#48: First Episode of 2026: A Solo Reflection with Rachel Lim

0:00Hi everyone and welcome to the very first episode of 2026. I'm really glad you're here. You know, I've actually restarted this intro a few times because I wasn't quite sure how to begin and I realized that's probably the most honest place to start.

0:16Rachel Lim: Before we get into it, I also want to share a little context. Last week, actually, Leo and I recorded an episode together. And the original intention was for us to reflect on this season, the past year, and what we're looking forward to side by side in one conversation. And during that recording, Leo actually shared far more deeply and vulnerably than either of us had expected. And as I sat with it there and then, I realized that, okay, you know what? I'm just going to hold space for him and give him the space and honour him by letting him just share fully and let him, you know, have that time to just share completely by himself.

0:55Rachel Lim: So this episode is me reflecting on last year and what I'm looking forward to this year. Taking a pause, sitting with what this past year has really been like for me and also sharing where I've landed, what's shifted internally and what I've been learning along the way before we come back together again. The past year has been really, really full. Full in ways that are easy to see from the outside and full in ways that are also much quieter and harder to explain. And instead of trying to summarize it neatly or succinctly or just turn them all into different lessons, I wanted to talk them through with you out loud.

1:38Rachel Lim: So this isn't an episode where I have everything figured out. Some of these reflections only made sense to me on hindsight. And some of them I'm still very much in the middle of. But they've stayed with me enough that I feel ready to share honestly. So today I want to share a few reflections from the past year. What I'm proud of, what challenged me, and how I've noticed myself changing on the inside. Even if things on the outside might look largely the same. So thank you for being here and for listening. Let's begin. Firstly, I want to say that, you know, I did all of my reflections through the IML journal, the questions, the vision boarding, everything.

2:20So today's reflection is also based off that. So I hope you got your journal too, by the way. And I hope that, you know, you are also enjoying using it. It's been a while since I've done a solo episode like this. And honestly, it feels like sitting down with a friend after a long season and saying, okay, where do I even begin?

2:38Rachel Lim: So I'm going to get to the questions. We're going to work through together. The first question, looking back on 2025, what are one or two things that I feel genuinely proud of myself for? When I look back on 2025, one of the things that I feel genuinely proud of myself for is how I moved through a very, very full year, very demanding year without losing my sense of who I am. It was a really big year in very tangible ways. You know, for our family, we went through a meaningful transition with our living situation, both emotionally and practically. Professionally at work, I was also navigating a season of realignment, evolving how I show up as a founder, and becoming much more intentional also about how and where I spend my energy, especially after nearly two decades of building Love Bonito, so that I'm also contributing in a way that truly serves the business today.

3:40Rachel Lim: And that really wasn't an easy period. There were moments where I had to slow down instead of rushing to fix, rushing to explain, or rushing to control. At the same time, another major thing in my life was also that I made bigger investments into Rich Reflex, this passion project that I think a lot of you also followed me on this journey over the last few years. Building my home studio that we're recording in right now, getting a full-time help. That's a huge, huge commitment for me. And also choosing to back my own voice and work more seriously. Honestly, it really felt very, very vulnerable and scary.

4:23Rachel Lim: It felt like I was saying, okay, I don't know exactly how this is going to unfold, but I believe enough in it to commit. On the Love Bonito front, it was also a challenging retail climate, which added another layer of pressure for all of us in Love Bonito. And there was a lot to hold at once. But when I really sit with it, what I'm most proud of isn't any single decision or milestone. I realized that what I'm most proud of is my inner state. Last year in 2025, my external world was noisy, but my inner world became quieter and a lot more stable. For years, I think, you know, most of you have also heard me talk about equanimity.

5:03And that's something that I've been really working very hard on. Learning not to let challenges completely rock me or send me into a spiral.

5:12Rachel Lim: And last year, I really felt that growth land for me. There were really difficult moments, hard conversations that I would use to avoid, and real uncertainty. But I noticed that I wasn't being taken out by them in the same way. I could recenter and regulate myself more quickly. I could choose my response instead of being overtaken by emotion and react. I could completely hold complexity without needing to resolve it immediately. And for a long time, I thought, you know, growth meant, oh, having fewer challenges, that if I was doing things right, life would be easier. But last year helped me see something different, that growth doesn't mean fewer challenges.

6:00Rachel Lim: It means a calmer inner response to them. And that honestly, to me, feels like real progress. Another thing that I'm incredibly proud of also is where Liu and I are in our marriage. After a few challenging years, the fact that we're still choosing each other so intentionally means a lot to me. We're also learning how to communicate better, how to listen instead of defend, how to stay open even when things feel uncomfortable. And this year, I also noticed myself practicing that same inner steadiness within our relationship. giving space, co-regulating, coming back to calm before responding and seeing how that shifted the way we meet each other.

6:46You know, there were so many times where we were both on edge and we had

6:51Rachel Lim: to decide, okay, this is not the time to react or respond. And I think for me, it was also learning how and when to hold my tongue, how and when to choose to walk away and come back to the conversation later. And I think that has really helped us in our relationship. And I must add also that one really special highlight for me was that Leo attended a personal growth conference in Germany with me in 2025, a Tony Robbins conference. And that's honestly been a dream of mine for so long to experience that kind of inner work together, side by side. It really felt incredibly meaningful. I think another thing that I'm also really proud of is how I showed up to discomfort more broadly.

7:38Rachel Lim: A clear example was the Stephen Butler episode and conversation. I remember feeling a lot of fear leading up to it, the temptation to over-prepare, to doubt myself, to shrink back. But instead of letting fear consume me, I chose to step forward and trust that I would learn along the way. That honestly taught me something that stayed with me, that confidence doesn't come before courage. It's not a prerequisite. It comes after. It comes from doing the thing while the fear is still present, while my voice is still a little shaky, that my hands are shaky too, and while we don't have everything figured out.

8:20Rachel Lim: So when I think about what I'm proud of and why I'm proud of it, It's not because 2025 was a hard year. It's because I met it differently than I would have. And I chose courage over comfort, alignment over momentum. And honestly, I think that's a real accomplishment for me. The next question is, what challenged me the most in 2025 and how did it change me? What challenged me the most in 2025 was, there were a lot of challenges. But I think what challenged me the most in 2025 was learning how to live in an in-between season without rushing myself out of it. There were moments where I could feel that I was no longer who I had been for a long time.

9:10But I also wasn't fully clear yet on who I was becoming. And that space for me was deeply uncomfortable. Old ways of operating no longer fit, while the new ones hadn't fully revealed themselves yet. So I was really in this in-between season. And I noticed how often my instinct was to move, to decide, or to label things prematurely.

9:35Rachel Lim: Not because it was time, but because the uncertainty made me uneasy. There was a constant urge for me to tidy things up quickly, explain what was next and to feel settled again. But learning to sit with that unease without immediately resolving it stretched me in so many ways that I wasn't used to. And the tension really came into focus during my conversation with Stephen Bartlett. And you know, that's when he said that our relationship with uncertainty shapes the quality of our lives. And then hearing that in that moment helped me realize something important, that I wasn't rushing toward clarity.

10:14Rachel Lim: I was rushing because sitting with uncertainty left me uncomfortable. And one of the last things he said to me in a side conversation was, you know, to lean into the discomfort, to go all in. And in his words, don't half-ass this. And that made me see that, you know, how often I have been hovering at the edges of uncertainty, trying to manage it, explain it, or even soften it, instead of allowing myself to fully be in it. Staying just close enough to feel in control, but not close enough to be changed by it. This season asked of me for a kind of patience that I, if I'm honest, I'm not naturally good at.

10:58Rachel Lim: It asked of me to stop forcing answers just to feel reassured and to trust that clarity would come from staying honest rather than making premature decisions. I'm learning that being in transition isn't a problem to solve. It's a phase to move through with care. And that shift has changed how I relate to uncertainty, not just in my work, but how I live as well. The next question is, what am I most grateful for from this past year? I think one thing that I'm most grateful for is how the simple routines carried me through the very heavy and difficult days. Like, you know, a 30-minute workout, listening to a podcast episode while moving through my day, reading a single page before bed.

11:45And on harder days, I didn't need to think.

11:48Rachel Lim: I just followed the rhythm. And I remember this quote by James Clear. He says, you know, when times are hard, let your habits ground you. And I think that's what they really did for me, my habits and routine. Another thing that I'm also really grateful for is for closer circles. Not many people know, but in 2025, I actually ran a six-month trial. And that's where, you know, groups of us would meet every three weeks to share honestly about what we were navigating. Together with prompts that we would answer along the way and share. and also, you know, some resources that would read and come back and share on.

12:28And what I didn't expect was just how much these circles would hold me personally. I just really want to thank everyone who were part of that six-month trial. You know who you are. And especially thank Damien, Huinan, Joyce, Ling and Samantha for really, you know, coming alongside this with me, being the facilitators for this. And also, I think more importantly, being my very own circle through the last six months.

13:03Rachel Lim: I think why it really also impacted me so much is because that period coincided with the most challenging transitions I've had at Le Bonito and having a space where I could show up, not as a founder with answers, But as a human being, right in the process and in the thick of really figuring things out, really made a huge difference. It reminded me that I wasn't carrying things alone. And, you know, that shared perspectives, that safe space to allow me to really talk through and verbalize what I was processing was the gift that I really needed. As I look ahead to 2026, what am I looking forward to?

13:45Honestly, you know, I was thinking about what my word of the year is and alignment is one of them. This word landed for me in a very, very unexpected way this year. I actually had a knee injury a couple of months ago that forced me to slow down. And during a physio session, one word that kept coming up again and again from my physiotherapist was alignment. He would say that, oh, okay, this is out of alignment, you know, this and that. And what really surprised me was that the issue wasn't weakness. And the issue wasn't that my knees were weak and therefore I injured them. It was that something in my body was just slightly out of alignment.

14:29Rachel Lim: So other parts of my body started to overcompensate. And my knee was one of them that started to overcompensate. And that's why I ended up injuring it. And this became such a strong analogy for me for life and really resonated with me because I realized that in life, misalignment doesn't always show up right away. At first, it can be subtle. Something feels a bit off, but you can still function. You can still perform and you can still get things done. So you keep going, but over time, that misalignment shows up as pain, as exhaustion, as resentment or as burnout. And my knee didn't hurt because I was doing too much.

15:11Rachel Lim: It hurt because I was moving without proper alignment. And I realized how often we do the same thing in life. For me, the definition of alignment is when things line up the way they're meant to. Nothing straining, nothing overcompensating, nothing carrying what it shouldn't. And in real life, that looks like my values matching my calendar, how I spend my time, my words matching my truth, my energy matching my commitments, my body, my spirit and my work all moving in the same direction. And this knee injury taught me something important that pain isn't punishment, It's information, it's feedback telling me that something needs to shift.

15:55Rachel Lim: So as I step into this next chapter, I am consciously choosing not to push harder, but to realign earlier, to listen sooner, to make adjustments before things break. Because strength without alignment eventually would lead to injury. and alignment is what ultimately allows us to move forward, feeling supported rather than strained. So that's where, you know, one of my words for 2026 alignment came about. And the other word that comes to me for 2026 is audacious, audacity. Audacity to me means boldness, not being loud, not being fearless, but having the courage to commit fully once something feels right.

16:41Rachel Lim: That means I need to be able to listen and hear and trust that voice and instinct within me to go all in instead of hovering at the edges to choose clearly and then stand behind that choice. And by the way, I really loved Tony Robbins had a great episode with Jay Shetty recently, and he talked about the importance and the process of making decisions. I would really encourage you to listen to the episode. He also shared like his six-part process to making decisions, why so many of us end up in analysis paralysis and things like that. So that was really a very, very helpful episode that I really enjoyed.

17:25And so yeah, audacity. I think for me, being audacious gives me the boldness to commit.

17:30Rachel Lim: And together with alignment, I feel that that is exactly the kind of energy that I want to bring to 2026. And so that's some of my reflections from 2025 and what I'm looking forward to in 2026. Honestly, you know, a lot of you have been asking me what to expect for the podcast, any closer events and things like that. I am very excited for what the year is going to be. Not because I have everything planned out, but because I feel like I am finally ready to really commit to growing the podcast. And so I would really love to hear from you and feel free to please write to me in any way that you feel most comfortable with, whether it's emailing me.

18:15I will leave my email address below. Whether it's emailing me, DMing me, or I don't know, other ways of reaching me. I would really love to hear from you what you'll like more from the podcast this year, what you've really enjoyed last year. And also, if there's anyone you want to see on the podcast, I really enjoyed looking through the Spotify rep on the podcast for last year. It was really interesting. And maybe I should take an episode to share more about that, some of the top episodes and things like that.

18:50Rachel Lim: And as we come to the end of the episode, I just want to say thank you for being a part of my journey, for journeying with me, growing with me and learning with me through life. And one of the things that I remember coming into 2026 is that life doesn't move in straight lines. There are seasons of clarity and seasons where things are still taking shape. So if you're listening and you find yourself somewhere in between, I hope this reminds you that you're not behind. Thank you for listening and I'll see you soon