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Last year, I shared the 11 things I was saying goodbye to in 2025 and since a new year is upon us, I wanted to i) reflect back on that list to see if I was actually good about it and ii) share what I’m saying goodbye to in 2026.

2025 was a different year. My husband took a new job so had three months of garden leave before starting at his new company (three months of my INTENSE husband wandering around the house while I was trying to work from home was stressful to say the least) but we did take advantage of his time off and traveled a bunch (solo trips just me and him, plus family trips). Because of that, I naturally worked less, then we moved right into summer, when I always work fewer hours. In 2025, I also supported someone near and dear to my heart who is going through absolute hell, and that has taken a toll on both my time and my mental capacity.

And of course, because this is the internet and I run an online business, 2025 also came with its fair share of legal realities. I discovered that some individuals (with very limited industry experience) had purchased my products and then turned around and distributed and resold them as their own, positioning themselves as people who have TONS of experience (this is separate from the person who was publishing my content as their own to funnel people into their paid programs). This new, fun experience was a direct violation of so many things.

🫠🫠🫠

While frustrating, triggering, and unethical, it reinforced why protecting intellectual property matters, why standards matter, and why experience, education, and integrity in this industry are not optional.

Interior design is not a shortcut profession. It’s not a “cute hobby”. And it’s not a skill that can be taught through buying templates and not actually DOING the thing.

This is why it’s my company’s mission to raise up this industry, so homeowners don’t get duped. So their largest assets are protected and treated with care by skilled professionals.

I want your clients to know this field is filled with experts - professionals - people with integrity who know their craft inside and out. It’s a skill performed by people who bring SO MUCH VALUE to a project and are essential, NON NEGOTIABLE, MUST HAVE on every project.

I want it to be that the interior designers who have put in the work, built real expertise, and operate with integrity are recognized and valued for what they bring to the table.

!!!!!!!

When you read my blogs, share my emails or IG posts with your peers, join one of our live trainings, buy our products, or enroll in the DTS Method, you are part of something so much bigger than just the DDC ecosphere:

YOU ARE RAISING UP THIS INDUSTRY AND CREATING A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE FLOOR AND THE STANDARD.

That leads me to:

My Recap on How I Did With My 2025 Goodbyes

Let’s look back at what I said I was saying GOODBYE to last year and see if I actually did it. All about accountability here.

(Read the full 2025 article here)

Taking too long to make a decision
- ⚠️ I am STILLLLLL working on this in 2026. But now it has shifted to not how long it takes me to make a decision, but more so pulling everyone into the decision making process. So while I’ve been quicker to make decisions, I still create a lot of decisions that need to be made (lol) and then pull everyone in.
Holding onto things for too long
- ⚠️ Ahhh, the control freak in me. I’ve worked hard to understand it, and I know this comes from both of my parents dying and me trying to control everything so I don’t get the rug pulled out from under me like I did when my parents died. If I can control and prepare for every possible thing that could happen, I can’t get sideswiped. This is a work in progress. This year, we are implementing some process changes to help me let go of a majority of things.
Running all decisions through a standard matrix
- ✅️ I nailed this. The team nailed this. We have four metrics we run every new idea through and if it doesn’t score a certain # of points, it doesn’t move into production. As an entrepreneur, I love to create, so this decision-making matrix has been GOLD for keeping me from spiraling out of control and chasing every idea.
Energy vampires
- ⚠️ Still working on trying to protect myself from the people and things that trigger me. But, (see above) I’ve still got some legal stuff going on and we’re working with our attorney to make sure it doesn’t happen again. My team knows the impact this legal stuff has had on me and my mindset and my willingness to share and go all in, and I know that’s impacted the business and you as well.
Spreading myself too thin
- ✅️ We majorly pulled back in 2025. It was an intentional effort, meaning I had to actively try to work less. We only launched DTS Method once (normally we open doors 2-3 times/year). We focused on what we love most: writing and live teaching. That constraint, plus my time constraints (husband being off, emotionally supporting a friend, summer slowdown, legal stuff) made it so I really only had time for needle moving stuff. My team also protected me and my time and I couldn’t be more grateful. So I am very proud of this one.
Having appointments on my calendar every day
- ✅️ #nailedit Yes, a few weeks had appointments everyday - but it is SO hard to get doctor’s appointments for me and my three kids all on the same day of each week. So, while that was annoying, I was able to mostly keep all appointments to one day per week, with many weeks of each month having NO appointments. AMAZING. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU IMPLEMENT THIS RULE FOR 2026:
  1. All appointments on one or two days of the week
  2. One week of each month with NO appointments
Chronic back pain
- ⚠️ Still dealing with this on the daily even with walking, pilates, and stretching my back and PSOAS. Hot baths, hot tub, regular massage. Nothing works. I watched Dr. Death this year so obviously can’t get spinal surgery but I think I need to find a good chiropractor again because that seemed to be the only thing that helped.
Physical and mental clutter
- ✅️ Physical clutter: my daughter and I rearranged and purged my office twice (maybe three times) and it felt so good. Definitely changed the energy in my office. My goal this year is to hire an interior designer to help me refresh it. We worked with a designer on the rest of our house so everything is perfectly beautiful … and then there’s my office.
- ⚠️ Mental clutter: this is a work in progress. As a mom of three active kids, with a focus on my health and having beautiful homes, and a husband who travels all the time, and a golden retriever who on the daily discovers that he has a tail, I have a LOT in my brain. I use Asana for everything - personal and professional and I could NOT survive without it. BUT, that means sometimes my Asana feels like a BEAST. I am always working on tightening our processes and making things no nonsense. I DESPISE things that are overbuilt for building-sake, so this past year and in 2026 I am working on decluttering everything: google drive, asana, my brain, my kids toy and craft closets.
Projects that don’t align with my vision
- ✅️ We said no to a lot this year, both personally and professionally. It upset and I think offended some people. But I had real time constraints and emotional constraints, and it made it really easy to say no to things that didn’t align with my vision. THIS DOES NOT MEAN I DIDN’T MAKE MISTAKES . Mistakes are part of having a business. But we didn’t take on anything that didn’t align with our vision and we had our decision making matrix to support us AND all of our reflections and team notes to review before we launched anything new.
  1. Another thing I HIGHLY recommend implementing in 2026: a reflection document where you take notes on every project - what worked, what didn’t, what you want to change. This document for me is probably the most referenced doc of all.
Forcing myself to work when I hit a wall
- ✅️ I was really good about this. I completely changed my schedule to prioritize my health FIRST. This gave me energy to get through the stuff I needed to do mentally. On days I didn’t workout and walk my naughty golden retriever, I noticed my brain was foggy. And on days I did workout, and my brain was still foggy, I would NOT push through it. I would get up. Walk around my house. Pet my dog. Do an organizing project (I love me some organizing). Throw out my kids’ junk while they were at school (thrilling!!). Anything but sit in front of my computer. This was and is something I have to be very aware of. When I notice it: I GET UP and get away from my computer. So, highly recommend noticing this (when you’re hitting a wall) and rather than force it (and get nothing done), stop. Change paths. Take a break. It is MUCH more productive.
Holding onto goals I haven’t achieved
- ✅️ 2025 was a year of being flexible. The market changed. The industry changed. Client expectations changed. And I was okay with changing goals and letting some go. Also, because of my time constraints, I had to be very realistic about what I could achieve while still enjoying tons of time with my kids and husband, tons of time for working out, and plenty of time for petting my very needy, wet-cheeked golden retriever. It wasn’t easy to not hit my goals, BUT when I step back and realized my lifestyle goals were ALL hit, I say it’s a win.

What I’m Saying Goodbye to in 2026

As I reflect back on what I achieved in 2025 and what I didn’t, there are a few things I am saying goodbye to in 2026:

01 | Tying my identity to my business

I’ve written approximately 67 weekly installs on this. It is a work in progress and I am getting SO much better at it.

My numbers are not me.
My email list size is not me.
My revenue is not me.
The number of designers enrolled in our DTS Method program is not me.

I am a mom, a sister, a writer, a reader, a friend, a health nut, a wife, a daughter, and an experimenter. I have a business. But my business doesn’t define me. My relationships do. My humor does. My curiosity does. My passions do. The things I care about and fight for do. My parents and the morals they instilled in me define me.

What’s in my heart is who I am.

02 | Keeping products or offers “alive” because we spent time on them

This is a big part of streamlining and making things easier for me, my team, and our customers and clients. Because we have a lot of interactions with designers on a daily basis, we see a lot of recurring themes. And, when we see themes and get feedback that all point in one direction, a creator’s gotta create. This means, we’ve spent a lot of time creating products, trainings, and solutions for interior designers.

The challenge is knowing when responding to patterns turns into trying to solve every edge case.

But this also means our library of offers is HUGE. This year, we want to make sure it’s easy for designers to know what is right for them and what’s not right for them and we want them to continue to get incredible results from our templates, trainings, and programs.

So to do that, we are distilling down our offers and keeping the focus on the biggest needle movers. So, it’s hard to see our archives with all the lovely tools and resources we’ve created. It’s hard to close the door on them. But, it’s part of growing as a business owner and business. Saying goodbye to the things that no longer serve you.

And honestly, we spent lots of time on these things, but we also learned a ton from each thing we’ve created - not just from designers, but also about our processes and ourselves in doing so. Always a win in my book.

03 | Saying yes to things that disrupt my nervous system

With all the emotions of the year (losing a team member, legal stuff, a friend’s legal stuff, the world, our massive retaining wall rebuild), ya girl needs things to be flatlined for a bit. I’ve noticed that some people THRIVE on chaos, on go-go-go energy, on MORE MORE MORE. I think that used to be me, but not anymore. That non-stop doesn’t do well for my body, my brain, or my relationship with my kids. A big part of this was recognizing it. I am no longer a person who thrives on constantly moving. And, my introverted self really kicks in when I’m go-go-go for too long with others.

So no more go-go-go. No more things that disrupt my nervous system or signal “emergency”. Now, I certainly can’t avoid my life (3 kids, golden retriever, intense husband), but I am working on putting more measures in place to protect myself.

Mostly, I know that being home calms my nervous system. Organizing and cleaning calm my nervous system. Quiet calms my nervous system. I am constantly working to increase those things and decrease the craziness.

04 | Being cheap!

Okay, I know this might be odd because I don’t necessarily think I’m cheap like buying the cheapest things. But I grew up with two hard working parents. The work they did was visible. You could literally see them working and see what they created: my dad owned a restaurant and catering business, my parents did treatment foster care (sometimes we had up to 6 extra kids in our house), and my mom had a web design company.

And we grew up with this idea that working hard was how you made money and that doing a lot of work was valuable.

We saw my parents restore our historic home themselves. We saw them raise and nurture other people’s kids. We saw them grow and run a successful business from the ground up. And we saw what happened when you took charge and went after what you wanted.

With that comes pride, resilience, and a scrappy, DIY mentality.

Nothing in my life or my mom and dad’s lives was handed to us. We worked for every.single.thing. Every single luxury. Every single convenience. Every single object. Nothing was guaranteed. Nothing was granted.

And so I have a mentality that i) if you want something done well, you do it yourself and ii) my value is tied to my production.

So I’ve DIY’d things I should have outsourced. I’ve gone the cheaper route and it cost me more in the long run.

And I’ve learned first hand (and seen second hand) that you cannot solve a million dollar problem with a $1 solution. <— put this on a post-it xo

But this year, I’m optimizing EVERYTHING for my time. I have a crazy constraint I’m putting on myself this year and I’ve shared that goal with my team and my family.

It is a weekly reminder in my Asana.

So I can’t be cheap. I can’t say, I’ll save money if I DIY it because my time is expensive and there’s also a huge opportunity cost for me. Plus, I want to get things right from the get-go.

So this year - we are outsourcing more at the company. I am outsourcing even more at home. I am paying more for convenience. I’m going all in on a designer and architect and builder for our renovation. And it’s all with the mindset of OPTIMIZING FOR MY TIME which ultimately OPTIMIZES for time with my daughters, time spent on my health, and calm.

I lost both my parents young (I was 17 when my dad died and 30 when my mom died). Neither of them met my kids. Neither of them saw me as a mom.

I don’t have the luxury of wasting my time.

I’ll check back in next year to let you know how things are progressing. Stating them publicly is good for me because i) it holds me accountable and ii) it forces me to really think about things I want to change.