2025 Takeaways & What I’m Applying in 2026

Disclaimer: My views are shaped by my experience as a Black American woman currently living in the United States.

As I wrap up my first full month in 2026, I’m still reflecting on 2025 and the ups, downs, and inbetweens that the year offered me. One of my goals this year was to share more of my point of view – not just what I see but how I critically analyze things and how that contributes to my understanding and learning. So without further ado, here goes some 2025 takeaways and things I’ll be applying to 2026.

Our Bodies Weren’t Built to Be in Constant Crisis Mode. Rest.

Every year it feels like I’m setting an intention of deepening my relationship with rest. As a Black woman, I know how complex yet necessary a healthy relationship with rest is and as I’m aging, I’m doing my best to build one that is meaningful to me and my body. 

A major takeaway from 2025 was the reminder that our bodies were not built to be in constant crisis mode. Over the last five years, we’ve seen a global pandemic, an increase in social justice movements, unstable U.S. government administrations that have led to cuts in social safety nets, doxxing of Black and Brown communities, and explicit shifts towards authoritarianism and genocide to name a few. On top of these macro level happenings, we’ve dealt with things on the micro or individual level as well. Just thinking about it makes me sad for our nervous systems. If you’re anything like me, you’ve kept going every time anything was thrown your way and despite finishing on top, there was no time to grieve, to heal, to rest. I was jaded by the chaos of life, that I didn’t stop and check on my body, mind, or spirit. And when I did, I was reminded that I’m not a machine, I’m human. I need rest and not just sleep (even though sleep works wonders). I needed to find that feeling of safety that allows me to sit still, quiet my mind, and focus not on the world but on me.

What You’re Fighting For is Stronger than What You’re Fighting Against

Before I get into this takeaway, I want to share a little bit about myself. Professionally, I am a public health strategist that has been working in the nonprofit space for the last 5+ years. Personally, I am a Black woman inspired by and dedicated to my community; I am an advocate, a disrupter, and a storyteller. Of course these two identities intersect but to give you some context about how I show up, I separated them. Knowing this, you can also guess what kinds of spaces I’ve been in over the last few years – political, equity-centered, and power-building. So I can attest to the identity crisis that the field of public health has been in for a minute.

What stands out most to me about the field is the lack of foresight and the highly reactive nature of most of the leading public health institutions. We’ve seen these types of behaviors over the last few decades but COVID-19 really shed light on how the field of public health has genuinely lost the plot. With an origin in movement building and organizing, you’d think the field had a better understanding of its power and how to use it not just for defense but for offense. 

This brings me to my second takeaway of 2025: what you’re fighting for is stronger than what you’re fighting against. This is fairly straightforward but what I mean by this is centering your why and your values will take you further in cultivating a community and building (sustainable) movements than just blatantly disagreeing with a dominant narrative. 

For example:

I think back to the 1960s and reflect on the Black Panther Party as a community-led movement that centered Black liberation, safety, and abolition and their ability to this day to have models of work that movement leaders reflect on and learn from. Just because they centered Black liberation, didn’t mean they weren’t simultaneously (intentionally) challenging or fighting against white supremacy.  

I think about the 2010s and Black Lives Matter and their use of social media to advance Black liberation by centering Black joy, justice, and systems of care and the amount of support they garnered domestically and internationally. This movement centered in Black humanity also challenged the carceral state.

More recently, I think of Zohran Mamdani, the new socialist Mayor of New York City, who built a strong mayoral campaign centered around his vision for a safe, affordable, community-centered New York and the following he cultivated. Residents didn’t just like Mamdani, they believed his vision and wanted to see it through. The vision he shared countered the reality in which they’re struggling to live in.

People want to see the vision – a vision for the future where they see themselves not just surviving but thriving. While hope is not a political framework, it does numbers as a political unifier.

If You Believe in Yourself, Believe in Yourself

In 2025, I made some hard decisions and in making those decisions, I was reminded that I am my own biggest fan. I was reminded of the years of hard work and dedication I put into not only building up my self-esteem, confidence, and fearlessness but believing it.

Part of believing in yourself is knowing your limit.

This year, I finally understood what they meant when they said fuck a job. And not fuck a job in the colloquial sense of I hate work. No, I understood this phrase in my core – fuck capitalism, fuck the nonprofit industrial complex, and most importantly, fuck anti-Black racism.

If you would’ve asked me 4 years ago when I joined my old organization as an intern if I’d be walking away from my job with nothing lined up, I’d say no, especially because why would I? Why would I leave my highest paying job to date, that’s fully remote, just moved to a 4-day work week, and I get to travel… I mean, would you?!

Well, I did. And I’ve never felt better.

There’s an art to knowing your limit and while I have not mastered it, the strides I’m making towards mastery are exciting. Knowing my limit for me looks and feels like I’m operating within my values, not second guessing myself because I’ve been blessed with a trustworthy intuition, and shining light in even the darkest of moments. I don’t believe in toxic positivity but I am a believer of hope, faith, and laughter. When I’m doing less of those three things, I’m at or nearing my limit. 

I also think a key part of knowing your limit is having integrity. I’m going to say it again for the people in the back, a key part of knowing your limit is having INTEGRITY. In order to know your limit, you first and foremost must be honest with yourself. How honest you are with yourself really depends on the kind of relationship you’ve built internally. If my relationship with myself is rooted in love, curiosity, and trust then my decisions will and should follow this same formula. 

So, if I truly believe in myself, it’s up to me to show myself what that belief really looks like.

Time isn’t Flying, You’re Spending Too Much Time Watching the Time

I read or heard somewhere that time flies when we’re focused on time flying; however, when we’re focused on how you spend your time, there’s a paradigm shift from time lost to time spent. This isn’t verbatim, I of course had to put my own spin on it and I’m sure this is just another way to say we need to be present and practice mindfulness. But, I wish I could attribute this to the person who planted this seed in my brain because it fully flourished. 

In 2025, I set out to do 28 things before I turned 28. [list redacted]

While I didn’t do all 28 things, I did experience this beautiful reclamation of my time. I spent more time experiencing the world alone which allowed me to try new things, sharpen some old skillsets, and gain clarity on some existential questions everyone in their late 20s is asking themselves. More importantly, I was able to intentionally pour into relationships with others and begin to actively define the community I wanted to be a part of. 

Moving up Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs excites me just as much as the next person but my favorite thing about this experience was developing a deep sense of appreciation for the past – rather than reflecting on it as something that had passed by, I was able to recall at least one, but in many cases multiple, experiences that had occurred. I wasn’t just watching the time, I was in it.

Implementing Boundaries is Hard but a Great Place to Start is How You Spend Your Money

I don’t know about you but the word boundaries comes up almost daily. I’ve heard it from colleagues, friends, family members, my therapist, the list goes on. The funny thing is that the same people reminding me about how important boundaries are, are the people I’m in relationships with where it’s harder to establish and maintain boundaries. How about that! This is not a dig to them, but a lesson for me to learn about creating and sustaining my boundaries. However, I give myself grace because like many life changing practices, it’s easier said than done.

While I cannot necessarily speak to the power of external boundaries, I do have an offering for internal boundaries. To me internal boundaries are non-negotiables you hold yourself accountable to. And as adrienne maree brown says, “how we are at the small scale, is how we are at the large scale.” So I offer the following as a starting place for you to exercise and strengthen your boundary muscle so over time, implementing boundaries becomes a common practice in your life.  

Let me take you back, remember in January of 2025 when a lot of corporations started going back on their word as it pertained to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (not a fan of DEI but that’s a discussion for another day)? Target was at the forefront of a lot of these conversations and in response to their rollbacks on DEI initiatives and policies, Black leaders such as Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory, Pastor Jamal Byrant, and other Black woman-led coalitions called for a boycott. This national call went viral for multiple reasons, two of which were: 1) some of your favorite influencers answered the call and stood in solidarity with the Black community and 2) some of your favorite influencers were quiet and couldn’t fathom buying their favorite body wash anywhere else. 

Like anyone who had been avidly shopping at Target, at first it was a struggle but then something clicked for me. I am the same woman that has a robust Black-owned bag collection and for years has frequently shopped Black and IPOC-owned from clothing, dishes, all the way to food and wine. If I am intentional about where I spend my money, I can be just as, if not more, intentional about where I abstain from spending my money. That then became for me a clear example of an internal boundary I was already upholding that I was able to add more nuance to.

This solidified the idea and practice that on a small scale, I can set, sustain, and further define boundaries for myself. So the next step would be to translate this to a practice I try on with others.