New year, same me.
Often times, we start the new year with a calling to be a new person.
Someone who is stronger, or smarter, or faster. More well-read, well-rounded, more successful.
Inevitably, a month or so in, we've completely forgotten everything we wanted to be and are now stuck with who we were before. Big plans laid down at the threshold of our rhythms, patterns, systems, and obligations.
So this year, I'm doing something different.
I'm not aiming to be a different person.
Much like my Unplanning process, I'm looking back before I look forward, and I'm focusing on becoming a better version of who I already am.
Instead of aiming to read 100 books, I'm aiming to read for more joy.
Instead of aiming to volunteer more this year, or make a bazillion dollars, or pass some other external measure of my success and contribution, I'm aiming to...
... question more of my unconscious patterns.
Unpack more of my biases.
Journal on more of my difficult thoughts and traumatic memories and moments.
I'm aiming to move my body in the ways I enjoy.
I want to wear things that make me smile.
I want to be more... Me.
I've always been extra, and that's no surprise. But instead of adding or changing for 2025, my work is uncovering.
Releasing limitations.
Unmasking.
Revealing.
Discovering.
Unpacking.
My work is to let myself out.
To become self centered.
Not self-centered... Not the typical negative connotation.
But to literally center myself in my lived experience. To understand myself, share more of what makes me human and whole, sprinkle in more of the divine and the mundane and the beige and the Tuesday with the Friday Night Sparkles.
To be self centered in this way is to:
- Center my experience in my life as the primary. Fill my cup first, as an act of self-love, so much that it overflows into others.
- Understand that joy and pleasure are vital information, and use that as guidance to heal, to love, to give, to receive.
- Get comfortable with disappointing people. Sometimes, we can't give people everything they want from us.
- Create a space that is solely your own, centering your needs, that others need permission to enter.
- Have permission to want things, to love things, to experience things, to enjoy things
Most of all, it is to move from meeting the needs of others first and giving yourself the leftovers, to meeting your needs not just first, but so well and so thoroughly that there's enough left over to give abundantly to those around you on your terms, in the ways you choose.
Because in what is hopefully a very, very long time, when you're looking back on your life, you don't want to look back and know that everyone had a great life because of you (except you.)
Nor do you want to know that you had a great life at the expense of others.
For me, I want to look back on my life and know that I took such amazing care of myself and gave myself so much that I was able to hold up community and help others so abundantly that we changed the world together.
It starts with making enough money that my pockets can overflow into causes that are important to me...
... and it continues into resting enough to give energy, to removing obligations enough to give time, to giving myself enough love to share love.
Together we can change the world, but first, we have to change ourselves.
So, may 2025 be the year that we all become more of who we already are, so we can overflow into each other.
- Cheryl
❤️ We all need a village.
So I built one.
And it's for all of you.
Anyone reading this right now can come join Solo School today, and meet with me tomorrow afternoon.
Or chat with Courtney about their bookkeeping on Thursday.
They can come hang with Theresa on Wednesday morning to get executive functioning support, or meet with Briar on Friday to get help with AI, systems, and navigating neurodivergence.
They can see the regulating exercises Paula has dropped in the community chat so they can feel more grounded and safe.
They can use our AI tools to get an ADHD coach buddy in their pocket.
They can take a course on copy and in less than an hour, have better tools than half the copywriters on Fiverr.
They can drop into the sales workshop replay and have a new script that feels good and actually works before their sales call tomorrow.
This is what we've built. A whole village of support and care and resources, instantly accessible on an app in your pocket.
You can see it all here in the Student Guidebook. Every resource you need for a growing business, under one roof.
If you'd like to join us:
On December 4, Solo School went up in price.
For my birthday, on January 15, I have dropped the pricing back down and I invite you to join us.
