Taking a fresh approach to reviewing my 2025
Explore Landscapes #105
How I'm 'parking' this year and focusing on the year ahead, to hopefully start the new year with less emotional baggage, and some kind of direction and purpose.
Like many of us (I assume), I spend the last couple of days of each year looking back at what I’ve achieved (or not) and reviewing my year. The good, the bad, and the ugly!
I find this to be both cathartic and therapeutic. It helps me to ‘park’ last year in it’s ‘pigeon hole’ in my head, and then focus on the year ahead, hopefully at least starting the year with less emotional baggage, and some kind of direction.
I know that this must sound very mechanical to some, but it works for the ‘recovering engineer’ in me. In previous years this has been like a job performance, with targets and/or KPIs met (or missed), rather than anything that’s deeper (more emotional) than that.
This year, I’m doing the same thing - but using a different approach.
A couple of weekends ago, I was in Joshua Tree catching up with my friends Sydney and Barry Williams (of Hiking My Feelings® and WITW Consulting) and getting the lowdown on what they’ve been up to.
The essence of what they do is developing programs that ‘reconnect people to purpose through the healing power of nature’. They are both awesome people (not a phrase I often use to describe people) and I encourage my readers to go take a look at what they do.
I was keen to get ‘under the skin’ of their new program, Reciprocity Rx™ and learn more about the free toolkit that they’ve developed: the 4Rs.
The 4Rs of Reciprocity Rx™ | © 2025 Reciprocity Rx™ - brought to you by WITW Consulting and Hiking My Feelings®
In Sydney’s words, “the 4Rs of Reciprocity Rx™ — Receive, Reflect, Return, Reconnect — offer a simple way to notice and reshape your relationships with yourself, your work, your communities, and the lands and waters that hold you. This tool gives you a gentle, practical introduction to each R, with invitations to try them on in your own life. It’s less about becoming an expert in a model and more about experimenting with a different way of being in relationship.”
So with the 4Rs in mind, I’m going to use them to review my 2025.
Enjoying Fortynine Palms Oasis together | © 2024 Jon Norris
Receive: What supported me this year? What did I let in?
For me my ‘what’ to both of these questions is actually ‘who’. Who supported me this year? Who did I let in?
My ‘who’ for everything that I’ve done this year has been my wife and best friend, Jackie.
For most of our married life I’ve carried the ‘burden’ of work (both my day job and latterly my landscape photography business) myself. I think, like many men, I’m hard-wired, or conditioned, to be the ‘strong one’, ‘the provider.’
In no way am I insinuating that Jackie has not ‘worked’. She has worked incredibly hard to raise our two amazing daughters, to build a warm loving home for all of us, and in recent years, return to work. And I’m incredibly grateful to be traveling through life with her.
Prior to this year, I hadn’t really (properly) discussed the challenges of my job(s) or balancing the books (aka robbing Peter to pay Paul) to get us through five country moves and two daughters through college in the US. Conversations were superficial and I just stuck to the essentials of the situation we were dealing with at the time. And then moved onto the next challenge.
What changed this year? Now both in our mid-50s, we finally turned our attention to planning for retirement. We had lots of long conversations about what our expectations and wishes were for retirement, what we wanted to do, where we wanted to be, etc.
This brought a sharp focus on two key areas: health and money.
By letting Jackie in, asking for, and receiving her wisdom and support, we formulated a detailed plan for what we hope will be a long and healthy retirement together.
As part of this plan we discussed and agreed some changes to how we live now to pave the way for the future. That feels good. Really good.
Some of my wonderful landscape photography workshop participants | © 2021-2025 Jon Norris
Reflect: What became clear? What patterns or truths surfaced?
I’ve been leading landscape photography workshops in Joshua Tree National Park since January 2021. This was my passion project, my side-gig, and something that I hoped would grow and develop into something that I could transition to from my corporate day job. I would then have this ‘bridge’ into a delayed retirement while I continued to run workshops.
Establishing myself as a professional photographer was a huge amount of work, but also deeply satisfying. I love everything about teaching and coaching other landscape photographers and leading workshops out in the ‘wild’. I have met a lot of wonderful people and have enjoyed each and every workshop.
What became clear? After five years, it became increasingly clear that trying to balance my day-job responsibilities with growing the photography business put an excessive amount of (unwanted) pressure on me, and my family.
There comes a point where you want to jack-in your day job to give yourself more time to dedicate to the side-gig. If I just had more time I could do this …
However, over the past 9 months I’ve noticed a steady decline in the number of workshops booked. This has been a consistent story I’ve heard from other activity providers in the park - not just photography, but hiking, backpacking, and climbing as well. So if I can’t generate enough income to sustain us how can I even contemplate giving up the day job.
The final nail in the coffin (as far as my photography business is concerned) came from the National Park Service. As the end of the year approached they made significant changes (restrictions) impacting Commercial Use Authorization (CUA) permit holders wanting to offer Photography Instruction in Joshua Tree National Park in 2026 onwards.
The restrictions are so onerous that no photographer is going to want to pay for a workshop. For example, any nighttime workshops (for example, astrophotography) can only be conducted from one of three parking lots in the park - you can’t go on the trails, or visit any of the best locations for astrophotography, such as Arch Rock.
I will write more about my thoughts and feelings on these NPS restrictions in a separate post.
What became clear this year? I held my last landscape photography workshop on December 21st and will be canceling all of my scheduled 2026 workshops.
JTNPA/DI Volunteers and Instructors at Black Rock Campground
Return: Where did I return care—through my choices, my attention, my stewardship?
Since early 2022 I’ve been volunteering for JTNPA’s Desert Institute supporting educational and creative field classes that they offer in Joshua Tree National Park. To date I’ve volunteered more than 500 hours.
Joshua Tree National Park Association (JTNPA) has been the primary nonprofit partner of Joshua Tree National Park since 1962. Contributions to Joshua Tree National Park go through JTNPA and straight to where the park needs them most.
Despite the NPS restrictions which will see me stopping my workshops, I’m planning on continuing my volunteer activities for the Desert Institute.
I have also returned care through the stewardship that I actively weaved into all of my workshops, and my visits to National, State and County parks. I always actively practice Leave No Trace and Nature First principles whenever I’m in the front or back-country, whether hiking, backpacking, or for photography.
Reconnect: What relationships do I want to tend going forward so I feel more grounded next year?
I plan to double-down on a few key relationships in 2026 that I know will make me feel more grounded.
Firstly, and probably the most difficult relationship to tend, is my relationship with myself. I have a habit of putting myself last, particularly my health (both physical and mental), and this is something that I really want to change for 2026.
I made some big promises to myself each and every year since my 50th birthday, and have failed to deliver on them. I need to buck that trend in 2026, and am looking for some ‘hooks’ to latch onto to make that happen.
Next, I want to prioritize my relationship with my wife and daughters. We already have a great relationship but I want to make it even better in 2026.
After that, I want to do a better job of tending to my relationships with family and friends. I don’t mean this as a generally applied improvement, but focused tending on the most important and positive relationships. And this may mean letting go of some relationships.
It’s going to be a busy year!
If you’re interested in learning more about the 4Rs click here to join the Reciprocity Rx™ community.
I hope you’ve been able to find some positives for yourself during 2025, despite what I know has been an incredibly challenging year for many.
Thanks to all of my readers and subscribers for your support and encouragement during 2025. I appreciate you! Onwards to 2026 and Happy New Year!
