Work Besties Who Podcast

Season 3 Kickoff: New Year, New You (Without Burning Out) + 2026 Theme Roadmap

• Work Besties Who Podcast • Season 3 • Episode 83

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Jess + Claude are back to kick off Season 3: Work Besties Who Grow—a realistic, micro-intentions approach to career glow-ups with fewer breakdowns (hopefully). You’ll get the full year roadmap by quarter + month, plus practical micro intentions you can start this week.

In This Episode

  • Why Season 3 is about tiny steps → big change
  • How we’re structuring every month: Kickoff → Guests → Work Bestie Lens
  • January theme: New Year, New You (soft resets, not reinvention)
  • Micro intentions you can actually stick to (with examples)
  • The 5-minute weekly Work Bestie check-in (3 questions)
  • Small digital detox boundaries that don’t require quitting your phone
  • What’s coming up next + how to send us topic/guest requests

Episode Highlights / Key Takeaways

Micro intention ideas (pick ONE for 7 days):

  1. One tiny career move (send the email, update the resume, book the coffee chat)
  2. One boundary sentence (“I can get that to you by tomorrow at 3pm—unless you want me to reprioritize.”)
  3. One visibility moment (speak once in a meeting, share a win with your manager, post one insight)
  4. One reset ritual (1–3 minutes) (end-of-day prep, short walk between meetings, quick list rewrite)

Weekly 5-minute Work Bestie check-in (use these 3 questions):

  • What felt heavy today?
  • What was a win?
  • How can I support you?

Small tech boundaries (choose one):

  • No email before 9am or after 6pm
  • No screens during meals
  • Swap bedtime scrolling for a reset (book, water, short walk)

Q1: Reset + Direction (New Year, New You)

  • January: Reset & Micro Intentions (tiny steps that stick)
  • February: Authenticity + Personal Branding (how you want to show up)
  • March: Career Clarity + Pivoting (where you are vs. where you want to go)

Q2: Skills + Confidence Building

  • April: Money Moves (pay confidence, negotiation, value)
  • May: Mentorship & Sponsorship (finding advocates, being one)
  • June: Communication (hard convos, clarity, influence)

Q3: Boundaries + Energy Resetting

  • July: Boundaries (protect your peace without the guilt)
  • August: Burnout Prevention + Energy Management (systems for sustainability)
  • September: Reset Rituals + Digital Detox (recharge habits that actually work)

Q4: Leadership + Systems + Mental Wellness (Finish Strong, Not Fried)

  • October: Leadership (leading with or without the title)
  • November: Systems (workflows, prioritization, repeatable routines)
  • December: Mental Wellness + Reflection (close the year strong—not crispy)

Work Bestie Community Challenge: Pick one micro intention and co

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Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Jess K:

If you want growth in 2026, but you don't want to burn yourself out to get it, start here. But tiny steps and big change. Today we're kicking up season three with New Year, New You, Microintentions you can actually stick to.

Claude F:

But don't worry, you won't be doing it alone. You've got Jess and I. You'll work bestial for the ride. Hi, I'm Claude. And I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night, and work besties for life.

Jess K:

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos, and thrive together in every industry. Work besties. Besties, we're back. New year, new season, new energy. And by energy, I mean realistic energy. Like, you know, I slept six hours and I'm trying.

Claude F:

Actually, it's more like four hours for me. And not together.

Jess K:

Seems like a lot. Exactly. This season is work besties who grow. Because growth feels better when you've got your bestie by your side.

Claude F:

And also growth feels less scary when someone takes you, you know, you got it. Totally. I love those texts when you get you give it to me, you send them to me.

Jess K:

We do them pretty much daily, guys. Yeah. So we're so excited because season three is a little different. We're hoping you'll join us on this journey where we plan to identify all sorts of fun skills. Things like confidence building, creating boundaries, visibility, leadership training.

Claude F:

So think about career glow-up, but with fewer breakdowns. Hopefully. Yeah, hopefully.

Jess K:

Although burnout will be one of our topics as well. Whether you have a work bestie in real life or you want to borrow us as yours, this season is built to help you grow through every month, every shift, and every brave new stuff. Because at the end of the day, you don't have to do it alone. You have us? That's right. Trying to grow alone can feel a little overwhelming. And we heard from many of you throughout season two all the great ideas and topics. And it made us think, how do we do this together? Because we're all in this work bestie community to really better each other. Okay, so let's give our listeners a view pod, if you will, all right. Of what we plan to do this year. Because we teased last week how season three we really want to be way more intentional. Um, and by that we mean that we have themes by month in which we have carefully crafted not only the themes, but the order of the themes. The order, yes. Uh and we thought what we would do is just to give you a high-level overview of the themes overall and go a little bit more into Q1 since we're gonna be starting that off right away.

Claude F:

Q1 seems very business like.

Jess K:

It does. Sorry, Jan, Feb March.

Claude F:

We are work besting financial, you know, it's January to December.

Jess K:

So what is Q1? All right, so we are going to kick off the the season three, really focused on new year, new you. So January is really all about resetting, thinking about those micro intentions or those small little things that you can do to better yourself.

Claude F:

So think about tiny steps, but that by doing it so often, we'll stick.

Jess K:

Yeah, I love that. Because it's like not necessarily making big leaps, but you could come up with a big goal, but just make the little micro moments of them work. Exactly. And then after we will go into February, which will be around authenticity and personal branding. So this is really around who you are and how you want to show up.

Claude F:

So more or less no fake personal.

Jess K:

I love that you're like the yin-to-mayang explaining my work workisms in layman's terms.

Claude F:

Usually it's like Claude's, you know, what is it? Claude Claude splaining. Um Jessica's plaining. Yes, or work vest explaining.

Jess K:

For us, you know, mere morals. All right, I'm gonna pretend like that was a compliment. And into March, we'll be focusing on career clarity and pivoting. So thinking about where you are today versus where you want to be going.

Claude F:

Yeah, and if you hate where you are, we can talk about it and find solutions.

Jess K:

Exactly, together. And that's what our community is all about. How do we help each other? And there's no right or wrong question to ask, there's no um topics that we wouldn't want to cover for you all. So please do keep coming to us and providing us this feedback. It really helps build our community stronger. And and we will make sure also for each theme we have the right guests. Yes. So we've been very intentional this year, uh, to the point where we've actually had to turn people away. So we are very focused on ensuring the guests that we have for these topics really are going to answer the questions and are things that you guys have specifically asked us about. So if you have other topics or guests even, let us break it on. All right, so Claude, let's give a little peek under the tent um past Q1 or past the March time frame of what we'll be doing. We won't go into every individual month, but we'll list it in our show notes. We want to give the thematic of the quarters, and from there you can understand where we'll be going with it. So Q2 is around skills and confidence building.

Claude F:

So think about money, mentorship, and communication.

Jess K:

Yeah, I think we all want that. Umone money. And then Q3 will be some of the topics that we've asked, Ben asked the most, which is around boundaries and energy resetting. Yeah.

Claude F:

So at the end, is like, how do you want to protect your peace? And this is something that we'll really be together because we struggle, at least I struggle with boundaries too. So those guests are really going to help us how to protect our peace.

Jess K:

Yeah, we picked ones that maybe were a little too close to home for us so that we would be feeling it. And asking those questions that may be uncomfortable because we too want to figure out ways to really. So it's not about Q, it's about us. At the end of the year. It's all of us, it's all of us. We're all in the world. All right, and then Q4 rounding the end of the year, which for those that are not talking in the worky language, that's October, November, December. Or O and D. O and D. Uh, we'll be focused more on leadership, some systems, because we did get asked some questions about things of that nature. And then we wouldn't want to forget our topic of all season two, which was mental wellness. So we will bring that back, but a slightly different spin on it this time around.

Claude F:

And more or less think about finishing strong and not fried. So hopefully, during all this year, we would have had the tools so that we are not fried.

Jess K:

Yeah. So, as I mentioned, season three, we sat down and really framed out the full plan. Not that we haven't in the past seasons, but this time we did it so they were all interconnected. So we were much more intentional on how we decided to do this framework, to the point that every month we also are starting a different routine. We teased on this about how last week we mentioned we're gonna be doing more solo episodes. So now we're gonna give you the behind the scenes of when they're coming. Um, we plan to start out each month with the Jess and Claude kickoff, where we will again go a little bit more in depth about the topic of the month, some of the uh challenges maybe we have within those, or that we've heard from you all from the Work Bestie community. So if you write in, you may be a part of our episode. We'll call you out. Yes. And then we also will provide a community challenge. So something that we would love all of you to work with us on and give us feedback on. Then we'll have our guests episodes, which are similar to what we've done in the past, outside of we're very intentional with which guests are occurring in each month. And then we end the month with what we're calling the work bestie lens, or for us to come back and really talk about what are those intentions we plan to set after having all of those amazing guests.

Claude F:

Yeah. And of course, we give you encouragement to chat along with us.

Jess K:

Right. So the overall intent is not to um change up who we are or how our community operates, it's just to be a little bit more pragmatic and showcasing, yeah, showcasing the storyline as it goes through.

Claude F:

And learning.

Jess K:

Yeah, learning together. So, January. We already mentioned what our theme is, which is new year, new you. So January. I can feel like the internet is constantly screaming at you reinvent yourself by Monday. New year, new you. By Monday. Right, yeah, like that's not realistic, and we're not sitting here trying to say that we want you to totally reinvent yourself. The way we're looking at January, it's about renewal.

Claude F:

Yeah, because at the end of the day, we like the way you are, and also it's softer and kinder. Right. You know, I want to make sure that again, it's not a reinvention, it's making it better.

Jess K:

So it's more realistic. Yeah, so we what we're saying is that it's not about changing who you are, it's about starting small on purposes or things that you are feeling you would like to shift.

Claude F:

Yeah, small is really important to go to start small.

Jess K:

Yeah, so thinking about micro intentions is really how you would think about this.

Claude F:

So, what's one teeny move future you would thank you for this week? For example, is it sending an email, update the resume, or send that say the resume as well, and you know, book that coffee shot with your work bestie during the week, or even have a walk around the block so that you can rest and step up, you know.

Jess K:

Micro intentions can incorporate your work bestie for sure. What we're saying is that these are one-step, not ten-step things, something small. Yeah. And another one I get overwhelmed over this. Another one micro intention we were talking about is kind of boundary setting. I feel like when we say that word boundary setting, everybody gets a little like it's a lot, right? And it is still something you can leverage from a micro intention capacity. It can be something as simple as stating, hey, I can get that to you by tomorrow at 3 p.m. But I can't, I I can't get that any sooner unless you want me to re-reprioritize. It's really reframing it so that that person who's asking you to do something is a part of it as well. Yeah.

Claude F:

And I think we need a lot of you know, tricks for that. How can we do it without feeling sorry about it or guilty because or guilty because that is something that we need. Because at the end of the day, boundaries can be professional, the way you say it can be professional, it's just stating the the fact, no emotion, just the facts, right?

Jess K:

Because you want to make it um a productive environment for a lot of people.

Claude F:

Exactly, exactly. And then the macro intention number three is one visibility moment. So one moment to be seen for your work. For example, speak once in a meeting, share a win with your manager, or post one insight on LinkedIn. There's a lot of you just did that. I don't, but you have to be next to me. But anyway, yeah, so that's important for your career as well. And it but remember, it has to be authentic, not forced.

Jess K:

It's visibility that feels more in your comfort zone with a little bit of pushing, let's say, right? So it's good to self-promote at times, it's good to make sure your manager knows about your wins, it's good to help self-promote other people too.

Claude F:

Totally. Help your work bestie or even your team, you know. Yeah, yeah. Show them.

Jess K:

All right, microintention number four, or an idea that we have was one reset ritual. So this is um something that wouldn't take a long time. So think about it as like a one to maybe three-minute reset. We talked about this last season, and it's things that I've started to incorporate in my everyday, which is at the end of the day before I shut down, looking at my list and getting myself checked for what's needed the next day. You can also do this first thing in the morning, just like a quick gut check of yourself. Another one that I do in between meetings, I take a quick two to three minute walk, whether it's to go get another coffee or water or something, to just kind of uh reset my mind when I go from one topic to another.

Claude F:

Yeah. I tend to do that actually in the morning, especially when I feel overwhelmed. I have my to-do list, and every morning I redo it or I add, and it's so that I know what to do. So you're preparing for that. Exactly. And two minutes is still a ritual. If you do it every day, it is a ritual, it starts to it's going to stick.

Jess K:

Yeah, you'll feel kind of off-put if you don't um continue it once you start really putting that into motion. So, knowing that this is all about the new year, new you, and the month of January is really focused on that. I thought we would urge you also about having that weekly five-minute check-in. Um, something that you can do directly with your work bestie.

Claude F:

Five minutes, not a therapy session, or if you want it, go ahead. We we know we all love venting, but at least five minutes to say how is it going.

Jess K:

So, here's the things we're recommending you do in those five minutes. So, with your work bestie, we're suggesting you come up with similar questions that we have. So, the three things we thought of were what felt heavy today? What's something that maybe was different than you were anticipating? The second one is what was a win? What's something you're most proud of from today?

Claude F:

I and I love what was the win because sometimes we tend to be always very hard about ourselves and always thinking about what went wrong. Right. But to say what was your win, if you ask the question, then your work bestie is going to realize I did win something this today. So I love that one. And then what is important also is like how can I support you?

Jess K:

Yeah, because even you and your work bestie can help each other. And I think to your point, it might be something as simple as reminding your work bestie that you did have a lot of wins. So if you can't think of any, or if they can't think of any on their own, you can help think of some of them for them, or just talk about the day, and I'm sure you're from that you'll organically be like, wait a minute, Claude, that sounds like that was a win. Yeah, continue to support each other, hype each other up, remind each other about how important you are to each other, and really provide that reality chat.

Claude F:

Yeah, I'm mostly, as you know, I'm mostly rarely checked. I like especially for my friends, when they're out there, they tell me the truth. Right.

Jess K:

Yeah, yeah. You were definitely it hurts me. You were definitely the first one to tell me if I have lipstick on my teeth.

Claude F:

Hey, you need a friend like that.

Jess K:

You do, you do, you do.

Claude F:

I just don't say it. I look at you, what did you say? Mean? I look at you meanly.

Jess K:

You look at me as if like I have like pained you. Like, uh again. Um another thing that we did want to cover off on, and we briefly touched it in December. Um, we so we don't want to belabor this too much, but just a friendly reminder on the importance of digital detox. So we're not suggesting that you quit your phone. We are not suggesting to quit anything, any of your apps. We're just saying if you don't want to. Yeah, especially if you don't want to. If you want to, great. What we're saying is to choose just a small tech boundary. Um, something as similar as simple as no emails before 9 a.m. or after 7 or 6 p.m. Um, something that like maybe will just help you cut off a little. Um, maybe even it's when you're having meals with your family. We do this. No screens, do not watch anything, whether it's TVs, phones, iPads, whatever have you, turn those off. Just have that 15 to 30 minutes with you and your family and actually connect. Yeah. Um, and then this one is what I'm gonna challenge you on is how do you limit your scroll before bed?

Claude F:

Not every before bed, but as you heard before, like my four hour sleep and not together. I don't sleep much at night anymore. As much I wake up in the middle of the night, I don't know why. And horribly what I do, I scroll doom. Yeah, which is doom scroll, which is the worst thing. So I that is going to be my micro um intention, is really when it happens, just take a book and because sometimes it's so easy to scroll, but that's what I or even like get out of bed, go get a glass of water or something to like again reset your mind.

Jess K:

Exactly. The doom scrolling will keep you up longer.

Claude F:

Yeah, at least what us did stop is answering emails first thing in the morning. I don't.

Jess K:

Yeah, and that's a good thing. Like um, topic you bring up, like we're not suggesting you only have to do one. If you want to do multiple, fantastic. Uh, what we're suggesting is though don't try to do them all at once. Oh. So do a one a week. And once you do, we feel like this is something that you guys could pick up at any point in time and start again at any point in time. So even if you started one microintention today and it didn't work, start again.

Claude F:

Yeah.

Jess K:

Um choose another one. We do suggest that you commit to each micro intention for at least seven days. Something simple, it doesn't have to take too long. And if you've got to work bestie, do it together. You can even text each other.

Claude F:

And well, no, actually, if you're doing digital, you cannot text, but you know what I mean. You mentally tell each other. She mentally tell each other, you know. No, but even at one point, that's what we were doing. Every morning every morning when we were working out, we were taking a picture of each other. Oh, yeah, you know that we should do that again.

Jess K:

You're right. You can leverage your work bestie. Yeah. And then we've chatted about this before. Some of you in the work bestie community. If you don't have your work bestie anymore, or maybe you've never even had one, feel free to leverage us. DM us your micro intentions. Oh, yeah. We will cheer you on, we will support you in any. Sort of capacity. So before we close out, I did want to comment on all the upcoming episodes. We have a couple of guests that will be coming on. One is going to talk us, tell us all about how they have reinvented themselves more than once in um foreign countries. So yes.

Claude F:

So that is something to look forward to. And also I think, and it was fun last last year. What we did, we did also uh vision boards. We're going to do a vision board as well. Which I think it was fun.

Jess K:

And then we'll wrap up with some of our micro intentions, what's worked, what's not. Um, and hopefully by then we'll have heard from some of you all what's worked for you guys. That's it. We kicked it off.

Claude F:

Season three about to start, so so exciting. Um please leave a review, uh, tell us what you want to grow in this year, and don't forget to follow us and subscribe.

Jess K:

Small steps, big growth this year. So, with the work besties who grow, we're so excited to continue this journey with you all. And if this episode helps you, send it to your favorite co-worker or support with micro intentions. So, to all the work besties out there, keep supporting each other. Bye! Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings, or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude F:

So keep lifting each other up, laughing through the chaos, and of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive, and don't forget to keep supporting each other.

Jess K:

Work besties!

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Claude F

Co-host
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Jess K

Co-host