Roughly five years ago, I got back into therapy and I didn’t “want” to be in therapy.
To be clear, I needed it but I didn’t want it.
Being in therapy meant something was wrong and something was broken and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to admit either of those things but that didn’t make it less necessary.
Being in therapy made me rehash memories and reopen old wounds that refused to die, that refused to heal and continued to find ways to poke holes into the rest of my life.
So over the next several months, I pored through all of those details: the good, the bad, the painful, the shameful, and everything in between.
At a certain point, Collin, my therapist, asked me how I wanted to proceed: if I was going to do the work to heal all those broken bits or if I was going to stay in the same place letting all those old wounds fester out into the rest of my life.
I didn’t have an answer.
I was stuck.
And Collin said the words to me that have been branded into my brain ever since, words that I have peppered into this website on more than one occasion since then: When you’re in enough pain, you’ll change.
As you set your sights into 2025, I want you to take stock just like Collin asked me to do all those years ago and consider what changed and what needs more changing.
I am of a certain mindset now that I hate feeling stagnant and I hate feeling like I didn’t make progress in the areas of my life that need it most.
And like many people, I really don’t like the feeling of pain…so I change.
When you look at yourself in the mirror, and really LOOK, I want you to set goals in 2025 that make you uncomfortable.
I want you to set goals that make you stretch yourself.
I want you to be clear on those goals.
I want you to plot out details of what the steps towards those goals might look like.
And then I want you to move heaven and hell and to get there.
If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve realized that the things you value most in life are the things you’ve had to work hardest for.
For me, that has been my own personal self-improvement, the growth of my business, parenting, and my marriage (in no particular order).
The work never ends. The work always requires patience, it always involves missteps, it always takes longer to achieve a certain goal than what I expected and the work is ALWAYS worth the effort.
If I had a wish for you, it’s for you to not remain the same person in 2025 that you were in 2024.
And I want you to do more than talk a good game. I want you to show up and walk that talk over and over and over again until you’re facing 2026 with the benefit of hindsight to say, I put in the work and I know how I got better.
And when you look in the mirror a year from now, I want you to be immeasurably proud of yourself.
The same way that I’m proud of the fact that when I answered Collin by putting in the work it was because I refused to stay stuck.
For you, make the decision to change and start it now.
