Happy New Year, beautiful people! Welcome to 2025! I don’t know about you, but I’m so excited that 2025 is here! I’m feeling an overall sense of peace going into this year that I haven’t had in years past. I’m taking it as a sign that good things are coming and I can’t wait for all that’s in store!
I spent the last two weeks taking some time away from work to reflect on the year past and what I’m looking forward to in the new year. Reflection is something that I don’t always do but when I do, I find it to be a heartwarming experience. I also enjoy sharing them because it helps me stay accountable in a way, and it also has the potential to be helpful to someone else too. If you’re curious about my 2024 annual as well as what I have in store for 2025, then keep reading!
2024: The Year of Enjoyment
Last year, I said that I wanted to prioritize my enjoyment in 2024 and I most definitely did! I traveled a lot, celebrate so many of my friend’s birthdays, weddings, and pregnancies! I still find it hard to believe that I’m at that age where all of these things are happening but nevertheless, life is such a beautiful and dynamic thing. I learned to find moments of joy throughout my days and my weeks no matter how big or how small and really worked to be intentional about savoring those moments. Some of the highlights of 2024 were:
- Traveling to Senegal
- Completing over 100 Hot Yoga classes
- Recording 4 LinkedIn Learning courses
- Going to Nigeria for a Wedding
- Celebrating my sister’s 21st birthday in New York
- Seeing Megan Thee Stallion in concert
- Meeting my nephew for the first time
- Finding a new lash place
- Hosting my first Thanksgiving
- Advanced to intermediate tennis classes
- Read 62 books
2024 was also the year that I said was going to be a year of continuous learning. Starting a new job while also trying to continue growing in the areas that I was already making great strides in was definitely a juggling act. The areas I said I wanted to grow in were:
- Software Engineering
- Learning French
- Fitness
- Productivity
Let’s breakdown how I did in each of these areas:
Software Engineering
I completed 1 full year at my new job back in October! I have learned so much in the past year and have done so many new things that I honestly didn’t know I was capable. One of the best things about my new job have been how supportive my teammates and my managers are. In all of my career working as a software engineer, I have gotten the most praise for my contributions here. I have had the most support to learn and grow than I have at any of my other previous jobs. I’m really excited to continue working here for hopefully many more years to come.
That being said, my current role is definitely the most challenging role I’ve had as a software engineer. I’ve been loving the challenges but that did mean that my original plan of action of how I was going to approach this year. It also meant that because I was learning so much here, I didn’t have as much capacity to learn in other areas. I know that there is still going to be so much to learn this year as well, but I’m confident that I’ll have a good balance for how I can get all that I need and want to get done done.
Learning French
This one of the areas that I felt that I didn’t really make a lot of progress in. I had to pause doing my live lessons and I also fell out of the habit of practicing my french every day through the app. I’m trying to give myself grace but if I am being honest, this was a bit disappointing for me. Learning French is still something that is very important to me and I plan to bring that back into focus this year.
One of the things that have really helped me start the habit is committing to at the very minimum review 10 words/phrases every day rather than commit to learning more words. Reviewing 10 words/phrases take about 5 minutes which lessons the pressure as I work to building the habit back up. Some of the goals I have surrounding french in the next year are:
- Studying 5-30 mins everyday
- Practice once a week speaking French with someone
- Visit a french speaking country this year
My hope is that by the end of 2025 I will be able to hold a decent conversation with someone in French. Instead of trying to tackle all of that at the same time, I’m going to start with studying french every day first and building from there.
Fitness
We had a lot of wins here in the Fitness space! My main focus when it comes to fitness is to just feel stronger and let everything else take care of itself! With the exception of a few medically-mandated weeks, I worked out pretty much every week in 2024! I love seeing how much stronger I can get and it’s given me a level of discipline that truly shows me what I am capable of. I want to take the discipline and consistency that I’ve developed in fitness and bring that to the other areas of my life.
For this year, we’re going to continue focus on growing the active and healthy lifestyle. I want to focus more on my nutrition and get back into running as well! Running is something that I fell in love with in 2019 and then sort of just fell off of it in 2020. Even though I fell out of the habit, I have still put one of my goals to be getting back into running every year. I decided that in 2025 I’m going to stop talking about doing it and finally do it! I don’t know if that will result in me running another half marathon this year but what I plan on focusing on is running 30-60 mins without feeling like I need to walk first before I commit to doing a half marathon. Every day I feel grateful that I can move my body and my hope is that I will continue to be able to do so throughout 2025.
Productivity
To be really honest, last year was not my most productive year. While I did accomplish a lot, I was really all over the place in terms of my approach. I didn’t meal prep as much, barely touched my Notion, and didn’t even open a planner! How I got things done is honestly a miracle but it was also very stressful. I procrastinated a lot, spent more time consuming content rather than creating content, and didn’t have the best handle on a lot of things despite still managing to get a lot of things done. Last year, I learned and really understood how full of a life I live. Between 9-5 job, my side projects, reading tons of books, and maintaining an active social life, I do incredibly too much. However, 2024 was the first year that I can say I was doing all of the things that I wanted to be doing. I have built the foundation of building the life that I want.
In 2025, we’re going to really be focusing on our time management. There is a lot that I want to get done this year and without having proper time management, none of it is going to get done. Better time management will not only allow me to get more done but will force me to be more intentional about who or what I’m spending my time on. One of my biggest goals I have in this particular area is go to bed at 9:30pm. Just as I was intentional with my fitness, I plan on being very intentional about my routines as well. I can’t wait to see what all gets done this year.
Word For 2025: Momentum
For 2025, we’re building momentum. I’m walking into 2025 with a clear picture of what it is that I want to accomplish and what it is going to take for me to get there. Now all that’s left for me to do is to be consistent. Consistency is what is going to enable me to make progress. The more I make progress, the closer I get towards my goals. The closer I get towards my goals, the likelihood I have of completing or even surpassing them. Consistency is what fuels momentum and momentum is what is what I’m focusing on in 2025. In addition to the areas that I mentioned above, the two other areas I will be focusing on are:
- Content Creation
- Finances
Content Creation
This is going to be my big focus for this year. I’ve been creating content online in some capacity for almost a decade and its led to some amazing opportunities and experiences. However, the past few years, due to a lot of different life things, I haven’t been able to give content creation my best effort. That being said, content creation is something that I really enjoy and it is a craft that I want to continue to grow in. I plan on continue to grow on my social media channels, grow my YouTube and my Blog with the hopes of monetizing these platforms. My hope is that by committing to being consistent will allow me to let this hobby of mind blossom into something beyond my wildest dreams.
Finances
One of my pandemic hobbies in 2020 was learning more about personal finance and it paid off big time allowing me to hit some of my big financial goals earlier than I thought I would. Once I hit those goals, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to focus on for myself financially that would truly mean something to me. 2024 helped bring me a lot of clarity in terms of what I want next and what things I need to do in order to make it happen. For 2025, I want to work on building better financial discipline that allows me to still have fun in the moment while also being cognizant of the future. I want to focus on buying less and being more intentional about my spending. I’m back to using YNAB and I feel confident that I will hit my financial goals this year by staying on top of it and being disciplined.
Closing
2024 gave me a lot to feel grateful for. It was a really good year after having a really rough one and for that I will always consider it a win despite what did or did not accomplish. I feel happier, free-er, and more at peace with myself and everything else that is going on around me. Last year gave me the self-assurance to truly see myself for who I really am. I set the foundation in place to continue growing and evolving into the woman I am destined to be.
2025 is going to be the year I really step into my power. I will continue to build and watch things multiply. I’m excited, nervous, and hopeful. If you’re looking to get started crafting your own goals, setting your intentions, and building better habits, I invite you to grab my free Goals and Habits Tracker Notion template.
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