JANUARY IN REVIEW

Yay, the last Tuesday in January 2025 is here! I can say with all excitement that it has been an amazing ride with you these past weeks even as we journey ahead with the intentional mindset of making 2025 the best of years so far in our lives. I see your engagements with the posts- the likes, comments, shares, and reposts have not gone unnoticed, and I am sincerely grateful. Thank you for being here on Tuesdays and every other day of the week!

Today, we don’t have much to talk about. As I mentioned last week and even earlier in the year, we will be reviewing the posts for the month, starting with “New Year, New Me?” which was posted on the 31st of December, 2024. I want us to begin with this particular post because it’s a form of introduction to 2025, and it would be nice to see where the ride started from once again. Having said that, let the review begin!✍️

We literally started 2025 on the 31st of December, 2024 with the post titled “New Year, New Me?”, a step-up from the original, familiar “New Year, New Me” yearly mantra where we pen down or verbally make new resolutions at the beginning of the year, often courtesy of the excitement that comes with the season, and only to discover by December that we could not keep up with our resolutions. So, how do we break the cycle of promising ourselves we’ll do better and failing to keep the promise?

We checked out a new version, which is attaching a question mark to the mantra and directing a series of questions at ourselves. As we do this, we get to make evaluations on how the previous year went, we highlight the changes we desire to see in 2025, and how to make these changes a reality rather than mere wishes.

May I quickly chip this in? Evaluating yourself is not a one-time thing, it is progressive! It is a daily, weekly, and monthly process! Even as 2025 keeps unfolding, you need to keep assessing yourself and your activities to be sure that you are staying true to your goals and not just busy with the wrong things. If you have not started doing that yet, it’s the end of the month, and it’s a good time for a self-assessment.

As a means of and a guide for setting up our action plan for 2025, we went ahead to discuss the steps that can be taken daily and all year long in the direction of our future-forward selves, which begins with the power of imagination- imagining where you want to be, rather than being stuck with where you are currently. This is a post you do not want to miss out on, and a post to revisit if you have read it before. To access the entire post, you can click here.

We made progress into the year by dissecting the topic “Stretched and Capable” on the 7th of January, 2025. Yes, you are right to say that this is the first official post in 2025! This topic stemmed from the concerns of a leader-figure who has expectations laid on them as someone responsible for a set of people, but are equally caught up in situations of their own and are wondering how to successfully bear the responsibilities.

We checked out the flip side, which is directed towards someone who might not even exactly be a leader in a sense, but equally has goals set for the year and is quite bothered about how they can be achieved due to how ‘huge’ the goals are perceived to be.

Here, we could relate to two characters in the Bible (Moses and Solomon) who had once been in these shoes as leaders and were able to navigate their roles successfully. The beautiful thing is that their stories are not fiction, these people lived life just as we are living now! We can take a cue from some of the steps they took in making our pursuit better. You can learn more about the right mindset to have towards the position you occupy currently, your responsibilities, or your goals (the first of which is seeing them as a blessing and not a burden) by clicking here to read the post.

On the 14th of January 2025, we looked through the lens of “Living in Balance”. As humans, we often wish we could just someway, somehow have more hours added to our day beyond the already-existing 24 hours so that we will be able to get all our to-dos done. However, seeing as time had been made before we got here, it is our responsibility to adjust and make the best use of it.

As we tune in to proper time management, we can carry out our responsibilities effectively with our goals sitting in well. Also, we get to put a balance to cater to other aspects of our lives that we need to pay premium attention to- faith, family, friends, health and wellness, and other goals.

Moving forward, we highlighted some adjustments we could make in maintaining quality work-life balance, a key part of which is creating a schedule that houses all that you have to do daily and allocating time to each- work hours, rest hours, leisure time, etc. There’s a lot you can learn from this post, I can assure you. Get to read the details by clicking here.

The last, but not the least of the posts, was uploaded on the 21st of January, 2025 with the title “Joy Ride”. The original meaning is attributed to a careless or reckless adventure (which is very funny if you ask me). I mean, how can something so meaningful have such meaning?

Well, we can draw our own inference and channel ‘Joy Ride’ into living a life that knows the right quarters to channel their concerns, cares, and worries (care-free life), and a life that has laid all their burdens and concerns on the ONLY ONE who has the shoulders to bear the load (a life of reckless abandon). These two inferences point to GOD!

When different news comes at us, whether good or bad, what is our response like? Of course, negative events have a tendency to bring about low spirits, but we can rise from them and be encouraged through the joy within and above. However, there is also the side of dealing with happy news. When good news comes our way, do we suddenly slip into worry or bitterness right after rejoicing with the bearer?

Do we allow our thoughts to take us on a ride to God knows where, or do we call forth the joy in us and shut the negative thoughts down? We checked out some responses we can give going forward, one of which is taking charge of our thoughts. The full post is right here for you to read!

This is how far we were able to come in January, and it’s been wonderful! If there’s any post you haven’t explored, you should do that this week. You can also keep the comments coming as you share the links to the site with a friend who might need to read them as well. Follow us on social media by clicking the icons at the top right-hand corner of your screen. Have an amazing last week of the month, see you in February!💃