When I looked up last year’s end of the year blog post, it was with pessimism in my heart. I’ve been feeling like a failure, to be honest, waking up in the middle of the night and getting stuck in pointless ruminating and/or solving all my problems and then promptly forgetting those solutions the moment I actually get out of bed. I’ve spent more time trying to understand why I’m stuck (on ALL the things) then getting unstuck, and most of my solutions to getting unstuck just get me more stuck. I was prepared to discover that I’d completely failed to achieve my goals for the year. 

But when I read my blog post, I discovered that my words for 2024 had been “Focus” and “Fun,” and I felt a little burst of… call it forgiveness, maybe? Forgiveness for myself, for not fulfilling the ambitious project-oriented goals. Because I actually did quite a lot in 2024. I got certified as both a master life coach and a master wellness coach, I read a ton of books, I learned a lot, and while I didn’t produce much, I spent plenty of time working on my ideas. Thinking time matters. Yes, my perfectionism got in my way, but I also needed to take the time to shape what I’ve learned into something that made sense to me, that felt right. And yeah, that felt a lot like spinning my wheels — but I haven’t failed unless I give up. And I’m not giving up. 

Meanwhile, I did have fun. Lots of fun, actually. Beach trips and hanging out in downtown Sanford, thrift stores and flea markets, live music and Disney adventures. Writing group and writing with friends. A couple of good trips — Costa Rica, despite mostly being about the dentist, was a good experience, and my trip to South Carolina in the middle of summer was truly a delight. Plenty of good meals, and some excellent desserts. I read a ton, my favorite form of recreation (an almost embarrassing 463 books, according to the Kindle app) and played with my dog every single day.

2024 wasn’t a financially rewarding year. (Understatement.) Career-wise, it was close to a bust, although I do hope that I’ve been setting the stage for better years to come. But it wasn’t a bad year at all. I don’t feel good about what I failed to accomplish, but if I was on my deathbed looking back, I wouldn’t be saying, “I should have worked harder and had less fun.” It’s only because I’m not on my deathbed and hopefully have a lot of years to go that I feel badly about what I failed to do.

One thing that I did realize, though, as I looked back on my year, is that it started sliding downhill in August. Coincidentally — or not! — it was so hot in August that I stopped cooking complicated vegetable hashes for breakfast. I just didn’t want to stand over a hot stove stir-frying for fifteen minutes. Also coincidentally — or not! — it was too hot to want to exercise much. I walked less, gave up on riding the exercise bike and stopped even thinking about daily step counts. So of my three fundamental rules of happiness: (sleep 8 hours, no more, no less; eat plenty of vegetables, ideally seven to ten servings a day; move your body in ways that feel good as often as possible), I was breaking two. Possibly not coincidentally, I started struggling with the third, too, having a much harder time getting to sleep and sleeping through the night.

So 2025 is going to be a back to basics year for me. I’m not saying that sleeping 8 hours, eating plenty of vegetables, and moving more is going to magically make me accomplish more, but I’m pretty sure it will, actually. Because those things are the basis for feeling good and people who feel good also do more. Meanwhile, I’m going to stop beating myself up about what I failed to accomplish in 2024, and start appreciating what I did accomplish: it was a fun year with plenty of enjoyable moments in it, and lots and lots of learning. 

That said, I’ve been struggling to pick a word for 2025. None of the usual suspects feel quite right: I’ve already used Create, Appreciate, Learn, Gratitude, Grace, Focus, Play, Fun, Change, Kindness, and I’m not going to use Growth, Rebirth, Energize, Evolve, or any of the other words the Washington Post recommends. But I really have appreciated my focus words over the past five years — they’re a good way of checking in with myself, to see if I’m on track with where I want to go, who I want to be.

The word I keep coming back to, though, is forgiveness. I’m not sure why, not sure what I’m going to be forgiving, but what I get from the word is a feeling of letting go, a feeling of… the opposite of beating myself up, I guess? Of breathing out and breathing in, of healing, maybe a peace that is not hard fought, but simple. I’m not sure forgiveness will help me reach my financial goals (ha), but when I look back on 2025, twelve months from now, if its included plenty of forgiveness, I suspect it will have been a good year. The other word I like is resilience. I keep trying to tell myself to take one step at a time, and I think resilience is the word that best reflects that idea. I don’t have to achieve ALL the things — I just have to keep trying. So 2025: forgiveness and resilience and onward we go.

Happy New Year!