goals

My Mid-Year Mantras: Making the Most of the Rest of 2025

One of my favorite podcasters – Les Alfred of the She’s So Lucky podcast — recently released an episode during which she shared the Lucky Girl Commandments – a list of tips or words of wisdom to help us all create our own luck for the rest of the year and beyond. And of course, this inspired me to write some commandments of my own. I’m an Enneagram 1, which means I crave order. Rules don’t feel like restrictions to me. Instead, they’re the boundaries I need to keep from running myself off a cliff. (Side note: I also give myself permission to ditch any and all rules that don’t align with who I am and what I want. For example, you say every woman should be a mother. I say I’m quite content living my rich auntie life. But I digress.)

Because I know the word “commandments” can be triggering to some (#churchhurt), I’m calling these my mid-year mantras instead. Here are the rules I’m following to make the most of the rest of 2025.

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How to Have Your Best Year Yet

If you want 2025 to be your best year yet, if you want to reach December 31 and write in your journal the words BEST YEAR EVER, you’ve got to be intentional.

When it comes to having a successful year, there’s no one-size-fits-all all formula, but I want to share some things that I think can help.

I did a podcast episode about this, which I’d love for you to listen to, but if podcasts aren’t your jam, keep reading.

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Word for the Year 2025

What’s your word for the year 2025?

I’ve been choosing a word for the year for over a decade and it’s a practice I’ve passed on to the women of the See Jane Write Community too.

Some years I pick three words. Other years I choose a phrase.

Some years I get completely obsessed with the word that I chose. It becomes my mantra or prayer that I constantly whisper. Other years – like this year — my word has missed the mark – or so I thought.

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How I Fell In Love with My Life

The story of how I fell in love with my life is also the story of how I became an overnight success.

No, I didn’t wake up one morning to 100K followers on social media or a million downloads of my podcast or a six-figure book deal from one of the Big 5 publishers.

But one morning I woke up and realized I was living the life I once prayed for and dreamed about.

I have always wanted to write and teach, and I’ve been doing both since even before I was an adult! I started writing as soon as I could sit up straight, according to my mom. And I’ve been teaching since my high school days as a math/science camp counselor. But during my years as a staff reporter at a paper in Louisville, Kentucky, I realized that I wanted to write on my own terms. And while I was an English teacher at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, I realized that as much as I loved ASFA, I wanted to teach on my own terms too. But what would that look like, I wondered.

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My December Ta-Da List for 2024

Trade your December to-do list for a December Ta-Da List!

I can’t take credit for coming up with that name. One year a Collective member used the term during a monthly planning session, and it stuck. And since then, it’s become a yearly ritual for me.

Usually, I help the members of the See Jane Write Collective each month set 3 major goals -– one writing goal, one wellness goal, and one goal for another area of life that needs attention. But December is such a wacky month for most folks, and we usually have a long list of things we want, need, and must wrap up before the end of the year. But we turn this to-do list into a ta-da list by making sure we include fun stuff and acts of self-care too.

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