navigating the Hashimoto's forced me to face something I had ignored for years, which is that my body has limits. And I can't outwork those limits forever. I can't override my health with willpower. And I think so many of us women live in that space. We push through exhaustion, we ignore our bodies, we normalize burnout. We wear hustle like it's this badge of on are like, oh, my schedule's so full. I am so important, girl. No, you're not. You're just busy this year. It's not asking you to prove how hard you can push. It's actually asking you to build sustainable energy. It's asking you to create routines that support your health, prioritize rest without feeling guilty. It's asking you to think long term instead of just chasing quick wins. Real success is not about how fast you can sprint. It's about how long you can stay in the race. That one just. That one got me. Cause I am a. I want results super fast. I don't work out a lot because I never get my abs fast enough. I've never had abs. So I'm one of those people that I need to see results right away. So this is teaching me. Hey, girl. Slow and steady. I bought my eight pound dumbbells, got my six pound weighted vest. I'm just gonna go slow and steady and build that muscle. The third way to align with this energy of the horse is by trusting our own path and timeline. Horses symbolize independence. I did not know that, but they do. They don't move based on, like, what the other horses are doing. They move based on direction that they've been given. This is a huge one for me. I don't want to go with everyone else. I always want to be that outlier. I remember in high school, everyone was wearing Sperrys and I bought these silver Sperries. Everyone else had the brown sperries, which were ugly. To me, they're boat shoes. But I had bought these silver ones and I thought they were so cool and they were so different from everybody else. And I got them for Christmas. And then we came back to school. This was high school. Came back to school. And I remember a girl at lunch calling me out and being like, what the are those shoes that she's wearing? They're so ugly. And I remember thinking, like, my shoes are ugly. Like, you're the one wearing like the ugly Sperry bow shoes. Like, come on. Mine are like, mine are sparkly. They're silver. But that was like the first part of me where I realized, like, I try to go against what everyone else is doing. I want to be my own self. And that's what horses do too. They, they don't go with what everybody else is doing. They move based on direction that they've been given. They are independent. And in our world today, comparison is one of those biggest sources of anxiety, especially for ambitious people. We see someone launching something new or they're growing their Instagram faster, or they're achieving these huge business milestones earlier and we immediately just feel like we're behind. We start questioning our choices, our pace, our progress. But this year is reminding us that you don't have to run in someone else's lane to reach your destination. In fact, you are going to have a different lane. Your journey is going to look completely different from your neighbor. Your life has its own timing. Your growth has its own pace. Your calling has its own path alignment. Looks like tuning out that noise and reconnecting with what you actually feel called to build. Not what looks impressive from the outside, but what you feel called to build. Because when you trust that path, you stop wasting energy trying to keep up with timelines that weren't even meant for you. Do you boo boo? Do you? This is your permission to do what you want to do. Help.
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Now, once you've got your path in place, it's time to release, sister. We gotta release what weighs you down so that fourth way to align with the energy of the horses by letting go of what weighs us down. A horse can't run freely while carrying unnecessary weight. And neither can we. I think this is where last year's shedding energy really connects to this year's forward movement. Because before you can move faster, you have to lighten your load. And that might look like releasing commitments that drain you. It might look like setting boundaries in relationships. It might look like simplifying your Business. Maybe you're simplifying your schedule or your expectations for yourself. Last year, I was doing a lot. I have my hands in a lot of pots because I just. I'm a creative. I love it. But I had to end a work relationship, which was a great opportunity. They were paying me, amazing. To be a dedicated coach for their organization, but it wasn't aligning with where I was going, and I had to just cut it off. And it wasn't easy. It was hard. But one, I had to simplify my business, and two, I had to release that commitment that was draining me because it was draining me. So I had to say no. Had to. Had to end it. So think about something in your life that's draining you right now that you're probably committed to. Like, don't feel like you have to be committed forever. You're allowed to change your mind on things. For me, this has meant letting go of a lot of different things. But one of those is the belief that I have to operate at the same intensity all the time. It's meant accepting that some seasons require a different pace for me. And that doesn't mean I'm losing ground or, you know, I'm losing my sparkle, I'm losing my magic. It just means there's different seasons again. There's ebbs and flows. Sometimes alignment looks like doing less, but doing it with more peace, more clarity, more sustainability. Those adrenal glands are just chilling out for a little bit. Chilling out. Now, with all of this in mind, the last way to align with this energy is by moving forward when we don't feel perfectly ready. Horses symbolize courage. They don't wait for perfect conditions to move. They respond to direction and trust that momentum will build along the way. And I think this is an important reminder for ambitious women, especially creators, entrepreneurs, and anyone that's building something meaningful. So many of us get stuck in overthinking. We want clarity before we take action. We want certainty before we step forward. We want everything to feel super safe and predictable. But progress doesn't work like that. This year is asking us to take intentional steps forward, even if they feel imperfect, even if we're still figuring things out, even if we feel nervous. Clarity usually comes after movement, not before it. You actually have to start doing it before you're like, oh, okay, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Sometimes the most aligned thing you can do is just to simply take that next step step that's in front of you. There is a quote about the staircase. Staircase. I'm looking it up because it's so. It's so good. I think it was by, yeah, Martin Luther King. You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step. I know that sounds like super cliche, but whenever you feel a calling in your heart or something like that and you don't know what to do, just take that first step. Even if you can't see the full path, just take that first step. Now, one additional tool that can be super interesting for reflection is personal year numerology. This is something that I calculated this morning and I wanted to share it with you guys. If you calculate your personal numerology, you can kind of work in alignment with like, with like yourself and your own dreams and stuff like that. I ended up learning what my number was. And after hearing what my number was and what it means, I'm like, okay, this makes sense. So it's actually called personal year number. It's not your life path number. It's just a simple, like, reflection tool that suggests what theme your current year may revolve around. So think of it like, as a focus word for your season or like a planning lens or a reflection framework. Right? It's not prediction. It's not fate. It's not anything spiritual or religious. It's just a way to think about timing. So there's three steps. You add your birth month, your birthday, and then the current year. And then you reduce it one digit. It it. So an example here, my birthday is October 29th. So that would be 1 plus 0. That's October is 10 plus 2 plus 9, and that all equals 12. Then you reduce that number by adding the digits together again. So one plus two equals three. Now that you have that number, you take the current year, which is 2026, and you add those digits. 2 plus 0 plus 2 plus 6 equals 10. Then you reduce that again to a single digit, which would be one. So now you take your birthday number, which was three, and your year number, which was one, and you add them together. So three plus one equals four. If you're not a math girly like me, you can totally look this up on Google. It's not that hard. But basically what we're getting at is my personal year is four. So that number simply represents the, the theme or focus of the season of life. So there's a couple different seasons. I think it goes up to like, year nine. So for me, I'm in year four, which is about building foundations, structure, stability. And I'm telling you, like, that's where I'm at right now, like, I've already planted the seeds. I've been doing this for five years now. I'm reaping what I sow. But at the same time, I am working on my structure. I am working on my stability, because I know that I can't keep running a marathon every single day to try to build this business. I have to build some kind of structure and stability to just maintain where I'm at. But there's a couple different general themes. Like, year one is, like, new beginnings, fresh start. Year two focuses on patience, relationships, collaboration. Year three is about creativity, expression, visibility. So go ahead. Like, when you're done with all of this, you can calculate what your number is. And again, don't see it as a belief system, but just as a way to reflect on what this year may be asking of you. And again, that is why I am going to work, be working on my foundations, my structure, and my stability. It just kind of gave me direction. I want. I'm a rule follower, and I want someone to be like, okay, here's what you need to focus on. Thanks. So, as we wrap up, let's bring this all together and really simplify what the Year of the Horse represents. At its core, the Year of the Horse symbolizes forward movement. It represents courage, momentum, endurance, independence, and progress. The most important thing to understand is that this kind of movement is not chaotic or rushed. It's intentional. A horse is powerful, but it doesn't run blindly. It runs best when it has direction, when it has clarity and a clear path in front of it. And that's really the heart of this symbolic season. This is a year that encourages us to move forward in our lives, but not by doing more or pushing harder or exhausting ourselves. Instead, it invites us to move forward with purpose, to clarify where we're going, to build stamina instead of just hustling to trust our unique timelines, to release what's weighing us down, and to take that courageous step forward, even if it feels scary or imperfect. And when you look at it through that lens, this isn't about anything mystical. It's simply a reminder that seasons change and each season asks something different from us. So if there's one big takeaway I want you to leave with today, it's this. You're not losing your momentum. You're not falling behind. You're not failing because you can't push at the same pace you once did. You just simply might be in a season that requires a different kind of strength. This year is not asking you to prove how hard you can hustle. It's asking you to move forward with intention. Sometimes that looks like healing. Sometimes that looks like simplifying. Sometimes it looks like adding a little bit more preparation. But when you work with the season you're in, instead of fighting against it, you get to experience something so powerful. You get to experience more peace in your progress, more confidence in your direction, and that freedom to just move forward in a way that actually feels sustainable. And that's what I want for you this year. That's what I want for myself this year. I don't want more pressure. I don't want more hustle. I want more alignment. I hope this year brings you the most clarity in your direction, strength in your endurance, and the courage to keep moving forward, just one intentional step at a time. And if you resonated with today's podcast episode, please send it to a friend. Please send it to someone that would love it. And thank you so much for being here. I will see you guys next time.