Hey Reader,

Last week, I shared why I’m focused on finishing the year rested vs finishing the year strong (read in the newsletter archive here).

It’s a small but powerful shift.

Now more than ever, we need to allow ourselves a moment to collectively slow down, rest, and catch our breath so we can move into 2026 with clarity.

And clarity starts with getting curious about what actually happened in your business this year.

Before we get into today’s CEO Reset nugget of wisdom, I want to gently remind you:

If your 2025 didn’t go as planned…
If you didn’t hit your revenue goals…
If this year just felt harder than you expected…

Your business probably isn’t broken.

There’s likely just something missing in the system.

When things feel slow, most entrepreneurs assume the answer is to push harder, post more, or launch again.

But more often than not, the real challenge is that one part of the system isn’t doing its job.

A missing link. A leak. A bottleneck.

And because everything is interconnected, it shows up as slower sales or inconsistent clients… even when the real issue is somewhere else entirely.

This is why I’ve been saying: clarity doesn’t come from hustling your way through December.

It comes from pausing long enough to see what’s actually happening inside your business.

Today, I want to walk you through a short audit to help you find the real story behind your year.

Take your time. Be radically honest.

If you need to sit with these questions over a cup of tea in a quiet moment this week, do that. This is the kind of reflection that pays dividends later.

Here are a handful of questions to guide your 2025 audit:

1️⃣ Where did your best clients actually come from this year?

Not where you wish they came from. Not where “should” be working. What specifically brought in your highest-quality clients?

2️⃣ What part of your client journey felt like it was no longer working?

You’ve heard me talk about our Client Growth Engine framework: Attract, Engage, Nurture, Invite, Delight.

For most entrepreneurs I work with, the biggest cracks showed up in the very first touchpoint, Attract:

• Messaging that no longer landed
• Visibility that wasn’t consistent
• Not getting in front of enough of the right people
• Relying on referrals without a system behind them

If this is you, you’re not alone and you’re not doing anything wrong. You’ve just outgrown the approach that carried you until now.

3️⃣ Where were things inconsistent vs intentional?

This is such a common challenge. We start with lots of marketing and sales activity, but it gets harder to keep it up as we get busier with clients or life.

Ask yourself:

• Did you maintain your level of marketing activities, or did things get inconsistent when you were booked and busy?
• Did your referrals slow down, and did you have a plan to ramp them back up again?
• Did a strategy that used to work truly stop working, or was there a breakdown in the system?

4️⃣ How has your capacity changed?

This may be the most important question of all.

My capacity completely changed with both my parents’ health declining. I had to put everything on hold until I could get them settled into senior living.

And even now that they’re both settled, my world has changed. I’m juggling caregiving parents, raising teens, and running my business.

In past years, my Attract strategy was built around doing 2-4 podcast interviews or speaking gigs a month. In 2024 alone, I did 50 podcast interviews!

But that wasn’t possible this year. I no longer had the time, energy, or emotional capacity to show up and be “on” that much.

So I made a strategic shift.

I transitioned my Attract strategy to something aligned with my actual capacity: paid ads.

• Instead of forcing myself back into visibility habits that no longer fit my life, I redesigned the system.
• I shifted to paid advertising because it aligned with my real-life capacity.
• I redirected resources (aka marketing budget) towards hiring someone to manage the ads.
• I reworked existing assets so those ads could pay for themselves.

And you’ve probably seen me stalking you across Facebook and Instagram as a result!

That intentional decision allowed my business to keep growing without requiring more from me than I had to give.

You deserve that same alignment.

5️⃣ What would become possible if your system actually matched your capacity?

• Less guilt.
• Less scrambling.
• Less feeling behind.
• More clarity.
• More stability.
• More sustainable growth.

Imagine entering 2026 with a system that doesn’t collapse the moment life gets complicated.

Imagine replacing “I hope this works” with “I know what’s working, and I know why.”

Imagine feeling supported, not stretched thin and stressed out.

That’s the power of this audit - not to judge where you are, but to give you clarity on your next right step.

These questions sound simple, but they reveal so much.

​In fact, they’re the exact questions inside my free Plan Your Best Year Ever challenge.​

If you want to go deeper into this audit process, you can access the full challenge anytime this month - even if you simply download the materials now and work through them during the quieter weeks at the end of December.

And next week, I’m going to share some real client examples that illuminate exactly how this kind of clarity changes everything. These stories will show you that when the system is clear, you know precisely what to adjust and where to give yourself more grace.

Take your time with this.

You don’t need to rush clarity.
You don’t need to perform “finishing strong” before the new year.
You don’t need to fix everything before January.

You simply need to understand what’s really happening inside your business - with honesty and compassion - so you can enter 2026 feeling like a confident CEO.

For now?

Just breathe.
Reflect.
And trust that clarity comes when you finally slow down enough to see.

I’m right here with you,

Racheal

PS - I'm quietly opening 3 1x1 CEO Strategy Intensives for Q1 2026. If you've been wanting to work with me directly, you can get all the details and claim one of these 3 spots here.​

​