Reflecting on 2025 – looking back to look forward

1. What did you achieve? – Small wins are just as noteworthy as big ones

• The Inspiring HR Leadership Programme was accredited by The Institute of Leadership (hooray). I spent the first few months of the year laser-focused on this goal. I added some additional sessions and created additional activities for it that are specifically focused on HR leadership. I’m thrilled to have had it accredited, as it demonstrates the quality of the programme and gives participants membership with The Institute of Leadership (and access to their resources) for a year.
• Delivered my first keynote speech this year (at The HR Big Meet). It had felt quite daunting (I normally offer to run a workshop, instead of deliver a speech if I’m ever invited to speak at an event, as workshops are far more in my comfort zone), but I worked with public speaking coach Matt Matheson for several weeks in the run up to the event, which was a big help at improving my technique, talk, and confidence. I’m really grateful to Emma Djemil for the opportunity and encouragement to do the talk.

• Created a free HR Leadership Impact Assessment, to help HR professionals recognise the areas they’re excelling in, and to create a plan for their professional development to become confident, impactful leaders. This was a lot of work, and I haven’t ‘officially’ launched it yet. So, I’m hopeful everyone is going to enjoy using it and find it helpful.
• Created a special Chief People Officer (CPO) series for HR Coffee Time. This was the first time I focused the podcast on a single topic across a whole series, exploring what the CPO role is really like, how to move into it successfully, and how to thrive once you are in the role. It was also the first time I released the podcast in video format (on YouTube), alongside audio. Huge thanks to David D’Souza and to the CPOs who so generously shared their time and insight (listed alphabetically): Dr Andy Stephenson, Dotty Day, Funmi Onamusi, Jane Beeston, John Scrooby, Kanika Mehra, Leah Carnegie, Lorna Bains, Nebel Crowhurst, Nicola Lyons, and Victoria Pounder.
• Released the 6th edition of The Essential HR Planner (formerly called ‘The HR Planner’). I can’t quite believe I’ve been working on it for so many years now – that time has flown by. I need to say a big ‘thank you’ to the amazing photographer, Vicki Knights who photographed the planner for me this year – it was exciting to be able to add her photos to The Essential HR Planner website.
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• Reverted the name of my business back to ‘Bright Sky HR’ (which has always been its official registered name with Companies House). I felt that ‘Bright Sky Career Coaching’ (the trading name I’d been using) didn’t fit the work I was doing as well anymore, as all my services are focused on HR professionals and I’ve been doing a lot of HR leadership training and coaching (in addition to career coaching). This involved having a visual rebrand and I’m hugely grateful to designer Darren Marks for my new branding, which I love. I’m also incredibly grateful to my web designer sister, Holly Christie, for giving my website a refresh to work with the new branding, and for Oliver Meech’s help rewriting the wording on the site to better reflect my current services.
• Ran the second HR Planning Day, which I really enjoyed – it was wonderful to meet so many Essential HR Planner owners in person and see them all getting excited about their goals and plans for the upcoming year.
• Designed and delivered some new workshops – one for a People team, helping them explore what the change of title from ‘HR’ to ‘People’ meant for them, and one in conjunction with the recruitment firm Morgan McKinley on ‘How to Be More Strategic and Increase Your Impact in HR‘.
• Facilitated an Evolving HR online panel discussion on ‘Getting the Board on Board‘.
• Wrote an article (‘From Busy to Balanced – Small Changes That Make a Difference’) for the 2025 Winter edition of Claire Cathcart’s brilliant ELEVATE Hub HR Magazine.
• Designed and delivered a webinar for EMCC Ireland about group coaching.
• Dabbled with creating short, vertical videos for TikTok and YouTube Shorts.
• I was delighted to be invited to be a guest on the following podcasts: ‘More Than a Lumpy Jumper’ for the episode, ‘Being Sharp Not Busy‘, ‘Can We Have a Word’ for the episode, ‘Helping HR Professionals Thrive‘, and ‘Element of Inclusion’ for the episode ‘The Authority Series: Fay Wallis Host of HR Coffee Time‘.
• Personio sponsored the podcast and newsletter. It’s been great working with them.
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2. What did you do to help others?

Alongside my day-to-day work, I tried to be supportive to people in my network whenever I could, both when they asked for help and when I spotted an opportunity to offer it. Sometimes that was simply making time for a conversation; other times it meant helping out at an event, supporting their posts on LinkedIn, or pointing them towards training, services, tools, programmes, or people who might be useful. Many of the people I supported are coaches or run their own small businesses, and I feel very lucky to have received a great deal of support from many of them too. I really believe in supporting each other. When you work for yourself, having a network around you matters, otherwise it can feel very lonely.

3. What are you proudest of from 2025?

• Getting the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme accredited by The Institute of Leadership is one of the things I’m proudest of this year. I had never tried to get a programme accredited before, so it felt like a big step into the unknown and quite daunting. I’m hugely grateful for the encouragement and support I received from people who had already been through the process. In particular, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to Amie Nazaruk-Wheeler, Joseph Grech, and Kate Waterfall Hill. I genuinely think I would still be putting it off if it hadn’t been for them.
• Creating the YouTube version of the podcast (because this had felt massively outside of my comfort zone).
• The opportunity to have David D’Souza (Director of Profession at CIPD) as a guest on the podcast. I’ve been a big fan of his ever since hearing him speak at a local CIPD branch event many years ago. Not only did it feel like an amazing moment to have a representative from the CIPD be on the show, but it was especially meaningful for me because of who the guest was.
• It’s not my own accomplishment, but I feel incredibly proud of my son for working so hard for his A levels this year and doing brilliantly in them.

4. What did you do for your wellbeing during the past year?

I carried on getting out of the house this year (after starting to get out and about more last year, instead of being at my desk behind a screen all day). While last year I set myself the challenge of meeting up with at least one person in my network each month; this year, my challenge was to attend more events. I really enjoyed going to a wide range of events, meeting up with people in my network, meeting new people, and learning new things. Although, I did find it tricky carving out the time to attend quite so many, as a lot of them meant a whole day away from my work.

As well as having some lovely holidays with my family, I went on a 5 day ‘workation’ with my sister, Holly, and coach friends, Jo and Sarah. It was wonderful to spend time working in the sunshine, while also having lots of breaks for other things like yoga, sightseeing and meals out.

Physical wellbeing-wise, I was a bit patchy with doing regular exercise again. I started off the year quite well but tailed off in the summer holidays, and felt like I nearly ground to a halt with exercise during the last quarter of the year, while I was busy working on and releasing the new edition of The Essential HR Planner. I want to try to make sure this doesn’t happen again next year.

4. What did you learn during 2025?

One of the biggest sources of learning for me this year was joining Joanna Lott’s mastermind group for coaches with established businesses. We met regularly online, with quarterly, in-person, full-day sessions, and the focus was very much on supporting one another and sharing ideas, with discussion and activities facilitated by Jo.

When I looked back at my “look back to look forward” reflections from previous years, it was clear that improving my delegation was something I had been talking about for a long time without really shifting. Seeing Jo and other members of the group delegating so effectively in their own businesses helped it finally click for me. It is something I have always found difficult, but I have started to make progress this year and know it is an area I want to keep working on in 2026.

The mastermind also supported my learning in other ways. In last year’s reflection, I wrote about wanting to strengthen my business acumen, and this is another area where the group has helped me grow. I am hugely grateful to Jo for creating and leading the group, and to the other coaches in it. Their generosity, openness, and support have made a real difference to my year.

Through researching and recording the Chief People Officer podcast series, I developed a much deeper understanding of the CPO role. Listening to people talk openly about their experiences helped me better appreciate the breadth of the role and the realities of stepping into it. That learning has fed directly into my coaching work, particularly when supporting clients who are thinking about, or aspiring towards, senior people leadership roles.

I also completed In Good Company’s ICF-accredited Emotions Coaching Practitioner Programme, which had been on my wish list for some time. I am really glad I finally did it. The programme helped deepen my coaching skills, particularly when working with clients who know logically what they would like or need to do, but feel held back by emotions, fear, or uncertainty.

Interestingly, the end of year ‘wrap up’ that Chat GPT generated said that 2026 would be the year that I’ll, “realise that consistency, not perfection, is what makes your ideas take root.” It really struck a chord with me. I found the last quarter of the year tough going again (it’s often the last quarter that is the busiest time of year for me). I can see that a big part of the reason for this was that I delayed working on the new edition of The Essential HR Planner for too long, where I had a mental block about how to improve it for 2026 (each year, I try to tweak the planner to make it better). I think I need to stick Chat GPT’s insight up on the wall as a reminder for next year!

Finally, I learned far more than I expected about video editing while creating the first set of podcast videos for YouTube. Doing the editing myself gave me a real appreciation of the skill and time involved, and made it much easier to let go when I later handed it over to Chris Hall-Franzkowiak. Delegating this has freed up a significant amount of time and energy, which is a big relief as I hadn’t expected it to be quite so time consuming.

6. Which relationships did you develop and build?

It was wonderful to see so many people from my professional network in person this year, thanks to attending so many events! I also carved out time for some 1:1 meet-ups as well, which I really enjoyed. It was great to build new relationships with the new podcast guests who joined me on the podcast as well. Being part of Jo Lott's mastermind meant that I was also to develop strong relationships with other coaches who I didn't know before but now can't imagine not having in my life.

7. What are you grateful for?

8. What did you find challenging this year?

The final quarter of the year was the most challenging from a work perspective. I felt very busy and increasingly behind with the planner, largely because I hadn’t followed a detailed project plan for its release. I had done this the year before, and it made the whole process far smoother and less stressful. This time, I kept delaying work on it, partly because I wasn’t sure how to improve it this year, and partly because I wanted to finish creating the HR Leadership Impact Assessment so it could be included in the planner.

There were some important lessons for me in this. One is to return to using a clear project plan. Another is to accept that I don’t need to improve the planner every single year. After working on it for six years, I am starting to recognise that it is already at a very high standard as it is. This has also helped me notice a deeper belief I hold: that you always have to keep innovating for your work not to stagnate. I am beginning to question whether that belief is always true or helpful.

Another challenge this year has been a drop in the audio podcast’s monthly downloads. I expected this to some extent, as I took a long break from the show at the beginning of the year and then created the CPO series. I suspected there would be fewer listeners for that series than for my usual episodes, which cover a broader range of topics. Not everyone working in HR is interested in becoming a CPO, or in learning more about the role. Also, some listeners have moved to watching the podcast on YouTube, as they prefer the video version of the show.

Even so, I don’t regret creating the series. I received many thoughtful messages from HR and People Directors, Heads of HR, and CPOs who shared how helpful they found it. I am really pleased to have created a resource that supports people in senior roles, even if it was for a smaller audience than the podcast usually reaches. That said, it is still not an easy thing to see downloads decline. Now that the series is complete, I can see that I will need to put much more energy into promoting the podcast and encouraging people to start building the number of listeners again.

Looking back at my “look back to look forward” reflections from last year, I can also see that I said I wanted to get more marketing and social media support. This is something I didn’t do. Instead, I continued to manage all of the marketing myself, which meant I struggled to promote the podcast, the planner, and the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme as much as I would have liked. I also haven’t yet promoted the new HR Leadership Assessment I created. This is something I am very clear I want to change in 2026.

9. What insights do you have from reading through your answers to questions 1-8?

In addition to the insights I've mentioned as I've answered the other questions, a key reflection for me is that it has been a busy year both personally and professionally. I'd like to find ways to create a bit more space in my week, which I hope I can achieve by getting some more support with my marketing.

I have loved running the Inspiring HR Leadership programme throughout the year, and would like to make it the core focus of my business moving forward (even if this means I need to start capping the number of 1:1 coaching clients I work with). I feel really proud of the programme and it's really rewarding to see everyone growing in confidence as they work their way through it.

Although it hasn’t been easy to see the monthly downloads of the podcast decline, it’s also important to keep some perspective. Several thousand people still listen each month, and the show is close to reaching 200,000 total downloads. With more of a marketing focus, I feel positive about growing the numbers again over time.

10. How can these insights influence your goals for 2026?

1. Put proper marketing support in place.
   This feels like the most important priority for me, particularly as it is something I have been putting off for far too long. I want to have more consistent support so I can talk more regularly about the podcast, the planner, and the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme, rather than being as sporadic as I have been.
2. Launch the free HR Leadership Impact Assessment and continue to develop it.
   I put a lot of thought and care into creating this, and I would really like to get it out into the world, learn from the feedback I receive, and keep refining it so it is as helpful as possible.
3. Run the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme more often.
   I would like to run it three to four times this year and to experiment with offering it in a monthly format, alongside the weekly format it currently runs in. This year, I only ran it twice, and I would love to make it more accessible to more people.
4. Create a printed, hardback workbook for the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme.
   This would bring together all the slides, activities, and resources in one physical place, rather than everything living online. The idea came from seeing one of this year’s attendees create her own binder, and realising how useful a tangible resource like this could be for everyone.
5. Finish and automate the ‘embedding the learning’ email series for the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme.
   I have already started creating a follow-up email series for people who have completed the programme, to help reinforce key concepts once it ends. I want to complete this, automate it so everyone receives it, and refine it based on feedback so it is as useful as possible.
6. Create a simple tool to help listeners find the right podcast episodes.
   I would like to develop something that helps people quickly find the HR Coffee Time episodes that are most relevant to their current career challenge.
7. Continue learning about YouTube.
   I have taught myself a lot this year, and I would now like to find a course or programme to help me build on that learning and improve the channel further.
8. Turn a long-standing HR strategy idea into an online course.
   I have been circling the idea of creating a standalone resource to support people with writing an HR strategy for some time. After exploring different formats over the years, I am now leaning towards developing this as an online course.

Taking the time to work through these questions has been a helpful pause for me at the end of a very full year. If you decide to spend some time reflecting on the year that’s been, using these questions or any others that resonate with you, I hope you find it useful in whatever way you choose to approach it. And if you do give it a try, I’d love to hear how you get on.