Make 2025 Your Best Yet With This Year-in-Review Ritual | Katia Verresen
Why top tech CEOs swear by this ritual to achieve your goals for the New Year
Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share a new episode with Katia Verresen.
Katia is one of the most sought-after leadership coaches in Silicon Valley. Her clients include Fidji Simo (CEO of Instacart), Kate Rouch (CMO of OpenAI), and Deb Liu (CEO of Ancestry), who rave about how she transformed their careers. In our chat, Katia shared her proven techniques for achieving your goals in the new year.
Watch now on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.
Katia and I spoke about:
(00:00) How to stop doubting yourself
(01:54) The year-in-review ritual top CEOs swear by
(06:11) I thought I had a horrible year until I realized this
(10:13) Why it's so important to celebrate your wins
(15:40) Coaching clients from managers to CEOs
(17:57) The power of unlocking your "kind observer"
(21:35) How to use emotions to shape your reality
(30:18) Imagination is a superpower most leaders don't use
(41:18) 3 daily practices to unlock abundant energy
Keep reading for the takeaways.
Make 2025 your best year yet with this ritual
Welcome Katia! You have this powerful ritual to help people reflect on 2024 and prepare for 2025. Can you break it down for us?
I’d love to. My year-in-review ritual works because many people are caught in a trance of "never enough" — feeling they're not doing enough or wondering if they're living their best life.
I encourage everyone to view their life as a movie they're directing.
The ritual has three main parts:
Map your past year. Take out your calendar and photos month by month. Most people have recency bias, and our brains velcro to negative experiences and let positive ones slip away. Mapping helps you see the true movie of your life.
Connect your achievements. Many high performers achieve goals but immediately move on without claiming their wins. Look at the big picture and notice who you became. Instead, ask yourself what qualities and strengths you used to achieve your goals. Choose which qualities to bring to the new year.
Write a letter to your future self. Date it 12/31/2025 and describe your amazing year as if it already happened. Our brains don't work with to-do lists — they work with images, feelings, and sounds. When you vividly imagine your desired future as already achieved, you dramatically increase your chances of making it real.
The 2nd step was really powerful for me because it made me recognize my wins and decide what traits to bring to the New Year.
Exactly. It's not just about belief because willpower alone is weak. It's no longer wishful thinking when you see concrete proof of your creation. Many people set aggressive goals without knowing how they'll achieve them. Once they acknowledge reaching previous goals, it becomes easier to set even more ambitious ones because it's grounded in real experience, not just hustle.
When working with clients, do they value big successes more or overcoming failures?
In creator mode, there is no failure - only iteration.
Often, when we celebrate a win and trace back to its origins, we find the seed was hardship or disappointment. The key is reframing challenges as jumping-off points for creativity.
Even when things seem difficult, maintaining a state of abundance enables you to iterate toward success. Be stubborn about your North Star but flexible about how to reach it.
You've coached many executives from manager to CEO level. How do you help them expand their vision?
One challenge I see is "preemptive surrender," where people downgrade their real goals out of fear or doubt. This leads to less motivation and inspiration. Instead, I encourage people to shoot for the stars. My test is whether their eyes sparkle when discussing the goal.
True leadership is taking people where they never thought they could go. This requires inner power — an innate capability we all have but often get disconnected from due to stress and overwhelm.
How to shift from scarcity to abundance thinking
Can you explain your inner power concept and why it works so well?
Inner power starts with recognizing you're actively creating your life's movie in every moment. It means pausing to ask:
Where am I at?
What do I need?
How much energy do I have?
For example, I was recently stuck in traffic at the airport. Without inner power, anxiety would build - leading to rushing through TSA, barely making the flight, and spreading stress. Instead, I paused to regulate my nervous system through breathing, increased my emotional energy by listening to comedy, and arrived calm and centered.
The key is developing the "kind observer" - the ability to pause and reset.
Even a 30-second pause can help you show up differently. Inner power is about having practical tools to shift your state and direct your movie more intentionally.
Can you break down each element of inner power in more detail?
Sure, I have a great diagram that breaks down the scarcity vs. abundant mindset for physical, emotional, and mental energy: