My word for the year: lighter

Read time: 3 min 40 sec

Hi pal,

Happy New Year - welcome to a (bloody freezing in the UK) 2025.

I keep telling myself that I need to make it a habit to escape from the winter every Jan and aside from our 3-week Asia country hopping honeymoon in 2020 (the irony) - I haven't made it happen since.

Damn it. Anyways.

You've probably seen this whole "anti-resolution" vibe floating around; instead of resolutions, you have a "word of the year" that becomes your North Star.

As someone who is the typical "break all resolutions by January 3rd" kinda gal, this concept is something I have been doing since 2021.

Because instead of focusing on vacuous metrics

It focuses on the person you want to become, how you want to feel and the journey to get there

It helps me make confident decisions
It helps me focus on what I want and need
It helps me keep promises to myself

I will break down the concept so you can figure out what your 2025 guiding word should be.

The premise of the "word" is to focus on one big thing you want to try and change between one year and the next.

It may be something you want more of
It may be something you want less of
It may be something that applies only to one area of your life
It may be something that goes across every aspect of your life.

I'll give you my examples from previous years:

2021: Experiences

Mid Covid hangover and craving newness in my life. This was the year that my daughter Sophia was born and I wanted it to be a collection of new memories, experiences and opportunities that I felt we missed so much in 2020.

2022: Balance

I struggled to be a new parent, integrate my career and still fit in with London friendships when no one I knew had kids. This year was about figuring out how to have a sense of balance across those things and understand my metrics for success

2023: Courage

The year of big decisions and betting on myself. Trying new things, making BOLD career moves and having the courage to look inward and ask the hard questions. I had compartmentalised for so long and becoming a parent had opened Pandora's box of hard emotions. This year was all about thinking bigger and being braver.

2024: Trust

The first year of running my business; I knew the thing that would ground me would be trust. Trusting myself, trusting my relationships, trusting my skills and trusting the process to persevere and keep going...even when I felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

My word for 2025: Lighter

Admittedly not the most inspirational phrase I could have come up with. But your word doesn't need to make sense to anyone but you. Regardless...lemme explain myself:

I have no problem with self-belief, expansive thinking and feeling the discomfort of newness, ambiguity and challenge.

What I realised however, after a lot of self-reflection at the end of 2024 is that I have several things holding me back; anchoring me to an old version of myself that I do not resonate with anymore.

So this year is about losing those anchors to feel lighter.

A couple of examples being some debt that I have hanging over me and the weight that I have put on because I haven't been prioritising my health...which in turn affects my confidence.

One of the actions off the back of wanting to feel this way is committing to getting outside for 30 minutes everyday (torrential rain being the exception) because it makes me feel physically and mentally lighter. Even if it is something I find incredibly boring; I now do it alongside my visualisation playlist or listen to a funny podcast.

here with my million layers taking the 30 minute detour to the gym at 8am. I hate the cold.

Now it's your turn

You can use this template if you want to do this whole process more intentionally (obvs recommend) but the quick version is below:

1| Identify how you want to feel at the end of 2025 and why

Feelings are the foundation for all manifestation and visualisation.
I want you to feel what that feeling feels like in every part of your body
The why is important - it will expose a need that isn't being met and/or an intrinsic value.

2| What's the difference between where you are now and where you want to be?

This forces you to look at your life a bit more analytically. What are the gaps (there will be more than 1)
What are the things that will make the biggest difference in getting you to that feeling you want to feel in 12 months?
How do those things show up tangibly and practically?

3| What do you need to start doing and stop doing?

You don't have unlimited energy and time. If you have to start doing things to enable change then that also means that you will need to stop doing the things that either are draining your energy or not giving you the results you need.

When you look at all those things: what words came up for you? What feels the most aligned?

After that, it's all about outcomes and systems to make sh*t happen. If you want help to make that happen you can do that here.

PS: I am running a free workshop on the 7 steps to building unstoppable confidence in mid Jan. If you want to join, just reply to this email with "BOLD" and I'll get your spot saved.

See you next week ballers,