My key word for 2025 was Audacity. I entered into the year with a boldness that I wasn’t very familiar with.

I leaped into the year with goals and plans, it felt good to be in charge of my life and 2025 welcomed me at the level of my audacity.

Together, we made plans to achieve those goals and I hit the ground running. I ran with so much speed and energy.

If I were to describe 2025 in 3 words, I’d go with CHALLENGING , DEFINING and ACCEPTING.

2025 challenged me, not in the form of an attack, not in a negative way, but it held a mirror to my face and made me look carefully at the person staring back at me.

I saw a kind, compassionate, strong willed and determined person, but beyond that I saw other things that made me deeply uncomfortable.

To be honest, they were things I knew but I never quite paid attention to them because I wasn’t ready to deal with the ugliness.

I faced the ugliness of having a huge ego, masked as determination, and the silent need to control, masked as organisation and order.

Don’t get me wrong, determination and order are great qualities to have, but when they start to veer off their original purpose, they can become counter productive and even toxic.

The worst of them all, self sabotage, borne out of unregulated emotions and weak (or no) boundaries, stared at me with a smirk that I wanted to wipe off her face.

Looking into that mirror was by far the hardest part of 2025, but it ended up being the best thing that happened to me and for me.

2025 defined all the areas I needed to make changes. It lovingly held space for me and gave me reasons and time to put my clarity and self awareness to active practice.

There were loops and behavioural patterns I wanted to get out of in some of my inter personal relationships and with aspects of my self development.

I have always known what I needed to do , but I had become comfortable with uncomfortable, familiar situations.

The year gently forced me out of that comfort zone. I experienced and enjoyed a lot of grace and strength to make big and small changes.

2025 taught me that for any real growth and progress to happen, I had to practice accepting people and situations as they are.

Not in a way that you resign to fate and live in misery. I learned that change will come in the way I want it to when I change my perspective and reactions to people and situations that will most likely remain the same.

Now I am walking in the light that I saw years ago but I was too scared and scarred to follow.

I have transitioned from operating as a victim of unpleasant circumstances.

I’m now learning to operate from the place of making choices that will help me move forward and away from unpleasant circumstances.

A mindset change occurred. I’m no longer stuck on ‘if this didn’t happen, I’d be in a better position….’

Now I’m thinking ‘Ok, now that this has happened, what do I need to do to get to a better position?’

I learned to accept the reality of how life works, and it’s unpredictability.

I understand now that the quality of life I experience depends a lot on how I respond to the people around me and situations I find myself in.

I started the year with vim, I had a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm and I was determined to make things happen.

I had set goals from career development to self development to financial stability and improving my body image.

I was keen on engaging my creative side as more than just a hobby.

I wanted to write and publish what will be my first book, I also wanted to be consistent with putting out podcast episodes to build a community of loyal listeners.

My sister girl Tolulope, a firm believer of my creativity made me commit to writing one paragraph every other day for the book and releasing one podcast episode every month

The idea was for me to be consistent with creating content in a structured way.

Towards the end of 2024, I enrolled for a diploma program in business analysis with the British Computer Society, after picking up interest in the tech space.

I was required to pass four courses to get certified. One foundation course, one practitioner course and 2 specialisms in requirements engineering and business process modelling.

I gave myself a timeline of nine months to pass the four courses and get all four certifications.

The second thing I wanted to do was get my UK driver’s license. This required me to write a theory test and do the practical driving test.

There was weight loss, there’s always weight loss at the beginning of every year anyway and in 2025, my goal was to drop two dress sizes by the end of the year.

My familial and social lives weren’t about to disappear.

I had a family to nurture and cater to, inclusive of 3 fast developing male children who were now into their preteen and teenage years.

There was my friendship circle who we all need each other for support. A ‘ship’ I don’t take for granted.

And then there was my full time job which wasn’t only time consuming but also physically and mentally demanding.

Oh and yes, we had to move houses as we had been given a deadline to vacate our home.

I started the year biting more than I could chew and I was very confident I would get everything past my throat without choking.

I created a vision board by my bedside that I woke up to every day and it was my daily reminder of the things I needed to achieve.

I must have been driven by a high level of delusion to think I had the bandwidth to do it all within a year.

Or maybe I could with a little bit of ‘perspire to aspire’ motivation.

I started out doing really well. I was hitting my weekly goals, at least 80% of them and then the exhaustion started to creep in.

It wasn’t in a loud or dramatic way, but I noticed a silent pushback.

I was constantly tired, my mind was always overstimulated, my motivation had turned to anxiety. I was slowly but surely burning out.

I was doing everything I was meant to do but it started to feel like I was doing it under duress and the duress was self inflicted.

At the end of March, I did a review of my goals to see how much I’d achieved.

At this time, I had passed only the first of the four courses, which I had been told was the easiest of the four.

I had 3 more courses to go and 6 months left to meet the timeline I had set for myself. I panicked.

Before I started the diploma program, I had a meeting with my tutor to set out my study schedule.

He had advised me to pace myself especially because I work full time and have a family to take care of.

He told me to consider completing the program in fifteen months but I stubbornly refused, I was bent on completing it in nine months or at most one year.

The plan to lose weight was already in the gutters, I was in a worst off situation because I was stress eating most of the time.

The draft I was working on for the book had taken a back seat. I couldn’t find my flow and I wasn’t trying to force it.

Writing is too sacred to me to do a shoddy job with it or maybe this was an excuse I devised out of my fear of not getting it right.

Thankfully, I passed my driving theory test, so I started taking driving lessons in preparation for the practical test.

The podcast episodes were coming on consistently, Tolu made sure of that.

After the review, the thought of continuing to do all these things left me feeling very nervous. I was filled with self doubt.

Following that was a feeling of disappointment and shame that the year wasn’t even halfway through and I was already giving up.

I managed to revise my strategies to keep going but I didn’t change my timelines.

In a moment of self reflection after my birthday in April, it dawned on me that a lot of the pressure I was putting on myself was aimed at satisfying my ego.

The timelines were set by me and they were not cast in stone, but it would have made for an interesting story.

Jay did this and this in a limited time frame despite working full time at a demanding job, being a home maker and a hands on mother of three children.

Low key I was seeking validation for the ‘hard work’ I was doing.

The truth is, I was doing my best maybe even more than my best, but I wasn’t giving myself grace.

In that moment, I painfully admitted to myself that I was weak, vulnerable, very tired and in need of help and I needed to shut everything down and take a break.

I had already booked to write my second exam in May. I focused on preparing for the exam and told myself whatever the outcome, pass or fail, I’d done my best.

And so I wrote out everything I desired, and why I wanted them, in my prayer journal and asked God for help, mercy and favor.

I stopped overthinking and psycho analysing, I moved at a slower pace but I showed up everyday the best way I could.

I passed my second certification exam in May and I was so happy.

Going into the second half of the year, I released myself from unnecessary pressure and faced the reality of what I could handle.

I booked my practical driving test and got a date in November.

I toyed with the idea of dropping the specialism courses but my tutor wouldn’t hear of it.

He encouraged me to complete the program and assured me of his full support.

Studying for my exams, recording the monthly podcast episodes, house hunting, catering to my family, fulfilling my daily obligations to the job that paid my bills and sparking joy became my focus.

At the end of August, I had passed the 3rd certification exam.

By the way, between January and July, I had attended 2 art exhibitions and had gone to see Usher, Beyoncé and Asa perform live.

No, my enjoyment wasn’t going anywhere. It was priority for me. My lowest and heaviest period of the year was between May and August.

In August I got a second job, I had to get my money up for things to add up and the search for a new place to live got more intense.

We had a deadline for October. House hunting in London is an extreme sport, but that is story for another day.

There were days when all I could do was wake up, show up to work, come back home, feed my family, and breathe. And I was okay with that.

I resisted the urge to do anything outside of my core routine.

In September, after getting on the scale and seeing my weight in very heavy kgs , I revisited the goal to lose weight.

Who eats a full bowl of plantain chips in one sitting, multiple times a week amongst other things?

From previous experiences, I avoided the trap of setting unrealistic goals and making drastic changes.

In October I started a weight loss programme which I’m still working with. Nothing demanding just better choices and discipline.

I wanted sustainability and consistency so I kept it simple. Fast forward to now, I have lost 8kg, slow but steady progress.

After many months of arduous house viewings and filling of forms that ended in our offers being rejected, our breakthrough came towards the end of September.

Within 2 weeks of finding a property, we signed the agreement, keys were handed over and we moved in on my first son’s birthday. The relief I felt was indescribable.

I passed the fourth and last certification exam of the business analysis diploma program in November and now have my 4 certifications.

The big flex for me is that I didn’t have to re-sit any one of them. I passed each one at the first attempt.

And I wrapped up the year with the 12th episode of the life as I see it podcast fulfilling my commitment to put out one episode every month.

On the flip side, I failed my practical driving test and I didn’t complete the draft for my proposed book.

Outside of these goals, I nurtured familial relationships and honoured my friendships, I fulfilled my obligations to my full time job and made sure I got as much sleep as I could.

In my friendship group there was celebration and winning – My girl got married, a business was launched, established businesses grew, one of us has a bun in the oven.

This year we all laughed and cried, there was healing and there was visible growth.

I wrapped up the year attending an R and B Xmas concert that featured Toni braxton, Joe, dru hill and my all time favorite boys to men with Mr Ogbe.

We had our cliché pyjamas Christmas photo shoot and I loved it.

2025 was a rough and tough year, it was heavy, but in hindsight not only was it good for me, it was good to me and I’m very grateful for it.

It taught me that surrender isn’t weakness and slowing down doesn’t mean giving up, they’re acts of wisdom.

I learnt that winning isn’t always about achieving everything you set out to do, it’s also about powering through failure and unmet expectations.

I stepped out of myself and saw the weak, flawed, vulnerable and tired Jay who rode on the wings of a merciful and compassionate God.

I’m full of gratitude for the strength I didn’t know I had and for God’s mercy and grace that met me when my strength ran out.

It’s two weeks into 2026 and I’m treading carefully with intention, clarity and in humility.

I am still as audacious but wiser about it. I have no idea what the year is bringing, but I have no doubt about making it through, with ease even.

Not because I have things all figured out but because I’d be riding on the wings of the Master planner.

On my study table, I used to have a picture of me as a little girl with my parents. It reminded me of how safe and protected I was growing up.

At the beginning of this year, I changed it to a picture of me and them on the day I graduated from uni.

A reminder that they released me into the world to go and find my path and to function effectively as an adult in her big girl pants making big girl decisions.

My key words for this year are Alignment and Accountability.

Alignment with God and accountability to myself and the choices I make.

With my FAITH , I know that I can’t outrun God’s plan for my life.

With my SELF, I know that I have to always determine the distinct line between being empathetic and protecting my peace.

With my RELATIONSHIPS, I know that no man can truly exist as an island. YOU NEED PEOPLE and you need to invest in the relationships that honor you.

With my CREATIVITY, there’s no doubt that it’s my place of peace, joy and fulfilment.

With my FINANCES, I know that wisdom is profitable to direct, not in how I earn and spend, but in how money affects the dynamics of everything else.

You can expect to hear more of me on the podcast and read more from me on the blog as I share my experiences and take you through my thoughts and opinions about Life, As I See It.

I hope that the new year has welcomed you with love and that you stepped in with faith and the confidence that you’re not alone because God is with you.

Happy new year again my lovelies.

Please be kind and gracious enough to share my content with anyone you know it’d resonate with.

It’s your girl

Jay
Xoxo