No More Plan B.

First up: my environment.

Clutter has been a long-time struggle. After losing my mom and brother in 2016 and 2017, I found myself burdened by so much stuff—emotional and physical—that I didn’t know where to begin. I couldn’t tackle it all at once, so I’ve been making slow progress over the years. Last summer, I finally ended my lease on a storage unit that had been accumulating dust since a difficult breakup and downsizing from a 3-bedroom townhouse at 30. It’s been a wild ride since then, with pivots and life changes, but now? I’m ready to truly get started on a much firmer foundation.

Years of healing, growth, and self-discovery have brought me to this point where I finally feel like I’m in the driver’s seat of my own life. For the first time, I’m truly in control and I hold the keys. I have the power to CHOOSE. It’s a powerful realization after feeling at the mercy of others and life’s unpredictable twists for so long.

Decluttering my life from top to bottom is the first step to transforming my life over the next six months. I’ll dive deeper into this topic in an upcoming post, but here’s a preview of what I’ll be tackling:

• Physical decluttering: I want my apartment to feel light, clean, and inviting. This includes giving my office nook some much-needed TLC to make my work space feel more energizing and going through everything I own and purging excess. So much of what I currently own are things I didn’t intentionally choose for myself—things that no longer align with who I am today.

• Digital decluttering: I don’t know about you, but I have gotten a little overwhelmed with all of the different things there are to keep track of… files, emails, social media accounts I forgot I still had. Not to mention all the things that come along with starting a blog and online business. It can all get a little chaotic! It’s time to simplify and clean up my digital space to reduce distractions and make time for what truly matters.

• Mental decluttering: This is the big one. Clearing my physical and digital spaces and creating better systems will help to lighten my mental load. By releasing mental baggage, I’ll have more energy to focus on the things that truly matter, and create growing room for the version of myself I’m becoming.

The second major area I’m working on is my health and wellness.

I have not always been good at taking care of my own physical wellbeing. As a single mom, and also in many other roles I’ve held throughout my life, my focus has mainly been on taking care of everyone else around me and making sure that everything else in my life or at work or elsewhere was okay first.

Over the years, I admit, I haven’t always made myself a priority and it has come back to bite me. My health took a back seat to survival, especially over the past 10 crazy years, and my chronic illnesses have likely progressed because of it. But now that my son is a teenager and my only other dependent is my cat, I can finally allow myself to make myself a real top priority.

This is a big one for me, and even with all the emotional work I’ve already done, it will still take a lot of inner and outer work and lifestyle shifts to make a meaningful impact and improvement.

My immediate goals in this area are:

• A self-care “glow-up” and creating a better routine—both to improve my well-being and my confidence.
• Tracking and identifying the activities and foods that give me energy and eliminating the ones that steal it from me.
• Progressively leveling up my physical fitness and making outdoor activities a priority again now that the weather is improving.
• Obviously, hydration needs to be on this list as well since I’m chronically dehydrated—so the goal is 3L of water and electrolytes minimum per day.

This leads into my next area of improvement…

Making significant progress on my blogging and entrepreneurship goals in 2025 is a key priority for me right now. It's central to my vision of creating a life of greater freedom, purpose, and fulfillment.

After much reflection, I've realized that I need to transition out of a very physically demanding role that, despite being meaningful in many ways, no longer aligns with my long-term personal or professional goals. Over the past few years, I’ve poured a lot of time and energy into my work, often at the expense of my physical and mental health. While I’m grateful for the opportunities and experiences I've had, it’s become clear that in order to take control of my future, I need to focus on areas that will allow me to work smarter, not harder, and build a life that supports my overall well-being.

One of my main goals for 2025 is to grow my online business to a point where it can provide a level of financial reward that my job, honestly, just does not—and without the heavy physical toll. I'm confident that by investing more time and energy into my passions, I will not only create a more sustainable income stream but also gain valuable skills and experience along the way.

While I’m deeply committed to this journey of entrepreneurship, I’m also open to exploring other opportunities along the way if they support my long-term personal and professional goals. However, I’m focused on ensuring that whatever I do moving forward gives as equally as it takes and allows me to maintain a healthier balance, and create a life that doesn’t sacrifice my health or time with my loved ones. Life is just too short, and I don’t want to make it any shorter.

At the end of the day, my mission is to design a life where I can thrive, not just survive. I'm excited to embrace the challenge of building an intentional business that gives me more control over my future, while creating the physical and financial breathing room I need to recharge and focus on what truly matters—actually living.

Another area I will be working on is content creation.

Part of my business plan and personal creative journey is to get better at creating YouTube videos. That means improving my planning, filming, and editing workflow and actually being consistent. Last week, I took the plunge and finally bought myself a new laptop. My old one was, well… too old.

Every time I tried to edit a video, my old laptop would lag and overheat. It really killed my creativity and motivation. It was definitely time for an upgrade if I wanted to keep learning and improving my technical skills in any area. Not only that, it held me back from being able to take on freelance opportunities because I couldn’t reliably commit or depend on my tools.

So hopefully, I will be able to start creating better and more consistent videos on YouTube now!

Overall, when it comes to content creation, I must simplify this the same way I’m simplifying the other areas of my life this year. I must focus and cut out what’s not working and go all in on what does, and for me, that means:

• Blog posts are my number one content creation priority. This is the tree trunk that all the other branches must originate from in order to keep things simple, efficient, and focused on long-term growth.

• YouTube is content creation priority number 2. Video is a big part of the SEO and traffic strategy for my blog and my business.

• All other social media can wait. Learning all the different nuances and algorithms of multiple platforms is not a good use of mental energy or time.

• Creating an email newsletter is something I plan to implement into my workflow in the coming months. So if you signed up to my list and wonder why you haven’t received an email yet, I haven’t started sending them yet—you didn’t miss anything! I just didn’t want to clutter up your inbox with anything that wasn’t of real value.

Last, but most definitely not least is having more fun!

While all of this self-improvement, content creation, and building a business stuff is super important to me—heck, they're the pillars of my whole theme of life design—having more fun and creating more memories with my son and participating in things outside of just the necessary is a really big area I want to bring more life to this year. I’d love to get out more and have more experiences and engage in old creative hobbies just for the joy of them more often.

On another note, getting out there and making new friends is on my to-do list as well. I've kept my circle small the past few years, and now I would like to expand my social horizons beyond just those I’ve made at work or by extension of it.

I would like to make friends with more like-minded entrepreneurial-spirited women who want to grow and evolve in their lives and businesses but also have fun while cheering each other on and supporting each other's goals.

That’s the kind of energy I want to be cultivating around me from here on out—vibrant, life-affirming, growth energy.

So friend, if that sounds at all like you, stick around and hang out with me here and we can cheer each other on along our journey!

I’ve spent too much time in the waiting room of life, stuck between where I’ve been and where I’m going, wondering if there would ever be a “perfect time” to make a real change. The truth is, there isn’t one. So I’m stepping into this journey—not perfectly, but wholeheartedly.

I’m not claiming to have all the answers or an easy path ahead, but I do have some experience and I am committed to doing the work. No more waffling. No more waiting, hoping that things will just magically fall into place. I’m choosing to actively shape my life—and I’m doing it with the knowledge that it’s going to be a messy, imperfect process.

But here’s where it gets real for you: I’m going to share everything I learn along the way. The wins, the stumbles, the breakthroughs, and the systems I create to make it all work. You’ll get to follow the real-time evolution of someone who is stepping away from old patterns and fighting for something better, just like you might be.

If you’re feeling like it’s time to make a change, this is your invitation to follow someone who’s walking the walk. You’ll get the tangible, no-BS insights on what works, what doesn’t, and how to keep moving forward—no matter where you are in your journey.

This isn’t about some idealized version of success. It’s about the honest pursuit of a life that actually feels good to live. We only get this one life to live after-all (depending on your beliefs). So, if you’re ready for the long haul, if you’re ready to take action on your own “No Plan B” journey, let’s move forward—one real step at a time.