What You Choose to Carry Forward (and Why It Matters Now)
“Every expense needs to fight for the right to be on your income statement.”
This is one of my many Jacquette-isms, if you will. And I couldn’t help but laugh with joy when, just last week, a client quoted me — saying how much this still resonates with her! :)
At the risk of stating the obvious — again: the end of the year is fast approaching. And as you inch closer and closer to year’s-end, the real question isn’t “How much more can you do or hold?”
It’s: What is worth carrying forward — and what is enough?
Auditing your income statement through the lens of questioning if each expense is pulling its weight is one way to examine worthiness and enoughness.
But it’s not just financial.
It’s also about you.
It’s about taking stock of what energized, overwhelmed, or drained you this year — the
relationships that fed you (or didn’t);
choices that moved you forward (or sideways);
outcomes that aligned with who you’re becoming (or highlighted where you’ve outgrown something).
One benefit of doing an audit — whether of your income statement or your lived experiences — is that it gives you the clarity to choose, intentionally, what deserves to come with you into the next season.
Because everything you carry has weight.
Framing Gratitude
And this is where gratitude enters the conversation — not as a holiday cliché, but as another lens for discernment.
If you’ve shared a meal with me, you know I take a moment to give thanks. I remember doing so during a work dinner and a former colleague asked if it made the food taste better. My reply: “No, but the pause reminds me to appreciate the food and those who prepared it.”
The science behind the value of gratitude is aplenty, and depending upon which study you reference, it’ll tell you that the practice of gratitude affects your mind, emotions, actions, etc.
I know gratitude can also be complicated at times…
But what you carry also gives you an opportunity to express appreciation or gratitude — not necessarily for “what” happened (because sometimes that sucks and who has time for false positivity!), but for what you discovered about yourself, your strength, your creativity, your progress, and your resilience.
Another benefit of doing an audit is that it gives you evidence — or as the kids like to say, “the receipts.”
This helps to shift the practice of gratitude from being a subjective feeling to an acknowledgment of what is.
The audit provides evidence of:
your personal, business, and financial growth (numbers always tell a story and they never lie);
the challenges you’ve overcome;
the quality of the choices you made;
what’s different today than before;
your planning prowess;
your decision-making skills.
In other words: the things that will impact what you carry forward.
And tucked inside all of this — the evidence, the reflection, the reckoning — is something else:
A deeper connection to your own sense of “enough.”
If you want to get a little revolutionary, gratitude can help you cultivate the feeling of what’s “enough” for you.
This to me is the third benefit of doing an audit. It keeps your eyes and attention laser-focused on YOU.
Because your feeling of “enoughness” greatly influences the choices you make, which in turn, affects your life, business, and money (on a macro level), and how those choices trickle down (on a micro level) affecting your earning, saving, investing, spending, pricing, generosity, and boundaries.
And the fourth benefit of doing an audit is this: it helps you to focus on your wins (which can be really hard if you’re going through a challenging time).
Gearing up and resourcing yourself for the uncertainty that lies ahead truly does require a winning, growth-oriented mindset. Remembering your wins contributes to this immensely.
As you move through these final weeks of the year, I invite you to give yourself the gift of an honest, compassionate audit. One that honors what’s worked, acknowledges what hasn’t, and helps you discern what’s truly worth carrying into the next season of your life and work.
Let the evidence of your growth ground you, let gratitude soften you, and let your sense of “enough” guide you. Because the choices you make now — about what you keep, what you release, and what you recommit to — will shape the clarity, confidence, and momentum you bring into 2026.
If you’d like support creating this kind of thoughtful, personalized audit — one that blends the numbers, the behavior, and the bigger picture of what you want — I’d love to help. My Clarity Session is a 90-minute, deep dive experience designed to help you see your blindspots, connect the dots, and make choices that align with who you are and where you’re headed.
Does that sound like the right next step? If so, you can learn more and book your session here: [click here].
About Jacquette
I love to ask questions and spark aha moments. I love to talk about why success with money is about more than just the numbers, and how the cultural impact on the intersection of money, business, and life matters–A LOT! And, I really hope I help people feel seen, heard, and not judged—especially since money is emotional and personal.
