Transcription
We're somehow at the end of the year and I have no memory of what I did. [music] Like, genuinely, could not tell you what happened in March. And usually, I just rush into January with new goals, new plans, [music] never stopping to actually see how far I came, which is how you end up feeling like you're never making progress. So, in today's video, I'm breaking that cycle. Come with me as I do a proper end-of-year reflection and spill all the tea.
Hi friends, welcome back to another video. I am so, so excited for this one because I've actually never done an end-of-year reflection before. I have a huge list. First thing is just reviewing everything month by month, doing a photo scrapbook. I feel like that would be so fun and cute. I want to go through wins, quick hits and highlights, a life audit, journaling about lessons, what I'm leaving behind, and then close with a letter and video to myself. So, in very Sarah-like fashion, I am also starting to pull together a Canva template just to help me organize everything and go through the process. But if you guys want to do this and think a template would be helpful, I will put a waitlist link down below. Probably going to launch hopefully end of December, early January. Anyways, let's jump straight into it. I am not going to promise that everything is going to be complete by today, but thanks for joining me on the ride and let's go.
First things first, I need to jog my memory because I literally cannot remember what happened this year. So, I'm going through my entire camera roll month by month, looking at my calendar, my notebook, just dumping everything into this Canva template. Super messy right now, but all good. We'll make it cute later. This whole process took me like 2 hours, which sounds like a lot, but honestly was so worth it because as I'm going through everything, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I totally forgot I did that. I did so much more than I realized."
Now, I think the next step for sure is to make this into a really cute scrapbook, have all of the pictures like lined up, aesthetic, etc. So, I think I'm going to take the next, I don't know, 30 minutes to play around, start formatting one. Also, what this is making me think is as I start getting this template down, I think I'm going to try and fill these out at the end of every month for 2026 so that when I get to December next year, I'm not going to have to go through trying to jog my memory for everything that happened.
I decided [music] to do April. And again, this took way longer than 30 minutes. Like, there's so much reflection that goes into each month. So, I'm not going to do all of them in this video because that would take forever and instead I'll spread it out and do like one a day before the end of the year, but I feel like I'm getting into the rhythm of how to do these, so it should get faster. I'm going to walk you guys through this example and then I think we're going to call it for today because I'm honestly exhausted.
So instead of going chronological and like reading from top to bottom, I wanted to put the most kind of like important or biggest event right at the top and that was in April I got laid off and then I got a new job and then through that journey I spent a lot of time trying to take care of myself because it was a really chaotic few weeks. And then the way I laid out the rest of the page was any other big events. So, I took a trip to Chicago and Lake Geneva. And then at the bottom were just kind of one-offs or certain things throughout the month that I wanted to remember. And these were key things that brought me joy because this was such a hard month for me personally. It was so important for me to rely on my community, which is why everything that I've documented here are things focused around, you know, seeing my friends, building relationships, and cultivating joy in that way. And then at the end, just did a quick reflection to tie it all together. I think this is how I'll be laying out every single month. Just ordering things in terms of importance. Like I said, I'm going to keep working on these over the next week. But since I have a good refresher on everything that happened this year, tomorrow when I sit down, I can actually move into reflection and not just like recalling all the events that happened. So yeah, I'm going to call it a night. I will see you tomorrow.
So today we're starting to review the overall year. Yesterday we went month by month and now we're actually zooming out to look at 2025 as a whole. I'm starting with all the easy stuff first. So quick highlights which are surface-level things like places traveled, concerts, etc. Then I'm diving into wins by life category which is all about celebrating the year and how it's gone. As I'm going through this process, I'm realizing that it's best to do it all in layers. Like, you first figure out what happened, then you move on to easy reflections, [music] and then we're going to keep going deeper until we figure out how we actually feel about everything.
First things first, it was just so fun looking back at all of the things that I consumed this year, shows and concerts I went to, books, TV. Just looking at the amount of TV I binged, I am not embarrassed because a lot of these shows were great, but I do think one of the big goals that we've been working on is trying to reduce the amount of time I spend watching TV and time that I just spend consuming media in general. We had gotten into a routine of just getting off work, cooking dinner as fast as possible, and then just rushing to watch TV. And that is not something that I want to carry forward.
When I look at moments that I felt really, really proud of, the top two things that came to mind were related to my health and fitness. I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I have asthma. And so, for the longest time, cardio scared the living out of me. Like, I was so embarrassed of not being able to run, always getting out of breath, being the kid that was out of shape in class. This year I decided I wanted to change that mainly because my friend group is pretty active. I wanted to keep up without feeling like my body was limiting me from doing the things I wanted to do. So I started the Couch to 5K program and I feel like that really changed my life. Not because I feel like I was super fit after, I think my mile time was still what, 12 minutes, but by simply being able to conquer my fear, you know, lifelong fear I've had, made me feel so good and healing a part of my inner child, the part that just never felt like she was going to have the body to be able to do that. So, I'm really proud of those things.
Then, if I look at wins across the year, I did not realize just how much I did this year. And I feel like this always ends up happening. I get to the end of the year and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, I did not achieve X, Y, and Z goals," but then listing everything out, I'm like, well, sure, I might not have achieved these very, very particular goals. Like, for example, and not to jinx myself, but I wanted to release two templates by the end of the year. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to that. But I look at this list and I'm like, "Holy cow, there are so many things that we forget that we're managing. We forget how much time and energy it takes to actually like process these things emotionally, let alone execute them."
For example, I was thinking and I was like, "Okay, self-care. I feel like the big one I keep talking about is like I got my face laser dealing with acne scarring." But something that also took a lot of mind space and energy was healing my hormones. I could tell my hormones were completely out of whack because I was getting aggressive hormonal acne around my chin. Last year, my derm put me on oral spiro, which cleared up my acne super fast, but it was giving me these horrendous side effects. Like, I was peeing all the time. I was lethargic. I could not sleep. It was just not working for me. So, I decided to go off. And of course, when you go off a medication, your body's trying to readjust. So, I went through that, started breaking out again. Finally, I was like, I'm going to take 3 months. I'm going to really dial in and focus on my overall well-being. Eating less sugar, drinking less caffeine, eating less processed foods, doing more whole foods in service of helping me decrease some of the inflammation in my body. That was a long process. Like, it was something that took a lot of mental space. Now that my skin is relatively clear, I look back and I'm like, "Oh yeah, this was always the case." But in reality, this was something I was struggling for, you know, the better part of this year because I was still going through the ups and downs of decision-making and what things that I should be doing and changing and also all of the mental fatigue and negative emotions associated with that.
A lot of times, some of the biggest wins we have are slow and gradual, much like my hormonal journey, versus these big monumental "I achieved, you know, hitting a specific sub count on YouTube" or "I finished my first 5K." Like, those are such small moments in time, but in reality, when we look back on our wins, there are so many things that we achieve every single day that builds up to something huge. That learning is so tied to the theme of this year that I set early, which was 1% better each day. What are the small consistent things that we can do that will absolutely change our lives over time? And I think that I really encapsulated that feeling in everything that I did this year. It's just so refreshing because I feel really proud and grateful for myself and that's how I want to look back on this year.
Anyways, I'm going to wrap up this little reflection with five of my favorite wins, and I'm going to hit them really quickly. So, the first one is building my community here on YouTube. Oh my gosh, my growth has been so much better this year. Thank you guys for being alongside me on this journey. Your support means everything and it just makes me feel like I am fulfilling my purpose. Being able to create content that resonates with people and makes people feel heard and I can share my life lessons along the way. My second win is making working out feel really good. I've finally gotten more consistent with working out every single day. It doesn't have to be much, but I finally am doing happy movement every day. Because of that, I think my body has responded so well. I feel the strongest I've ever felt. My number three win, I really feel like I prioritized closeness and emotional intimacy with all of the people around me. Eric and I have had so much fun, created so many new experiences. I feel like I've really connected with my parents on a deeper level and with my sister. And then for my friends, it's just, you know, building stronger relationships with consistency. I am putting my best foot forward in all of these relationships and I'm really proud of myself for that. Fourth one, honestly, healing my hormones. I feel like that one was a big one that has finally made me feel better overall. And then my fifth one is learning how to release control. I've always been an anxious person, and this is still something I'm learning, but I've gotten so much better at it. It all ties together because the more you release control, and the more you let go, the easier life becomes. I'm no longer so stressed about all of the little things and trying to control every single little thing that doesn't really matter. So, yeah, those are my key wins. I'm going to really quickly do my life audit and hopefully that will help me design some goals when I get to that after this video.
For the life audit, I set a 3-minute timer for each section just to rate it [music] and jot down where I'm at today. Honestly, I gave almost everything a [music] really high rating, which I don't know if that's just because I just did wins, so I'm kind of biased, but maybe that's okay. We should celebrate ourselves. But I do think overall I'm just in a really good, stable place in my life right now.
If I look back, I feel like 2024 was a year where I was trying to build the foundations of some things. I was planting seeds. I was just starting friendships. I was learning how to do YouTube. I was learning how to edit. Like, I was starting so many new things. Now, in 2025, I feel like I've been actually watching everything that I've planted grow. There are some years that are going to be planting the seed years. There are some years that are going to be nurturing them and watering them, giving them fertilizer, etc. Other years that are just going to be harvest years. And I kind of feel like next year is going to be a harvest year because we have our weddings. Feel like I've gotten into a really stable place with YouTube. Yeah, we'll just have to see what next year brings. But I feel like I'm going into the new year just feeling really good about every single part of my life. Maybe that's just because I've had the space and time to reflect on everything that's changed and I'm so incredibly grateful, but I feel good. So, yeah.
Now, the next part of this is to really sit down and journal. I have two pages for this. One, all of the lessons I've learned, and then two, what I'm really leaving behind in 2025. To be honest, after doing all of that reflection, I don't feel like my brain is at the best mental capacity to think about these prompts deeply and thoughtfully. So, we are going to do this tomorrow. I don't think when it comes to reflection, when it comes to introspection, that I should be rushing myself and just forcing myself to check things off. This reflection process has definitely been a lot. And if I were to do this again, maybe I'd just break out each one of these steps, put aside like an hour or two each day to focus on it. Yeah, lots of learnings. We will pick this back up tomorrow and dive straight into journaling. And I'll share all of the different realizations that I've had over this past year.
We're getting super cozy and setting the vibe because today is all about introspection. I started on my computer, but it just didn't feel right. When I type, I'm editing and deleting as I go. But when I write by hand, I just can't erase. [music] So, it's very stream of consciousness. Whatever comes out, comes out. So, I switched to my journal. And honestly, once I started writing, I just kept going. Okay. I feel like that was really, really insightful. So, I'm going to just walk you through what I wrote down for each of these exercises.
The first prompt was something challenging for me this year. I feel like this year I've navigated a lot of personally ambiguous situations. My emotions have just been so dynamic, all over the place. I feel like I've gone through stages of grief, loss, excitement, optimism, positivity. Things have been just changing so quickly. And I think when it comes to navigating these types of experiences that are particularly difficult, I wrote down two things. The first one is I have immense gratitude for every single experience we go through. I've seen that often times there's a lot of good that comes with the bad. And it's not so much about seeing the silver lining, but more so recognizing that all of our experiences build upon each other. An easy example of this is I got laid off. What I think traditionally is seen as a bad situation had goodness in it. When I was job hunting, I was really worried I was just going to take whatever I got. And I decided I was going to be very, very intentional and not let scarcity mindset get to me. Upon getting my first offer, I vetted the manager to make sure we were aligned on the same values. I got to practice staying true to what I want and I ended up on a team that I still love. The second part of this is just learning how to release control. When we navigate difficult things, everyone might respond differently and that's okay. That is natural. By clutching on to needing to control everything, I'm just making things more painful for myself. The more malleable and adaptable I am, the easier it will be for me to navigate some of the difficulties. So, I feel like that brings me into kind of the biggest lesson I've learned this year, which is to really embrace everything that comes my way. It's like what a privilege it is to have the ability to experience the whole entire spectrum of feelings. For so long, I was just chasing this desire to be happy all the time. The more I lean into feeling those bad emotions and just embracing every single step of the journey, the more that I can appreciate every single part of life and to fully be present in where I am. Negative emotions aren't always bad, you know.
The next prompt is, "I used to think this, but now I think this." I used to be so focused on maximizing my productivity, always just focusing on my output. And now I realize that it's okay to slow down. I feel like I consistently talk about enjoying the journey, enjoying the journey. But this year, I feel like I've started to actually live it. My focus was on 1% better each day. And just by doing things consistently, I almost feel like psychologically the results I get are better because I'm giving myself more space to be creative rather than forcing it. And I'm also feeling like everything is easier to achieve. So I'm not just like dragging my feet getting somewhere. It's more like, wow, everything that I do I enjoy. And so the output and the reward of doing it is so much better than something that I just kind of forcibly put out and the end product is something that I don't necessarily always resonate with.
Moving on, what surprised me the most about myself this year was just how capable and resilient I am. Something that really resonated with me that I saw was self-love is not just about believing in yourself so much that you can make whatever you want happen. It's really about believing that no matter what happens, you'll be able to catch yourself. That's what really surprised me this year that I was just there for me and I'm grateful for myself for moving forward.
So, the next prompt is the pattern that kept showing up in my life. For me, it was always trying to do too much all the time and I was just forcing myself to execute super quickly. This ties back into the productivity thing. As I've been letting go, I started asking people for help and letting people in, giving people the license and trusting them to do a good job. That has taken off so much internal pressure from me and has also strengthened my relationships with those people. Everyone else has so many other incredible skill sets that I can start learning from. And the more that I can reach out for help, the more I can also learn from them without having to just take everything on my plate.
And then the last prompt was what I'm proud I figured out. So I think I talked a little bit about these, but the first one I wrote down was everything wellness related. Regulating my hormones, my acne, daily movement. I just feel like getting all of these in check have literally made it so life is easier to live. I have so much more energy. It's like in a video game when you can like level up certain skills. I feel like I increased my health bar and now I have like more energy that I can pull from every single day. And so that's really, really helped change my attitude towards life, my ability to work on the things that I want to, and just made life overall easier. The second part is YouTube. I feel like I've gotten better at articulating my thoughts, and I feel like that has made it so this entire journey has been more fun for me. So, I'm just proud that I've been able to really curate my own voice and showcase my creativity on this platform.
Now, I'm going to talk about all of the things I'm leaving behind in 2025. I'm going to just bang these out really quick. So, a limiting belief that I'm releasing is that I'm just not good enough to be making YouTube videos and that it's cringe. That's still something I struggle with. Just imposter syndrome in general. But I feel like the more reps I get in, the more confident I become. And it just takes time to act and really step into that identity. An old version of me that I'm saying bye to is the one who was too scared to ask for help. The one that felt like she couldn't trust people. A toxic habit I'm going to break is just speaking negatively to myself. A fear I'm done letting control me is the fear of judgment and I want to show up as authentically as I can every day. And the last one is pressure or expectation I'm releasing. I feel like I keep just rushing towards needing to just be financially free and I'm going to let go of that pressure. I'm just going to let things take the time that they need and to find joy in the act of doing and being rather than always achieving.
Wow. I feel like that was all of the goodness that I took from this year. I want to just wrap up this video by doing two things. A letter to myself where I'm writing to future me. I'm hoping to open this in December of 2026. And then for the video, I actually want to do these maybe quarterly where it's more like checking in, accountability. So yeah, let's do those last two things and wrap up. For the letter, I'm being way more reflective, deep, here's what I'm hoping for you energy. And for the video, it's literally me being like, yo, [music] March, Sarah, what's happening? How's the business? How's wedding planning? How are your friends? Etc. And it's just like more fun and lively. It's kind of like a quarterly business review where I talk to myself.
All right, friends. You have made it to the end of today's video. So, thank you guys so much for sitting down with me and going through this reflection. I feel like doing this process for the first time, my biggest takeaway is I just feel so much gratitude for how far I've come and I'm just really excited about the next year. Maybe that's because this year was so great, but at the same time, I've just never given myself space to think about everything I did. And so instead of going into 2026 feeling like I didn't achieve all of the things that I had on my vision board and plate, etc. I feel like I'm now going in with a good head on my shoulders, ready to tackle anything that comes my way and just have a good year. So yeah, as always, thank you guys so much for watching. And if you liked this video, go check out this one and this one.