What to Leave Behind in 2025

To Make 2026 Your Best Year Yet..

A New Year isn’t necessary to become someone new.

We need a New Year to stop carrying things that no longer serve us.

Most years don’t fail because we didn’t add enough goals.

They fail because we dragged old weight into a new season.

2026 doesn’t need a better version of us.

It needs a lighter one.

Here’s what we leave behind.

Shame

Shame is the belief that who we are is the problem.

Not what we did.

Not what we didn’t know.

Not what we were learning through.

Shame keeps us small because it convinces us we don’t deserve momentum.

But shame is outdated information.

It’s a story of a version of us that didn’t have today’s awareness.

If we learned, adjusted, and kept moving

the shame has expired.

Growth and shame cannot coexist for long.

One has to go.

Guilt

Guilt sounds productive, but it rarely is.

It keeps us staring at the rearview mirror

while pretending we’re being responsible.

We already paid the price.

We already felt it.

If guilt didn’t change the behavior the first time,

it won’t suddenly become useful now.

Accountability moves forward.

Guilt keeps us stuck.

We take the lesson.

We leave the weight.

One of the best things I’ve heard this year that changed my perspective in literal minutes is “Don’t sweat it too much.”

False Starts

False starts aren’t failures.

They’re proof we were brave enough to begin

before we were fully ready.

Every start taught us something:

What drained us.

What excited us.

What didn’t fit anymore.

We don’t carry the embarrassment of starting again.

We carry the clarity.

Momentum is built by people who start often

not by people who wait perfectly.

Look at every false start this year as refinement of the process you’ll ultimately live. The life on your terms.

False Beliefs

Some of the limits we’re living under

were never ours to begin with.

Beliefs we inherited.

Beliefs we absorbed during harder seasons.

Beliefs that once protected us, but now confine us.

“I’m not that kind of person.”

“It’s too late.”

“That’s just how I am.”

Those aren’t truths.

They’re habits of thought.

And habits can be replaced.

The most fruitful question we can ask is “What do I believe to be true that isn’t?

The Anxiety

Anxiety is often a misdirected imagination.

Our mind rehearsing problems

that haven’t asked for our attention yet.

It feels like preparation,

but it’s usually avoidance.

The future doesn’t need our panic.

It needs our presence.

Clarity comes from action, not overthinking.

We don’t think our way into calm.

We move our way there.

I’ve always felt anxiety as such a killer, because you’re living a situation more than once. If you’re imagining a future that hasn’t happened, even if it’s the worst possible outcome, you’ve live it twice, and most of us don’t just leave it at twice.

Anxiety is tied to the future, it’s also tied to the amount of options we have. If depression is the feeling of a lack of options, anxiety is the feeling of an abundance of options, some better than others.

Limit your options, try to make it your best, and be okay with things not being okay. You’ll find a way when you get there.

The Ties

Not everything that’s familiar is meant to stay.

Some relationships, routines, and roles

were built for an older version of us.

Letting go doesn’t mean resentment.

It means honesty.

Growth creates distance,

not because we’re better,

but because we’re different.

And that’s allowed.

Choose who chooses you, and be willing to walk away. This goes in business, relationships, etc.

you can’t be in a place to negotiate for better if you’re not willing to walk away.

The Ego

The ego wants credit, protection, and certainty.

Growth requires humility, exposure, and risk.

The ego keeps us defending who we were.

Progress asks us to become someone new.

When we loosen our grip on image,

we gain freedom.

When we stop needing to be right,

we start getting results.

There’s no “someone” you need to be.

Nobody remembers it, nobody’s wishing for you to go back, nobody’s gonna care long enough for it to affect you.

Start where you are, and build from here.

The Things That Worked in the Past

This one is subtle.

What worked before

can quietly become what holds us back.

Old strategies.

Old identities.

Old versions of success.

We don’t abandon them with disrespect.

We retire them with gratitude.

Every season has tools.

Wisdom is knowing when to put them down.

I believe there’s no staying where you are in life, no such thing as maintaining.

It’s like we’re parked on a mountain, and it’s fucking slippery.

We can press the brakes thinking we’re staying still, only to find out we’re slipping.

The way forward requires our acceleration.

What got you here, to the version of you right now, is not what will get you there

You’re a new person, new experiences, new knowledge, if you’re over 30 like me, a new metabolism (I think🥹)

The point isn’t becoming more.

The point is carrying less.

Less emotional debt.

Less outdated identity.

Less fear pretending to be logic.

2026 doesn’t need us to hustle harder.

It needs us to show up clearer.

And clarity comes from release.

We don’t walk into the next year

trying to prove anything.

We walk in lighter.

Present.

Available.

And that’s usually when everything changes.

I’m in this Starbucks on Wednesday Dec. 31’st 2025, typing on my phone because my laptop died, somewhere in San Jose killing time but I knew I wanted to write a piece before the new year.

If you’ve read anything I’ve written, I sincerely thank you for the time you’ve given me. It’s precious, and I can only say thank you for spending it with me🙏🏽