Five lessons I learned from 2025.
A big part of my existence is self-reflection, self-improvement, and overall just accepting/receiving/assessing feedback and trying to be the best I can. A lot of what goes into this comes in the form of recognizing the lessons in everything, no matter how positive or negative the thing is.. and let me tell you something. This year was ABSOLUTELY full of lessons, haha.
Be open to using & accepting help.
I received a few different diagnoses this year after deciding to open up and accept a bit more help than I’m used to. Although hard, it was very eye-opening once I realized there are tools out here for almost anything you can think of — and at a certain point, me thinking I’m tough for “thugging it out” actually was me making things harder on myself than I needed them to be. If there are tools, resources, etc available to assist in whatever the thing is I’m trying to solve, the wise thing to do is drop the ego and lean in a little bit.
Be more proactive in friendships.
There was a moment this year where I realized a lot of my friendships, although great, weren’t hitting certain areas I wanted them to hit — and I realized there were some behaviors of my own I needed/wanted to change in order to make that happen, really a lot of the responsibility was on me! I realized that anything asked of me, I 100% showed up for and was more than happy to do so, but one area I wanted to improve was me initiating things, being more proactive with things, not just leaving the responsibility to that on them. Although not ever intentional, I know there’s still an impact with that and I wanted to do my part to work on changing that.
Tell others your goals.
This is something I really struggled with for a long time, maybe due to a lot of the convos you find in society about hateful eyes, about keeping things to yourself, about people wanting to sabotage the good things you have planned. I got to a point where certain things were passing me by and I said, you know what? I’m already missing out on certain things I wanted for myself, it can’t get worse by me mentioning these things out loud. And you know what happened the more I started openly speaking about my goals? The more help I received with these goals, the more people contacting me to do said things, the more people spoke my name up in rooms when these things came up. The amount of opportunities that hit my line in the second half of this year strictly off of me speaking my wishes up out loud? Really wild how that works, huh?
Time don’t stop for anyone.
I turned 34 this year, and while that isn’t old by any means, it was the first time I looked up and really was like damn.. time as a whole is MOVING. The older I get, the older my parents get and a lot comes with that. The aches, the pains, the more they slow down, the more issues that arise. The older I get, the older my friends get. Weddings, proposals, babies, moving away for new big-boy/big-gyal jobs. The older I get, the more I realize how much stuff I haven’t done in the time I’ve had to do things, even though I’ve also done a lot.
All that to say, I’ve been doing a better job of acting on the things I want to do, spending more time with my people, and being more present for my friends.. because time don’t slow down at all.
You’re stronger than you think.
This year was one for the ages (in some of the worst ways possible). I don’t even know if I can express fully how wild this year was — from having my nephew born extremely prematurely and being told he may not make it numerous times, a layoff from a job I valued so much, months and months without work, a breakup from a long relationship, family and friend loss, my father being diagnosed with cancer and more — this year gave me a run for my money and still is, BUT..
With everything said, I realized that I’m mentally strong. A lot stronger than I realized and that I gave/still do give myself credit for. I don’t wish any of these things on anyone and I hate that I went through any of it, but at the same time, I’m still here and still kicking and still finding a way and still THRIVING in my own right. There’s something to that and something I needed to start really giving myself credit for. I may get knocked down, but I ain’t gonna stay there long..