As the holiday season approaches, Paula Reid challenges listeners to step back from the hustle and bustle of holiday preparations to focus on themselves. In this special episode of Beyond Neutral, Paula introduces a simple yet impactful three-step process for ending the year with gratitude and setting the stage for personal success in the new year.

1. Celebrate Your Wins (2:45)
   Reflect on your accomplishments from the past year. What personal strengths or capacities helped you achieve these wins? Paula encourages listeners to take a moment to celebrate and express gratitude for their successes.

2. Learn and Let Go (6:10)
   Review the moments that didn’t go as planned. Identify what might have gone wrong, what lessons you can take away, and then grant yourself the grace to let those setbacks go.

3. Plan for the Future (9:20)
   What do you want to accomplish in the upcoming year? Paula emphasizes the importance of choosing one thing to start, stop, or do differently to move closer to your goals.

Call to Action
This holiday season, give yourself the gift of reflection and planning. Take just five minutes—or as long as 50 minutes—to pause, assess your year, and set intentions for the future. And as you look ahead to 2025, ask yourself: What do you want it to look like?

Be sure to tune in next season as Paula dives into creating personal development plans with actionable insights from real coaching sessions. Until then, have a wonderful holiday season, take a deep breath, and remember: in January, you get to start fresh.

Keep driving forward—and we’ll see you in 2025!

More from Paula:

reidnco.com

In this Season 2 wrap-up, Paula takes a moment to reflect on some of her favorite and most popular episodes, such as "Ep. 16: Unpacking Agency," "Ep. 19: Three Step Process to Stop Ruminating" and "Ep. 26: Do An Expectations Audit."

As Paula prepares for her summer activities, a time she usually spends reflecting, reading, and planning for the future, she had a thought-provoking conversation with a friend that led to a deeper question. The question she poses to herself and her listeners is: What do you want your contribution to be?

Consider this question in any given moment—how do you want to contribute to your relationships? Do you aim to offer grace, understanding, or judgment? What about in your work or within your family dynamics?

Is your current contribution aligned with your intentions?

As she concludes Season 2, Paula leaves us pondering this question: What do you want your contribution to be, both in the short term and long term?

Sometimes our contribution involves giving space—space for others to grow. And sometimes, the most meaningful contribution is choosing not to intervene.

🎧 Show Notes: reidnco.com/podcast

🔗Website: reidnco.com

Time Stamps:

[00:01:52] "And so just becoming incredibly aware of the emotions that we're experiencing and the power that they have. Both the wonderful positive power that they have, as well as how they can, you know, create situations where we get stuck in fear or we ruminate and how to get ourselves out of that."

[00:03:45] "moment that we might be involved in in our lives. It can be around our jobs. It can be about a greater cause. It could be a question that you ask yourself in relationship. What do you want to contribute? What do you want to contribute in the moment? What do you want to contribute in the bigger picture?"

[00:06:28] "So that has been my contribution through this podcast, or that's what I've wanted my contribution to be through this podcast. But now I want to ask that question in a very different way in very different, very specific situations that I'm in and have that on the forefront of my mind when I'm in a situation."

Throughout season two, Paula explored various techniques for recognizing and managing emotions, from navigating feedback to weathering emotional storms.

Today, she zeros in on a crucial element of mastering emotional regulation: understanding your personal stress responses and self-soothing methods.

In this episode, Paula dives into how recognizing these personal tendencies is a pivotal first step towards improving your emotional reactions. She reveals her own inclination to spring into action and explains how gaining this self-awareness has empowered her to pause and maintain composure under pressure.

This is an episode you don’t want to miss, Paula gives us tips on spotting those stress signals and finding your chill amidst the chaos. It's all about really knowing yourself and learning to listen to your mind and body when things get rocky.

🎧 Show Notes: reidnco.com/podcast

🔗Website: reidnco.com

Time Stamps:

[00:00:00] - Paula introduces the episode and sets the stage for the discussion on how we handle emotions, feedback, and stress in relationships, providing an overview of the season’s topics.

[00:02:00] - This timestamp marks an explanation about different methods people use to soothe themselves under stress: thinking through the situation, taking action, or connecting with their emotions. It's a pivotal point where the strategies are introduced.

[00:07:00] - At this moment, Paula delves deeper into the potential pitfalls of leaning too heavily on one self-soothing strategy over the others, highlighting the importance of balancing these approaches in stressful situations. This part provides insights into the consequences of each bias.