5 Things I’m Doing to End the Year With a Bang

Wrap Up Loose Ends with Pride

There is something about this time of the year. I mean, you can feel it, that collective exhale, the “Let’s just coast until January” energy. But I’ve decided I’m not coasting this year. I want to end this year. So proud, not crawling to the finish line, but walking across it with confidence and gratitude and maybe even a little sparkle and definitely a glass of champagne in hand because how we finish matters. The energy that we close the year with is the same energy that we’re going to be carrying into the next one. And I don’t want to be dragging stress and unfinished business and clutter, or maybe next year’s into 2026, I want to bring momentum and clarity and ease.

So this episode is about how I’m doing that, five ways that I am personally ending the year with a bang. And for me, that doesn’t mean hustling. It means finishing strong by being intentional about what matters, what I love, and who I’m becoming. Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where our motto is simple. Elevate your self-image, elevate your life. I’m Tonya Leigh, your hostess, and I’ll guide you to become the woman who doesn’t just dream bigger. She lives bigger. Let’s dive in. Hello friends, and welcome to this episode. I want to share with you the five things that I am doing to end the year with a bang. 

Wrap Up Loose Ends with Pride

Number one, I have decided to wrap up loose ends. Now lemme give you a little bit of a backstory. Every year, I choose a word to guide me. And this year, my word was essentialism, focusing on less but better, focusing on what truly matters the most. I even made a very fancy plan for myself back in January with monthly projects. Each one is designed to help me focus on less but better. Now, if you’re in the membership, you probably remember that this was a bonus that I included last January, and I was on a roll. I was decluttering, I was following my plan, I was simplifying, I was really letting go. And then life happened. My father’s health began to decline.

And suddenly, what mattered most wasn’t cleaning out my garage; it was actually spending time with him. And that’s the thing. When life throws us curveballs, I believe in going with the flow. I don’t believe in abandoning what we have committed to, but I do believe in being flexible and how we approach them, and maybe even adjusting our timelines a bit. And so, for me, I decided what was most important was to spend time with my dad. And he passed in July. And now that life has settled a bit, I have decided that there are some loose ends that I want to tie up from my year of essentialism. And there’s one in particular that I know if I were to complete before the year ends, I would be so proud of myself. And that one is cleaning up my digital world. Now, I’d given myself an entire month to do this, but I’ve created a plan that I can get it done in three days, and I’ve actually already marked it off on my calendar, and I am going to commit to tying up this loose end of walking into 2026 with a phone and a computer and my digital world feeling less cluttered and more intentional and purposeful.

And so for you, think about if there are any projects that you want to wrap up? Are there any things that maybe you started out the year saying you wanted, but for whatever reason, you didn’t complete? Well, now’s the time. Think about how proud you’ll be of yourself walking into the new year, having tied up those loose ends.

Deepen Relationships with Heartfelt Gratitude

The second way, I am ending my year with a bang. It’s really focusing on strengthening my relationships. One of my core values is connection, and not only connection to myself, but connection to the people that matter the most to me, whether it’s family or friends, or my community. And there’s something about this season that always brings out my sentimental side. I start thinking about the people who have made my year better, my friends, my team, my community, even the people who may not realize the impact that they’ve had on me.

So I’ve made it a goal to reach out and express my gratitude personally to some of these people. Now, this is not a mass message; it’s not a generic, thank you. It’s something that is very heartfelt and specific. Specific in saying things like, “You know what? That conversation that we had last April really stuck with me, and it’s changed my perspective…” or acknowledging, “Watching you go through that difficult time and how you navigated it. It really inspired me to embody some of the qualities that I see you have.” I don’t know about you, but there’s something very special – when people recognize the specifics of what you have done, it makes you feel really seen and understood, and I feel like it’s a great way to strengthen connection with others. And so yeah, that is another way that I plan to end my year with a bang.

Exquisite Care for Your Physical Self

The third way that I am ending my year with a bang is that I have a focus to take exquisite care of my physical self. This one is so alive for me right now because it’s part of my 90-day reinvention. And honestly, I’m already blown away by how quickly I am shifting in this area, how I have fallen in love with eating certain things and moving my body in certain ways. And just the things that felt so hard a couple of months ago are already just starting to feel like who I am. And it’s coming from a place of not needing to fix myself or thinking that my body’s not good enough, but maybe with age, this work that I’ve been doing for many years, I’m finally at a place in my life where I’ve accepted myself. And from that acceptance, I just want to take such good care of myself.

It just feels good to feel good, and it feels good to want to take care of yourself. It feels good to do the things that you’ve been saying you want to do for a long time, and now you’re finally doing them. And so this time of the year in the past has been when I would often say, “You know what? I’m just going to wait until January 1st. We’ve got the holidays, there’s going to be a lot of partying and celebrating and drinking and a lot of food…” And I’ve decided, no, this year it’s going to be different. Of course, I will probably have a glass of champagne and enjoy delicious food, but it is always going to come back to “How can I take such good care of myself?” And the answer for me always lies in moderation. So yeah, that’s the other way that I am ending the year with a bang.

The Power of Doing Less

The fourth thing that I am personally doing to end the year with a bang is actually just doing less. Now, this one might sound simple, but it’s one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned. Doing less doesn’t mean I’m falling behind. It just means I’m finally focused on what matters most. And I’m finally in alignment because oftentimes we’re doing more trying to get aligned, but that never creates alignment. It just creates more evidence of what my worth is tied up in what I do. It creates more evidence of “I have to work hard to be successful.” I want to create different evidence. I want to create evidence that doing less, but doing what matters, is where I’m most effective and where I have my biggest impact. Now, this time of the year in the past could easily be when I forget this lesson, and I tend to do more.

I overdo the decorations and the food and the gifts and the commitments, and the season feels so exhausted. And this year I’m just doing less, less gifting, less obligations, less parties, less of all of the things that don’t align with how I want to feel. Even thinking about fewer gifts. I want to focus on less but better and really make this season about reflection and connection and doing less, creating more space for magic, more space for, I don’t know, for the good stuff. Here’s the thing I’ve noticed about doing less. The less I do, the more creative I become, the less I do, the more peace I experience. And isn’t it funny that sometimes the loudest bang of the year is actually silence, and I feel like that’s going to be the case for me this year?

Intentional Closure Through Curation

The fifth way that I am ending the year with a bang is one of my favorite rituals every year, and that is, I am spending an entire day curating my year. This is something that is a non-negotiable for me. I’ve been doing it for many years. Every December, I schedule an entire day to curate my year. I leave my house, and I go somewhere beautiful and inspiring. It could be a fancy hotel lobby or a very cozy cafe. And I spend the day reflecting and dreaming, and deciding about my next year. I look at what didn’t work and what did work, what I learned, who I became. I think about what I want to carry forward and what I’m ready to leave behind and release. For me, it’s a sacred pause where I dedicate one day to closing a chapter and consciously creating the next. And here’s the thing. I would love for you to do this with me because inside the School of Self-Image membership, I walk members through this exact process each year in our Curated Year Workshop, and it’s happening very soon.

This is the same framework that I’ve used for years to live intentionally, to make decisions from my future self, and to create a life that feels like me. So if you’re ready to end this year proud, not rushed, not overwhelmed, but with clarity and confidence about what’s to come, and join me, this one workshop will set you up for your most expansive year yet, because again, how we finish the year determines how we begin the next. And I can promise you this is the most beautiful way to not only end the year, but to begin a new one. So wherever you are right now, maybe you’re driving or wrapping gifts or taking a walk, I hope this inspires you to finish your year awake, alive, excited about what’s to come. Maybe you want to tie up what feels incomplete. Maybe you want to thank the people who made a difference in your year, or maybe you want to give yourself that one intentional day to design what’s next because you deserve to enter 2026 feeling clear, grounded, and radiant. 

Alright, my friends, thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode, and I want you to ask yourself, what do I need to do in order to end my year with a bang, in order to feel really proud of this year? And then make a plan and go and do it. I’ll see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.