Thanking Yourself
For a job well done.
Hi friends!
This month, I want to take a moment to celebrate YOU!
Let’s set aside professionalism for a moment, this year has not been gentle to most of us. It’s been full of curveballs, burnout, reinvention, and moments where the ground felt like it was shifting under our feet. And yet, in the middle of all of that, you showed up. Look at you! You still learned something new. You solved problems for people even though you were struggling with your own problems. You continued to care about doing good work in a field that often asks too much and gives too little.
We’re so quick to minimize the things we’ve pushed through, the things we created, the things we held together. But your resilience is professional development. Your ability to adapt is strength, not survival. Your growth this year… personal, emotional, and creative is part of what makes you a sharper, more thoughtful L&D professional.
Before we dive headlong into the next project or crisis, I want you to take a breath and look back at the things you did — that you didn’t think you could. The choices you made that kept you aligned. The boundaries you drew. The work you put into yourself. Those wins matter. They count. And they deserve space.
What’s one thing you did this year (personal or professional) that required more courage, capacity, or creativity than you thought you had at the time?
Where did you underestimate yourself this year, and how did the outcome prove you wrong?
Gut Check
I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately with people who are bone tired. Folks who got into L&D because they care about people and learning are now stuck navigating tools that were built in the 2000s, internal politics that make innovation feel risky, and leadership teams who still believe training is a magic wand that can fix organizational rot.
People are tired of pretending everything is fine while vendors churn out the same recycled frameworks and buzzwords. They’re exhausted from watching edtech companies make profits and secure funding and then make their products somehow less user-friendly. They’re tired of watching brilliant practitioners get sidelined because they dared to ask for evidence or because they refused to build another 200-slide “course” out of a SME deck.
They’re worn out from conferences that promise transformation and give them panel discussions sponsored by the same companies creating half our industry’s problems. They’re spent from being told to “have a growth mindset” when the reality is that the org’s mindset is the bottleneck.
And underneath all that frustration, there’s a shift happening. A quiet one, but it’s real.
Practitioners are starting to talk about the things we were all trained to whisper. They’re questioning outdated evaluation models that were built for a pre-internet world. They’re calling out bootcamps that sell dreams without delivering skills. They’re pushing back on leaders who treat adult learning like a checkbox. They’re openly discussing the crash of old tech’s relevance, and the rise of tools built by practitioners who understand the work.
And I am happy to be part of the conversation. I was lucky enough to join Greg Arthur for the Product Design for Learning Podcast to talk about my decision to look for full-time opportunities outside of traditional L&D and why I think we’re having a revolutionary moment.
I was even more pleased to see that this month’s issue of the Dirtyword Magazine featured plenty of tough conversations, with two coming from my brilliant friends Lauren Waldman and Mike Stein. Waldman’s take on how learning needs more science is a desperate cry on the heels of big events this year that were majorly lacking in data-driven presentations. And Stein’s case study showing how Articulate Storyline takes 6 times as long to develop content than basically any of the cloud-based authoring tools on the market tells a dire story of L&D team risk if they don’t modernize soon.
But honestly? These stories give me hope. Because if enough people start telling the truth at the same time, the old guard doesn’t get to hold the mic forever. And we start making room for the voices of real practitioners who are loaded with insight!
And although I’m looking for a full-time role right now, I’ve opened up a limited number of spots on my consulting calendar for anyone who wants to explore making a change for their team — from exploring new tools or LMSs or tech, I’ll meet with you and help you consider what’s needed for a change. Reach out to me for more details.
One Useful Thing
Struggling to create a portfolio of your work? Applying to new jobs but panicking when they ask to see work samples? Have been “working on” your portfolio for about 1.8 years?
Try the reverse portfolio.
Instead of listing projects you plan to do, spend 10 minutes listing what you already pulled off this year: process fixes, assets, templates, conversations that unblocked a team, documentation nobody else wanted to deal with, insights you brought to a meeting, anything. It doesn’t need to be polished or “portfolio ready.” It’s proof of impact you forget you’re making. It doesn’t have to be a polished course.
The L&D world constantly trains us to look forward… to the next deliverable, the next sprint, the next fire. A reverse portfolio forces you to confront the receipts of your own competence. People who try it usually realize, “Wait… I’ve done way more than I thought.”
Try it. I’d love to know what you think!
Better Together
This month, we tested out our first AMA in the All-Access space of the Useful L&D Community. I decided to answer first, and I love some of the questions we received:
If most instructional design models begin by aligning objectives, assessments, and learning activities, aren’t we essentially applying backward design principles? So, is backward design truly distinct from other instructional design approaches—or just a different lens on the same process?
Recently I’m trying to grapple with the stagnancy of higher education. It’s always been out dated from how the field it’s trying to prepare you for actually functions, but I feel the tech revolutions have exacerbated this gap even further. When I chat with instructional designers from higher Ed, they mention that they primarily use PowerPoint, screencasts, etc. Their tools all need to pass IT so authorization is slow. But it’s not just about the tools for me, it’s about the experiences being created. The PowerPoints and screencasts are used for lecture based delivery where the SME reads off a slide. I cannot fathom that this is good learning, but this is a renowned institution charging in the thousands. :/ It feels gross to me. So my question is... Why?
If you want to hear my answers, join us, or view every past session, workshop, and AMA recording anytime.
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Work + Life Balance
Have you heard of the seven types of rest?
Most of us default to thinking rest = sleep, and then we wonder why we’re still exhausted even after a full night. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s work breaks rest into seven categories: physical, mental, emotional, sensory, social, creative, and spiritual.
A lot of burnout comes from trying to fix the wrong kind of depletion:
You can sleep nine hours and still wake up mentally fried.
You can take a weekend off and still feel socially drained.
You can finish a project and still feel spiritually flat.
When you start naming the specific type of rest you’re missing, your recovery stops being guesswork. Maybe what you need isn’t a nap, it’s reducing sensory overload. Maybe it’s releasing emotional labor you’ve been carrying. Maybe it’s reconnecting with something that makes you feel wonder or meaning again. Maybe it’s stepping away from people for a bit… or reconnecting with the right ones.
The seven types of rest give you a language for understanding what your body and brain are actually asking for, so you can give yourself the right thing instead of whatever you think you “should” be doing.
What’s Next
Next month, we’re leaning into renewal, not reinvention, not pressure, just the quiet decision to begin again with more clarity and more support than before. After a year that stretched so many of us thin, December is going to be about easing back into possibility… slowly, intentionally, and on our own terms.
I’ve got something special lined up to help you start fresh in the new year without starting from scratch—think of it as a small boost for your future self. More on that soon.
- Heidi 🙏🏻🍂