Hey there, it's Rebecca. Before we dive in today's
episode, I have something exciting to share.
If you've been dreaming about starting your own interior
design business, but you're feeling stuck on what to do
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confidence and direction. I'll be walking alongside you
the whole way, mentoring you through each step so you're
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And the best part? You'll be part of a community of
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design.com. You'll also find the link in the
show notes. All right, let's get into
today's episode. You're now listening to Design
Curious, a place where you, creative one, are here to learn
about what it really is like to be an interior designer.
And I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
If you're worried about how to succeed in a creative career, if
you're ready to learn your next steps to become an interior
designer, and if you want the satisfaction of doing something
you love every day, you are in the right place.
Grab a coffee, a notebook, and let's dig into today's episode.
Hello and welcome to episode 171 of Design Curious Podcast.
I'm your host and mentor, Rebecca Ward.
It's the last episode of the year.
I don't always do episodes in these two weeks, but here I am.
I wanted to do some reflection on 2025 up to this point and
going forward for 2026, I'm going to share my word of the
year for both years and kind of my reflection about how I
implemented that and my vision for going forward.
Have you done your vision planning yet?
Do you do a vision board? I, I love doing a vision board
each year. Visual representation of how I
think I want the year to look and the goals that I have.
So like this last year I had a new car on my vision board and
it came to fruition. I loved being going along with
my vision board and kind of checking off things like, oh, I
did that. We went to Disneyland, check,
check. And then I had all these things,
you know, work and personal related, and it was just so
satisfying to have a vision at the beginning of last year that
I could see it came. Most of the things I was working
towards can do fruition. Some things are going to take a
little bit longer. Not a problem.
We'll just move them forward into 2026.
So as I do every year, I love to take time to reflect on what
this past year has brought me, what I've accomplished, what I
can learn, and how I can improve on it for next year to make it
even better for me so I can achieve the goals that I have.
And I want to thank you all for being here because I really
enjoy podcasting and I hear so many positive things, feedback
from you guys listening about the podcast.
So I'm going to keep doing it as long as you're enjoying it, as
long as I enjoy it, and as long as there's curious creatives out
there who want to hear more about interior design.
So I hope to expand it and increase our reach next year for
the podcast is always one of my goals.
I just love sharing what I'm passionate about with as many
people as possible. So of course, you are a big part
of that. If you like and share the
episodes, If you can leave me reviews, Apple reviews on the
podcast, that would be really helpful.
So this year, 2025, my word of the year was centered, and it
was definitely something I held in mind as I established what my
goals were for the year. I wanted to be unflappable
basically in the face of economic uncertainty.
The year before, we had had a lot of things going on.
There's been a lot of talk about how after COVID, after that big
boom, then people kind of quieted down.
They did so much design work during COVID and the pandemic
and the couple of years that followed it that the demand for
new design and remodeling had decreased a lot by 2024.
And so that started some economic uncertainty for lots of
designers. I didn't like that feeling.
So I definitely wanted to be more centered in 2025 and make
sure I was establishing financial security and fine
tuning my processes and making sure everything was in place so
that I could be more centered. And through that process, I
realized that, you know, my company has become so
streamlined and efficient that we are able to do things so much
quicker, just the two of us, just me and Lily right now.
And we can process some projects pretty well on our own.
And also I realized that as I cut out a few of the fluffy
things I don't need in my business, cut the fat a little
bit, that we could run pretty lean.
And so we are in a really good place now to start scaling back
up again to establish some more profit and everything.
But I love coming from a place now of more financial security
and streamlined so that we can remain centered as we move
forward out of 25. We've had a lot of fun projects.
Of course, you can go to my website or to my Instagram and
look at all the fun things that we've been working on.
And I kind of worked on the phrase of everyday luxury,
incorporating that concept into my brand.
A phrase that I really honed in on as the year progressed, just
resonated with me. And I loved the idea of bringing
everyday Luxury to every client. What does luxury look like?
Right. So I did a whole podcast episode
on that. So you can go back and listen to
Everyday Luxury. How I define that?
And then I did a lot more with the mentorship.
We started boot camp and I ran a retreat for some local designers
that I'm looking to do again. And I might expand it to even
more people outside of the area. Designers who need to get
centered basically and learn how to communicate better with their
clients, with their team and learn more about yourself so you
can just be the best business owner, best designer, and best
leader in your circle, in your sphere of influence.
I also had a great trip to Napa that I planned a retreat for my
international design group, my design leaders collective group.
They all came to California and I hosted them in Napa, which was
just so much fun. I love going to Napa.
And so it was a joy to have designers from all over the
country, all over the world coming and just taking a few
days to focus on our business in a beautiful environment of Napa
Valley. All of these things went
together to help really establish more certainty, more
centerness in my business. And then I also implemented, I
talked about my personal retreat date.
So I took those quarterly and set it aside a whole day so that
I could go through what my goals are for the quarter upcoming and
make sure that I have made progress on my annual goals that
I was trying to do personally and professionally.
And just having that day of reflection.
I would even use ChatGPT to ask me questions to kind of dig
deeper into making sure that I was so intentional about that
time that I was setting aside to really work on my business
instead of in my business. And then I would, you know, do
something fun on that day. So one of my goals for this year
was to give my wardrobe an upgrade.
So I started with the color scheme and style and everything
like that towards the beginning of the year.
And then I would do a little bit shopping trips on these personal
retreat days as well. So that's been a lot of fun this
year. And I think next year I'm going
to keep doing it, but I might incorporate, instead of a
shopping day now that my wardrobe's a little better
established, that I might do maybe a massage or something
like that to help me relax and just be something that I look
forward to. That resonates with you Then go
ahead and take that for yourself.
AI became a huge player like I talked about using ChatGPT.
I use her all the time now it's she's a she for me that's how I
talk about her. I call her chatty.
I also am aware of her limitations and not overly
relying on her, but we've had speakers come to my design
leaders collective monthly meetings to talk about how to
incorporate AI, use it to help with emails and different design
things that we need to do. And then also even for
presentations, there's some great apps out there that can
help you put together things so quickly and such a time saver.
So yeah, AI is not going away. And it's so I realized that I
definitely have to embrace it. I have to learn how to use it,
stay relevant. It's there to help enhance
creativity, not to replace it. Clients seen this year to be
wanting a lot of authenticity and longevity and spaces that
feel personal colors returning with confidence.
And everyone's voting for timeless over trendy.
We've done a lot of designer for a day consultations this year.
It's really something that continue to love and it's just a
nice offering for the DIY client who wants professional guidance
and wants to be able to implement on their own and
doesn't want the full service. And so I love being able to meet
clients at all different levels of where they need it.
So we did a lot of those this year and that was a lot of fun
for us. So all these goals and
reflections and things. I have continued to use my full
focus planner. This is my third year of
implementing it and I'm, you know, a full convert.
I, I plan to keep using it as long as I am alive because I
think that it's so beneficial to have all your goals, personal
and professional in one place. Always reminded about things, to
be grateful for what you did that was best today and helping
you to breakdown your goals into more of a daily application, but
then still achieving overall annual goals.
And I just love the whole system.
We have episodes on that too, if you want to go back and listen
to that with Sierra Collins. So where do we go from here?
Well, after a year of staying centered, I want to bring that
light outward. And so I want to shine it out
and uplift and infuse my joy into my work and my mentorship
in my home. So I've picked the word radiant
for 2026. And I think that it's going to
inspire more conversations, have more visibility with designers,
stories, and fresh ways to help you guys take action.
So I'm going to bring Radiance into the podcast.
I'm going to bring it into my mentorship community and
stepping confidently into helping others go into
entrepreneurship and into the career.
And then I'm going to bring it to my business by continuing to
do design spaces that glow with color and warmth and luxury
rooted in daily living. So there's any radiance and all
that I do. So what feeling or quality do
you want to embody in 26? Write it down and let it guide
you as you are working on your goals for next year.
I'm going to continue explore Radiance, and I think that it's
definitely going to throw flow into my personal life as well.
When I try to find a word of the year, I write down a bunch of
different words that I kind of think of the direction that I'm
going and then I'll look through Thesaurus and different things.
And I was reading through all similar words to this, but
Radiant just popped out to me. And so I knew that that's
something I need to hold on to and explore the definition even
more of how it can be applied in 26.
As I'm writing my goals now for 2026, I'm keeping Radiance in
mind and I'm sure you'll see it going forward in the episodes,
in the offerings, and in my visibility for next year.
OK. And one thing I want you to
remember as you're thinking about setting goals and
intentions for 2026 or maybe a word of the year, that these are
here to help you and you can make them what you need them to
be, that there's no judgement. If you are not succeeding in all
of them by the end of January, you want to set goals that you
can work on over time that are probably going to take you a
couple of quarters to implement. I mean, you know, some short
goals are fine too, but you want to have overarching for the year
and you want to have some short goals.
And goals are not like even with diet.
Say you know, like people like to have a diet start January 1st
and then by the 5th day then they're off the diet and they're
like, OK, well that's it for this year.
No, that's not what your goal is.
You set a goal because you want to improve yourself.
That's always going to be a work in progress and it always needs
to be intentional. And the best way to be
intentional is to set a goal and to break it down in processes to
help you implement it. If anything, Like maybe you make
intentionality your word for 26. You know I dare you.
What would happen if you made intention your word for 26?
What does that mean in your life?
So think about it. Or if you have another word you
want to share with me, I'd love to hear it.
So all the fun things for you in the show notes, I've got free
downloads, we've got the boot camp starting in January, We've
got my design mentor. I'm going to have so many great
things for you in 2026. So stay tuned for next year,
which is going to be here. Before you know it, we are going
to have another great episode. So until then, stay creative and
happy New Year. Thanks for listening.
If you love this episode, please leave a rating and a review.
This helps me reach other curious creatives like you.
If you have a topic request or would like to contact me, simply
head over to my website awarddesign.com or e-mail me at
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