Podcast Summary: TheUPside Podcast

Episode: Your End-of-Year Reset: 10 Powerful Questions for Reflection

Host: Theresa Flood
Date: November 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this reflective episode, host Theresa Flood guides listeners through a set of ten powerful questions designed to help them assess, celebrate, and reset as they approach the end of the year. With a focus on clarity, vision, and sustainable growth—both personally and professionally—Theresa shares insights and personal stories to encourage deep, meaningful introspection. The episode is a practical blueprint for ending the year with intention and launching into 2026 with renewed energy and vision.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power of Reflection Questions

Theresa emphasizes that the process of reflecting on good questions is more important than simply finding answers.
Spending time with these questions over the holidays can prevent burnout and reignite vision for the future.
Listeners are encouraged not to rush, but to ponder these questions deeply, returning to them over days and weeks ([01:55]).

The 10 Reflection Questions

1. Three Wins and What They Reveal About Your Strengths ([02:25])

“If you can figure out how you won this year and then double down on that for next year, it is so incredibly powerful.”
Celebrate wins rather than focus exclusively on losses; recognize the progress you've made over the year.
Memorable moment: Theresa encourages listeners to honor personal growth—“Some of you are doing things you did not even dream would be possible a year ago, much less three years ago. You are not even the same human being that you were ten years ago.” ([03:10])

2. Biggest Challenge and Its Lessons ([05:12])

Look at challenges not just as failures, but as growth opportunities.
“What did it teach you about your character? What did it teach you about your biggest opportunities for growth?”

3. Something Started but Not Finished ([06:08])

Rather than feel shame, ask: Is this truly something I need to finish, or should it be released?
Reassess alignment with your current vision and priorities.

4. Designing Your Ideal Life and Business for Next Year ([07:36])

Imagine your ideal life and business by December 2026, focusing on vision rather than specific goals.
Include how you want to feel, what your daily experiences look like, and who surrounds you.
Use feeling words and vivid imagery.

5. Choosing a Word, Theme, or Value for the Next Year ([09:23])

Select a defining word for the year—something that captures the essence you want to embody.
Theresa shares how “alignment” has been her word for two years, shifting her journey and choices:
- “Alignment to the purposes and the call of God in my life, alignment in relationships, alignment with my business and my goals. Everything for me has been about alignment and watching that come into place.” ([09:48])

6. Who Do I Need to Become? ([11:05])

“Who you need to become is the number one thing in determining what you will achieve in the future.”
Growth is an inside-out process—success starts with identity and beliefs.
Reflect on which traits and disciplines you need to embody moving forward.

7. One Bold Move for Q1 ([12:20])

Identify one bold action for Q1 that could set the tone for 2026.
Theresa shares her own example: “My bold move last year was launching this podcast. And I will tell you, it absolutely changed the entire course of 2025 for me.” ([12:48])
Emphasize courage and stepping out of your comfort zone early in the year.

8. Relationships to Invest In ([13:44])

Evaluate which relationships (mentors, peers, community, family, clients) need investment or possible release.
“Success is never a one man job. Never ever, ever. Success is always with multiple people. You cannot be successful in a vacuum all by yourself.” ([15:02])
Ask: Who can help me with my goals? Who can I align with or learn from?

9. Habits That Compound Wins ([16:09])

What daily or weekly habit can you start now that will pay dividends over the next year?
Theresa shares her intention to develop a daily writing and journaling practice:
- “I must become a writer…That is going to compound into more podcast episodes, more value that I can bring online, more speaking engagements that I can bring value to people. But I must become a writer.” ([16:38])

10. What to Stop That’s Draining Your Energy ([17:36])

Identify habits, commitments, or tasks that no longer serve you.
Double down on what energizes you, and shed what drains you.
“Double down on the things that you love, shed the things that drain your energy and watch 2026 transform.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Vision in Q4:
- “Q4 is about clarity. It’s about interrogating your wins, your losses, reigniting vision for next year and for the future.” ([00:36])
On Celebrating Wins:
- “Many of you do not take near enough time to stop and celebrate. If you look back on how far you’ve come in one year, you need to take just a moment and celebrate.” ([03:40])
On Personal Growth:
- “Everything starts with the way we think, the way we feel, the thoughts that we believe, the stories that we tell.” ([11:12])
On the Power of Community:
- “Ask the question who before you ask how or what.” ([15:35])
On Deep Reflection:
- “This isn’t a 30-minute activity…There are going to be certain things that come immediately to your mind and then there are going to be other things that you need to stop, put it down and come back tomorrow and then come back the next day and write a little bit more about this.” ([18:30])

Final Thoughts & Encouragement

Theresa encourages listeners to give themselves time and grace with these questions—deep reflection is a process, not a checkbox.
She shares her own story of spending months with similar questions during major life transitions, demonstrating the long-term benefit of this work.
Closing reminder: Taking time for introspection is the key to walking into the new year with purpose, clarity, and momentum.

Important Timestamps

[00:36] — Purpose of Q4 and vision-setting
[02:25] — Question #1: Celebrating wins
[05:12] — Question #2: Biggest challenge
[07:36] — Question #4: Ideal vision for next year
[09:23] — Question #5: Word or theme for the year
[11:05] — Question #6: Who to become
[12:48] — Theresa’s bold move: Podcast launch
[15:02] — Success is never a one-person job
[16:38] — Journaling habit for 2026
[17:36] — What drains your energy

“Q4 is about clarity so that you walk into 2026 with vision for the future, with momentum recharged and ready to rock.” – Theresa Flood ([19:42])

Summary Flow

Introduction
Importance of reflection questions over the holidays
One-by-one, the ten powerful end-of-year questions, with explanation and anecdotes
Concrete encouragement to linger with these questions, not rush the process
Personal stories highlighting the transformative nature of self-inquiry
Final call to action: slow down, ponder, and step into the new year renewed

Transcript

A (0:00)

Welcome to the Upside Podcast, where we help you get unstuck in your life and your business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. I'm Teresa Flood. Thank you so much for joining me today and today's episode I'm going to give you 10 reflection questions that I'm going to encourage you to spend some time with over the next couple months before 2026. So if you listen to my episode at the beginning of October about Q4 and what the fourth quarter is all about, one of the things we talked about in that episod is that the fourth quarter is about getting clarity. It's about interrogating your wins, your losses. It's about reigniting vision for next year and for the future. One of the best ways that we prevent burnout or get ourselves out of a state of burnout is to get back into talking about vision, remembering why we do what we do, thinking about the future, allowing our creative energy and creative juices to start flowing. And questions oftentimes are even more important than the answer and what I mean by that. It's less about what answers you come up with or what you determine these answers to be, and more about the process of sitting with these questions. So if you subscribe@teresaflood.com I will send all of these to you. So if you are on the treadmill, lifting weights, driving in your car, you don't have to worry about writing them down. Just go to teresaflood.com, subscribe. I'll send them all to you. And I'm going to encourage you to spend spend some time over the holidays reflecting on these questions. So question number one what are the three wins that I am most proud of this year and what do they reveal about my strengths? Sometimes we look for all of the losses and think what do I need to learn from the losses? It's it's just as important to learn from our strengths. If you can figure out how you won this year and then double down on that for next year, it is so incredibly powerful. Instead of doing more of what we're not good at, oftentimes we just need to go deeper and do more of what we are good at. Many of you do not take near enough time to stop and celebrate. If you look back on how far you've come in one year, you need to take just a moment and celebrate some of those wins. Some of you are doing things you did not even dream would be possible a year ago, much less three years ago. Five years ago. You are not even the same human being that you were in 10 years ago. Take time to celebrate and to look at how far you've come. Yes, we want to look at where we're going. We want to see how do we get from where we're at to where we want to be and stop for a moment and celebrate the wins. Look at the gain that you have made, know how you got here, and then how you can go do that again. So where did you win in your business, in your personal life, in your leadership, growth, in your family and your relationships? What. What did you do that created those wins and then go back, and that way you can go and recreate them and do them again. Question number two. Where did I experience the biggest challenge, and what did it teach me? Where did I experience the biggest challenge, and what did it teach me? Not just where did I fail? Where did I fall short? What was the most challenging thing that I walked through this year, and what did it teach me? What did it teach you who you are, about your character? What did it teach you about your biggest opportunities for growth? Question number three. What is something that I started and didn't finish? Now, when you first hear this question, you may have an overwhelming feeling of shame because you think, oh, there were several things that I started this year and did not finish. And here's the. The thing that I want you to really ponder, though. Is this something that you should have finished, or was it something that you started that you need to release and let go of? Was it something that maybe when you put it on the goal list or when you started doing it, it aligned with your vision, and yet things have changed, things have moved along, and you need to just release that and let it go. Or maybe there's things that you say, no, I committed to doing this. I didn't finish. I need to be a person who finishes, and I'm gonna continue to go forward with that. All right, number four. If I could design my ideal life and business by December 2026, so one year from now, what would that look like? And I'm not asking you to set goals. That. That's a whole different conversation. If you're in business, surely you're doing business planning, all of that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, what is the vision mean? What does the picture of what life and business looks like one year from now? How do you feel when you wake up every single day? What are you accom machine? What are the people around you able to do? Who is around you? Who are you spending time with? What kind of extracurricular activities? How have you learned? How is your confidence different? What do you think about on a daily basis? What are you reading? What are you learning? If you could design your ideal life and business, what would it look like? Let this be a vision about where you're going. This should include a lot of feeling, words, picture words, adjectives, and spend some time really thinking about it. Question number five. What word, theme, or value do I want to define my next year? A lot of you already do this. You pick a word of the year. For me, the word for the last two years has been alignment. And that was something that in a quiet time of prayer that I had with the Lord, that he spoke to me about. Alignment out of John 15. And that has been my year. Alignment to the purposes and the call of God in my life, alignment in, in relationships, alignment with my. My business and my goals. Everything for me has been about alignment and watching that come into place. And so whatever that word is, and don't just pick the first one that comes to mind. Sit on it for just a minute, really chew on it is this. If you had one word that you could look back on at the end of next year and say, that happened in my life, I experienced alignment. I experienced consistency. I experienced courage, I experienced joy. What is that one experience you want to have over the next year? All right, question number six. This is my favorite question, maybe of all time, favorite question to ask. And that is who do I need to become to achieve what I want to achieve in 2026? Here at the upside, we believe that everything that you want to accomplish in your life, that growth is from the inside out. Everything starts internally before it manifests externally. Everything starts with the way we think, the way we feel, the thoughts that we believe, the stories that we tell. Who you need to become is the number one thing in determining what you will achieve in the future. So who do you need to become? The reason we don't achieve certain things is because we haven't yet become the person that achieves those. So what are the character traits? What is the disciplines? What are the things that I need to be to accomplish what I want to accomplish next year? Question number seven. What is one bold move that if I made it in Q1, would set the tone for the rest of the year? My bold move last year was launching this podcast. And I will tell you, it absolutely changed the entire course of 2025 for me. And to me, it may not feel Like a bold move for you? To me, it felt like a bold move. What is the one big, bold, courageous, out of your comfort zone, something different that you could do to go set the tone that you are a person that doesn't stay comfortable and, and that you can do in Q1? Don't wait, don't delay, don't save it for the end of the year. What is the one big bold move that you can make in Q1? Question number eight, what relationships do I need to invest in next year? And I would think about relationships from the aspect of mentors. Who do I need to learn from next year? These can be people you know, personally, these can be people. Books that you read, podcasts that you listen to, events that you go to could be peers. What kind of accountability group, what kind of tribe and community do you need to invest in 2025 for? Tommy and I was a year of really starting invest in relationships at church and we decided we've been going here for a while, it's time for us to get really serious about plugging in and really starting to develop community. And that's been a beautiful journey over the last year. Your family relationships, your clients, what with your children, what does that need to look like in 2026? And maybe what relationships do you need to release or, or what, what circles do you really need to be a part of? One of the most powerful questions you can ask in anything that you're looking to accomplish is who? Who can help me do this? We so often look at our goals, we look at what we're trying to accomplish and we think it's all on us. Well, guess what? Success is never a one man job. Never ever, ever. Success is always with multiple people. You cannot be successful on in a vacuum all by yourself. And so when you are looking at what you would like to do and accomplish next year, ask the question, who can help me do this? Who can I align with? Who can walk alongside of me? Who else is doing this that I can learn from? Ask the question who before you ask how or what. All right, number nine, what weekly or daily habit, if I built it now, would compound into my biggest wins next year? What daily or weekly habit, if you build it now, would compound into your biggest wins next year? I already know what this is for me. I have struggled with this. I started tapping my toe in a little bit and I have not yet gotten into consistency with it. And I know for 2026 this is going to be one of my biggest growth opportunities and that is I need to Write daily. I need to write daily and I need to journal. I need to think about my my thoughts, what I'm learning. I need to out of my head onto pen and paper and I need to write and not. Not. This is not using chat GPT for this. This is truly me writing and making that a daily habit. And I believe that as I do that that is going to compound into more podcast episodes, more value that I can bring online, more speaking engagements that I can bring value to people. But I must become a writer and so wish me luck on that journey and hold me accountable. And you can ask me if how my journaling is going, all right? And then you can tell me what I need to ask you about, what habits you are instilling. But that will be a daily habit that I add to my morning routine. All right? And then your last question is, what can you stop doing that's draining your energy or no longer serving you? And then it's a part two part question. What do you love? What are you passionate about? Why are you doing what you're doing and what do you need to be doing more of in your business? What are the, what are the activities that you do that just fuel you? You love doing client events, do more client events. You love getting on the phone and talking to your database. Get on the phone more and talk to your database base. You hate doing open houses. Maybe open houses don't need to be on your game plan for next year. Whatever it is, double down on the things that you love, shed the things that drain your energy and watch 2026 transform. So what I would encourage you to do is to take these questions and start to answer them. And this isn't a 30 minute activity. What I would do is I would write some answers to each of these. There's going to be certain things that come immediately to your mind and then they're going to be other things that you need to stop, put it down and come back tomorrow and then come back the next day and write a little bit more about this. And in 2023, 2013, I did an activity similar to this when I was making a job change and I was looking for new direction in my life and I asked myself very similar type questions. And I took these questions for about two months and just pondered on them. They didn't come answers didn't come easy. Some of the questions I really struggled answering. So that's okay. If you feel like you look at some of these and go, I don't really know the answer. The benefit of this activity is taking your time to do it. It's slowing down for just a moment. It's getting introspective. Q4 is about clarity. It's about clarity so that you walk into 2026 with vision for the future, with momentum recharged and ready to rock. Go to teresaflood.com and subscribe. I'll get these questions to you. As always, thank you for being an upsider and we will see you next week.