My 2025 Word of the Year

Last year, I started doing a word of the year and have LOVED centering my whole world in a given year around one word. In 2024 (here), my word of the year was joy. And, truly I strived to bring SO MUCH JOY into 2024 with me and into 2025. 2024 taught me how to bring joy into all aspects of life, whether good or bad and to indeed find joy in everyday life. At the end of the 2024 year, like many of us, I found myself doing lots of reflection on how I wanted to shift my focus into 2025. Since I LOVED picking a word of the year for 2024, I decided to do the same thing again for 2025!

SO, with that all being said, my 2025 word of the year is … FORWARD!

One of the biggest themes I noticed in myself throughout 2024 was dwelling on things that happened in the past, whether great or not-so great. I found myself when tough things happened dwelling on them a lot longer than I should have. I found myself getting into my head wayyyyy too much than I should have. I found myself getting reminders of what happened in the past and thinking that what happened in the past will be a repeat trend in the future (which by the way isn’t true folks!). While it’s great to look to our past for fun memories, lessons learned, and even inspiration, we must move forward on a regular basis. In my reflections on 2024, I realized that I wanted to focus on moving forward in 2025 and decided to make it my word of the year and center my entire world around moving forward.

In practically all aspects of my daily life, I have been brainstorming ways in which I wanted to and am in the process of implementing when it comes to forward-thinking in 2025. While I won’t be sharing all of those ways here with y’all, I will note that it has been beneficial allll around for me to center the year 2025 around the word forward. For example, I am focusing on growing my newsletter over on Substack (let’s be friends @thepinkchickadee) that I created in December 2024. On all of my social media platforms aka Instagram (let’s be friends @_thepinkchickadee), Substack, Threads, and most recently YouTube (let’s be friends @thepinkchickadee) as well as my website that you are currently reading this post on, I am striving to create consistent content and build relationships with YOU aka my lovely community and friends while doing so. I am focusing on creating a structured environment for me to create and share content with y’all via this overall happy place of mine on the internet. At the same time, I am focusing on finding community locally by continuing to attend church more regularly and when able with my Mom and Papa and continuing to engage more locally with those that I already know and love, including with Daughters of the American Revolution. To tie it all up with a bow, I will also be striving to make more time to see those that I love both near and far. In 2024, I didn’t spend much time in real life with my dear college friends that have been there for me through the ups and downs of life who all reside in North Carolina and I want to make more of an effort to see them as well as other long distance friends and family members while achieving some of my both local and further away travel goals. This platform, community, and friendships are truly just a sample of the many ways that I am paving the way forward for myself into 2025 and beyond!

When 2024 ended, my mental state was not in the best of spirits and I left the year feeling severely burned out and run down. Via reflection in therapy (which I am a full supporter of EVERYONE doing at some point in their lifetime!), I realized that dwelling on the past and putting too much energy into the things that I cannot control whether they happened in the past and are wayyyyy behind me or I simply cannot control somebody else and how they act and react is simply not a productive way to move forward in 2025. I have been focusing on facing my personal fears and truly changing my mindset to not dwell on the negative but rather focus on the positive and make adjustments accordingly to focus on the positive, too. Recently, I have been applying Mel Robbins’s “let them” theory into my daily life and it has been groundbreaking for my own personal and mental wellbeing (I plan to share more about this in a future blog post, too!). All this to say, going forward into 2025, I feel so much more rejuvenated given the changes that I’ve already made!

At the end of the day, the only things that we can control are how we act and react to things and our pathway forward in this world. We cannot go backwards, but we are always going forward into 2025 (and beyond!). I wish you all the best in 2025 and moving forward from there!

XOXO – Katie <3

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My 2024 Word of the Year

I haven’t done a word of the year as far back as I can remember, however, I have been inspired by SO many fellow influencers who have been picking a word of the year on an annual basis. I have found it to be SO inspiring to see others share a word of the year, surrounding their experiences and life journey at that moment. And, I am more than excited to start doing the same for myself, too.

SO, with that all being said, my word of the year is …

Joy

Recently, I have been choosing to do things that bring ME and ME only joy. Does that mean that when I went to see Frozen on Broadway a few days ago that I bought *yet another* plush Olaf because it brings me joy on a regular basis and when watching the live performance?! YES! Does this mean that I am eating off the fancy china, wearing the expensive perfume, and burning ALLL the candles on a regular basis to find joy in the ordinary?! YES! Does that mean that I ALSO booked a trip to Ireland in April since I have been DYING to go and I know this trip will bring me many memories and joy both in April and in the future?! YES! The list could go ON and ON and ON.

One of my most recent self care practices is thinking about what I want and what will bring ME joy versus doing things solely out of obligation or because I think I need to. When I am considering ordering takeout or making a purchase (within reason), I always ask myself: will this bring me joy? The SAME ask goes for when I decide whether or not to go to events that may be more draining than enjoyable for me (however, this does not exclude events and things that are necessary, such as family, friend, or professional obligations, but rather those things I can be apart of from afar without having to fully commit to). My fellow influencer bestie Lindsay of @sunshineandstairclimbs (yes, I mention her on here ALL THE TIME and, yes, you should go follow her if you haven’t yet!!!!) continuously shares contents and is a living role model for me in truly finding the joy and doing what brings YOU joy. Lindsay is such an inspiration to me, too, and doing things that bring me joy will solely help me prioritize where I put my time, energy, money, etc. moving forward into 2024 and beyond.

Making joy my word of 2024 also means that I am focusing on finding the joy in every situation. Not going to lie here, but 2024 started off a bit rocky for me (which I know others have experienced, too), as I had a traumatic experience in late late December that I had to process alongside getting COVID for the first time and still recovering from a looming terrible cough as a result. Yet, through it all, joy means finding the silver lining in EVERY scenario. Yes, that means even when COVID hits and being isolated from others beyond my household takes a toll, there IS joy in truly having time to slow down and reset before fully jumping into ALL that 2024 has to offer. The same goes for that traumatic experience that I had in very late December, as I was burnt out as a result of the holidays and in MAJOR need of a break. When in doubt, joy is something that can ALWAYS be found if we just take the time to see it.

Joy is also allowing myself to take things for what they are and to learn and grow from it all. The world is an ever-evolving place. Professionally speaking, I have found myself to be someone who has learned to LOVE and embrace feedback. Perhaps, I have *even* found the joy in feedback, whether good or constructive, as something that allows me to know where to hone in skill-wise. The same goes for feedback within my personal life, too. Moving and evolving the way I am meant to in 2024 and beyond will allow me to find the joy in ALL the moments that are meant to be.

At the end of the day, joy is choosing me through my own self development, priorities, and outlook. For 2024 and many more years to come, I choose JOY.

XOXO – Katie <3

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