Financial Feminist - 208. 5 Lessons I'm Taking into 2025
Episode Date: January 16, 2025What if I told you the whole “new year, new me” mantra is bs? You don’t have to change your entire personality every January for the sake of achieving a goal. Change happens gradually, that’...s why in today’s episode I’m sharing the five biggest lessons I’m carrying into the new year –– and I promise it’s not about overhauling every aspect of your life come January 1st. It’s about finding incremental, sustainable ways to show up for yourself and for the women around you. So, if you’re ready to learn some practical steps to make 2025 a great year, this episode is for you. Read transcripts, learn more about our guests and sponsors, and get more resources at https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/208-5-lessons-im-taking-into-2025/ Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz Looking for accountability, live coaching, and deeper financial education? Check out our exclusive community: Join the $100K Club Ready to make 2025 the year you save more money, pay off debt, and start spending mindfully? Sign up for our free live workshop – the 7 Day Money Reset. Go to herfirst100k.com/reset-pod to sign up. Special thanks to our sponsors: Squarespace Go to www.squarespace.com/FFPOD to save 10% off your first website or domain purchase. Rocket Money Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/FFPOD. Quince Get cozy in Quince's high-quality wardrobe essentials. Go to Quince.com/FFPOD for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Netsuite Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/FFPOD. Gusto Run your first payroll with Gusto and get three months free at gusto.com/ffpod. Public Fund your account in five minutes or less at public.com/ffpod and get up to $10,000 when you transfer your old portfolio. (see disclosures: https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/208-5-lessons-im-taking-into-2025/) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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If 2025 is the year that you are committing to finally getting your financial shit together,
you're probably a little daunted by doing it by yourself.
I certainly didn't get to my first 100k alone, and you shouldn't either.
I have helped over 5 million women on the path to their first 100k, and you are next.
For the first time ever, I am teaching the strategies that have helped countless women
save, pay off debt, and grow their net worth, but really we're talking feeling happier, healthier and more fucking powerful.
Introducing the 100K Club, our exclusive community for financial feminists like you who want to
change their financial future.
In the 100K Club, you'll get in-depth teaching and live coaching from me alongside every
template I use in managing my own money, plus a community of other financial feminists to
keep you accountable.
You're going to learn the exact strategies to save money, pay off debt, improve your money mindset,
increase your net worth and more, which alone that's worth it. But you're also getting access
to the Her First 100K Template Vault full of done for you templates and downloads to help you
navigate each stage of your 100K journey. As an annual member, you're also going to unlock the
Masterclass and Event Vault full of past live coaching recordings and other special bonuses. You're going to earn back thousands of
dollars by learning how to get discounts on purchases you're already making, like learning
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There's also a monthly option if the annual isn't a good fit for you right now at $47 per month.
Go to herfirst100k.com slash 100k dash pod or click the link in this episode's description
to learn more. What you're not changing, you're choosing. And I'm so excited for you to choose your path to financial independence this year in the 100K club.
See you there.
Hello Financial Feminists.
Welcome to the show.
If you are an audio only listener, you
are missing our nice little podcast flag that we got going on. Do you know the news reporters
where they have on their microphone? It's like KTLA or whatever they have it on their
microphone. We have one of those for our microphone now. And I will describe it for you. It is
a square little box and it says Financial Feminist in purple and white and our brand
colors and it's on my microphone and we and white and our brand colors and it's
on my microphone and we're cute and official now. So I just thought you should know about that.
If you're new to the show, hello, my name is Tori. I run her first 100k, which is a money
and career platform for women. I believe I was put on this earth to fight for your financial rights.
My work has been featured on Good Morning America, The New York Times, The Today Show,
BBC, I've spoken at the UN. That's a fun, casual little thing I've done.
And we've helped 5 million women all over the world save money, pay off debt,
start investing and start businesses.
And on financial feminists, yeah, we talk about money, but really we talk about
how to be the most powerful version of yourself.
And money is the best way to do that.
The best way to be happy and powerful and to be able to exert your own control over your life
as by having enough money
to make the kind of decisions you wanna make.
So if you're new to the show, welcome.
And if you're an oldie buddy goodie,
you knew that already.
Couple housekeeping things, as always,
you can subscribe to the show
so you never miss an episode.
We are the number one money podcast
for women in the world.
And we wanna be able to help you live your best life and to be able to get your financial shit together. And you
can do that by subscribing and making sure that you have a bunch of free resources at
your fingertips and at your disposal. You can also share the show with a friend as always.
And we really appreciate that. And you can also leave us a voice memo. You can like send
us a voicemail if you have questions, comments, concerns that I can answer on a future episode. So you can do that down below in the show notes.
On today's episode, we are talking about some of the lessons I am bringing into this new
year. As always during the new year, we have this energy of we're going to get our shit
together finally. And all of the shit that I wasn't doing last year, I'm going to do
this year. And I do those on pretty much every start of the year episode, you know, those
early January episodes, I need to remind you of a couple of things.
One, you don't have to change your entire life.
You're a great person.
You're doing fine.
Life is hard.
Don't decide, okay, by the end of January, I'm going to change my entire personality.
No, you don't need to change. You're okay. And also in the same element of that is we can like ourselves and like our progress and love who we are and also want to improve a little bit.
I think that's great. I think that's fantastic.
The second thing is that, like I kind of just said, you're not going to change your entire life
in a few days. You're not going to completely reinvent yourself in a movie montage.
The Devil Wears Prada montage where she's suddenly fashionable, that doesn't happen in real life.
You got to go out and buy those clothes and figure out how they go together and also got to get the money for all those clothes. If you're believing the movie montage version of progressing towards your goals and of getting
quote unquote new and improved, it takes time.
It takes a while.
And so a lot of people give up on their goals because they don't like how long it takes.
They don't like that it's gonna take multiple years
to pay off the debt that took you multiple years
to get into, right?
People don't like realizing that maybe they haven't been
eating healthy and that they can't just go from
whatever they're eating now to nothing but vegetables.
And finally, related to that is my third point,
which is progress is always going to beat perfection.
So while we're out here always trying to be
the best versions of ourselves,
we need to understand that these things
are going to take a long time.
And we also need to understand that in order to be consistent,
it has to be incremental changes over a long period of time, right?
Or we have to understand that we're going to make mistakes and that's okay.
We're not trying to be perfect because that is unobtainable.
So instead, I want you to focus on small incremental changes, even if they take a while.
And then when you hit roadblocks, don't just give up.
Don't just say, fuck it.
I tried for two weeks, and now it got hard,
so I'm going to give up.
No, you expect it to be hard.
A lot of the good things in life are hard.
So we're looking for consistency here.
We're looking for progress, right, over perfection.
I said it was the last thing I lied. This is the last thing. January is just generally a really hard time to set and achieve
goals and decide again that you're going to make over your entire life, especially January
right now because Trump, but also because we're in the midst of the dark winter.
At least where I live, the sun goes down at 4 12 PM
and doesn't come up again until eight o'clock
in the morning.
So it's very hard seasonally to adjust to like,
I'm gonna get my shit together now
in the time when you just wanna cocoon.
So we also need to take
our rest as seriously as we take our progress towards our big goals. Because you can't progress
when you're just focused on output. You have to take your rest as seriously as you do your
work. You have to take your rest as seriously as you take your work. You have to take your rest as seriously as you take your
goals because your goals are unsustainable unless you bake in the rest, unless you bake in time to
cocoon and to take care of yourself. Before we get into the rest of the episode, I do want to
shamelessly plug that we have an incredible free resource that's coming out or might already be
out by the time you're listening to this. In the spirit of getting your life together in 2025 or at least setting new goals, new
intentions, I am offering a free live workshop to you all. It is called the 7-day money reset.
You can go to herfirsthundredk.com slash reset dash pod to sign up. We are giving you a seven-day
action plan with tiny little steps, concrete tiny actionable steps for you to finally make
2025 your year that you save money, you pay off your debt, you start spending mindfully,
you improve your money mindset, all of those things.
So again, it's free.
If you can't make it live, we send you a recording.
You can go to herfirsthunderk.com slash reset dash pod to sign up.
It's free.
Why wouldn't you sign up? We can't wait to see you there.
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It's January.
It's new year, new you time.
And if you want to start a business this year, if that's one of the big things on your to-do
list on your New Year's resolutions is to finally start that business,
well, you need a website,
and that's where Squarespace comes in.
Squarespace was the first tool I ever invested in
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We truly could not have done it without them.
One of my favorite things about Squarespace
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So if you need a website, you wanna use Squarespace.
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My five lessons I am taking in to 2025. And maybe you can find some inspiration from these two. My first lesson I am taking
into this year is an increased focus on things that make me joyful. Finding those things
that bring me joy, seeking them out, and purposefully baking in joy and happiness into my day.
This has been an experience that I have had, and I don't know if this is just a singular experience.
I'm sure it's not, because I've never had an original thought
in my entire life, an original experience in my entire life.
I will go and do something.
For instance, I went and saw Leslie Odom Jr.,
my mentor and like my second mom,
that was her birthday gift to me.
My birthday's in July, but she's like,
I bought us tickets to go see Leslie Odom Jr. in December.
And it was his Christmas tour.
And I showed up and I am watching him,
and not just him, but it was the symphony.
So it was the Seattle Symphony.
It was him.
It was like his band.
And his band is like a jazz band.
They are incredible musicians.
So I'm watching this man sing his goddamn ass off.
I am watching these incredible musicians do these jazz solos.
I'm watching these incredible instrumentalists
and the orchestra just be, you know, so incredible.
The symphony, excuse me, be just absolutely incredible.
And I am getting the kind of joy where I'm sitting there
and I'm just like,
like I'm giggling.
I'm like, you know, kicking my feet.
Like I'm just so excited.
And I forget sometimes how much I love live music
and especially live music in a way
where I look at the person and I'm like,
what, this is art. Like this is someone doing incredible things, and is so talented and is a capital A
artist. And I forget sometimes that this brings me as much joy
as it does, until I'm sitting there and experiencing it again.
And I'm just like
absolutely blown away.
So one of the things I have realized is I haven't done as much of that as I used to.
When I was in the arts myself, there were so many more excuses for me to go see a show
that my friend was in or, you know, go to this incredible movie that all of our theatrical production
or band or whatever that all my friends were talking about.
And post pandemic, I kind of forgot like music existed for a minute there.
And also tickets are so expensive and blah, blah, blah.
I just realized that I need to make a more conscious, like room in my budget, room in my schedule, for me to
experience music live and to go back to the theater and experience that live. And that is just
something that brings me so much joy that I've kind of forgotten. So I invite you to remind
yourself of the things you may have forgotten about that bring you joy, and to actively seek those out.
To actively find room in your schedule, to make room in your schedule,
for the things that just light you up.
When we're adults, it's very easy to forget about finding things that, like,
you're so excited about that you have trouble sleeping the night before.
I feel like the only experience as an adult where you have trouble sleeping
psychologically is because something terrible is happening.
You're losing sleep because you're stressed.
You're losing sleep because of something daunting that's happening tomorrow.
I remember as a kid being so lucky to get excited before my birthday the night
before, right? Or being excited about
Christmas or being excited about a concert I was going to or a sleepover with my friends.
And we don't have that experience as an adult unless we bake it into our lives. We just don't.
We don't have that same amount of wonder and joy and excitement
and like, you know, I'm so excited I can't sleep.
Like, that energy has to be cultivated as an adult.
It doesn't just happen anymore.
One of the biggest things I'm trying to take into this year,
and this is my first thing, is that sense of joy
and understanding that I can find joy in moments that are, of course,
unplanned or spontaneous, but that I can control my own joy by purposefully doing things that
I know are going to get me there.
I know they're going to make me joyful.
So that is live music for me. That is live theater. That is really lovely
conversations with friends. That is seeing an incredible sunset. But I got to be outside.
I got to be outside to see it, right? Or I got to be in the theater in order to experience it.
So I invite you to remind yourself what brings you joy and to start baking that into your day
and your life and your schedule.
The other reason I'm so focused on pursuing my joy
and making concrete time for it is because I can feel my body and my mind and my energy when I haven't dedicated time to that.
Like, I need to give myself time to deregulate my nervous system and being able to focus
on something else that isn't work. Period is amazing. But in addition, if I get to focus on
something that makes me happy, well, cool, my entire nervous system gets to calm down and reset.
So that's the kind of psychological or the sciency reason for doing this is you get to just focus on
something that you love, that just makes you so joyful,
and you get to forget, or at least put everything else on pause for a second,
and allow your nervous system to just calm down.
But also because it's fucking fun.
Find the things that bring you joy.
My second thing I'm taking into 2025 is that people are going to have an opinion of you no matter what you do.
So you may as well do what you want to do.
And I'm going to refer to two specific learnings that I am concretely taking into 2025.
One is the Let Them Theory that has been popularized by Mel Robbins,
who, Mel, please come on the show. We would love to have you.
And it's this idea of when anything doesn't go your way,
it's something outside of your control,
it is something that someone does in response
to something you're doing.
It's everything from like your mom being critical
of something you've done to someone cutting you off
on the highway to your partner doing something
that you don't like.
The response is just to say, let them. Let them do that thing. Let my mom say weird things. Let that person cut me off in the
highway. All right. Let my partner do that crazy thing that I would not do, but let them.
And I think it's this really nice disconnect where you realize that you cannot control what someone thinks of you.
You cannot control what somebody does in response to what you're doing.
You can't control any of that.
And the more you get caught up in trying to control it, the more miserable you are.
So I am reading her book right now and I highly recommend it.
You can also listen to there's a bunch of podcasts that she's done in promotion of this book.
And Oprah has said like this is one of the best self-help books she's ever read.
So it's called The Lethem Theory.
The second thing I heard was not in a book or a scientific research paper, but it was on TikTok.
And TikTok said, people talk about you because when they talk about themselves, no one listens.
You can keep this silence.
I'm gonna run that back.
People talk about you because when they talk
about themselves, no one listens.
Which is basically someone's shitting on you
because they're trying to feel seen themselves
or they're trying to feel validated
or they're trying to feel comforted
or they're just trying to feel like they are important.
This particular lesson for me, the whole let them theory, the whole people are going to talk about you no matter what.
This applies to so many aspects of my life.
And I'm really excited to put this into practice as I move forward of just
responding, let them or just understanding, you know what, I can't
control that person's opinion of me.
But this really got prompted for me last year
with what we jokingly have called Bikini Gates.
That is what we refer to it as internally at her first 100K.
If you're not following us on Instagram, first of all, hello.
Join two million friends over there.
And what happened on Instagram was that last year,
I went on vacation.
I went on vacation to Italy
and it was lovely and hot and fantastic.
Italy is one of my favorite places in the entire world.
And because I was on vacation, as one does,
I posted a swimsuit photo.
I posted me in a swimsuit on vacation and chaos ensued.
I unfortunately get, well, maybe fortunately.
A lot of times when I do shit, people pay attention,
which is very flattering,
and it means I'm doing something right.
But this was unreal.
This was like the next level of insane.
We lost 50,000 followers basically overnight
because of a photo I posted on Instagram of myself in a bikini. Now I have since dissected
this in follow-up posts, but really what happened is that a woman, me, liking herself makes other people,
especially weirdly other women, very uncomfortable.
And because I am not a stick thin person,
I am a person in a slightly bigger body,
it can be seen as showing off or sexual or...
It was just this interesting level of, it
was this cocktail of fat phobia mixed with you should be professional and but no one
will define, like the definition of professionalism is just sit down and shut up for women and
conform, right? And then also this mix of like people,
especially other women feeling threatened
by my level of comfort in my own body.
The one message that stood out to me
that was really difficult for me to read,
and it wasn't the fat phobic comments,
it wasn't any of that.
The message that was most difficult for me to read
was a woman who literally was basically like,
I don't like myself,
and I would never post a photo of me,
myself in a bikini or a swimsuit.
So why are you doing this?
It was a reminder to me of how often we project our own insecurities on other people,
but also how much we are so scared, especially as women,
of showing up as the fullest versions of ourselves
and how frightened we are to maybe even like ourselves
or to maybe even feel proud of ourselves
or feel unabashedly present and confident in ourselves.
And how sometimes if you see that in somebody else,
it's not an opportunity for you.
It should be, it should be an opportunity for you to say,
this person did it, so maybe I can too,
or to feel inspired.
Instead, this person feels it's a threat
because it's a mirror to your own insecurities.
And this happens to me online all the time.
This happens to me all the time in person.
It is very easy for me to see anybody, but especially another woman, as a competition,
as a threat, as the reason I can't have something, or as a mirror to what I don't have.
But the difference is, do you see it as inspiration?
Do you see it with curiosity?
Or do you see it in a way that makes you feel less than?
So what I just realized over and over and over again,
as a woman existing,
who has the audacity to like herself,
is that people are gonna say shit.
Always, they're gonna say shit. If you do Always, they're gonna say shit.
If you do something, they're gonna say shit.
If you don't, it's the Barbie monologue all over again.
You're too fat, you're too thin, you're too blonde,
you're not blonde enough, you're too rich,
you're not rich enough.
Everything about being a woman is not conforming
to what the patriarchal ideal is. about being a woman is not conforming
to what the patriarchal ideal is. So you may as well just live your fucking life.
You may as well just do the things you're gonna do.
And knowing that people are talking shit about you
because they feel deeply insecure.
And I don't mean that in a like, I'm better than them way.
I just mean, this is what the patriarchy has done to women
is it has convinced us that we are each other's enemies.
It has convinced us that we are,
you know, other people are the reason we're not ahead.
And rather than seeing other women as inspiring
or as motivational or as friends and sisters in arms.
We view them as threats or as rocking the boat too much.
And like, I want to fucking rock the boat professionally.
Being an uncontrollable woman is the patriarchy's worst nightmare and I love being the patriarchy's
worst nightmare, and I love being the patriarchy's worst nightmare.
So my second lesson is a lesson I've known for a long time,
but that I have to continue reminding myself
and that I will continue to remind you,
which is people are going to have an opinion,
and I can't have you dim your lights
because of what you think someone else is going to say about you.
To quote Mel Robbins, let them.
I can't have you not start that business
because you're afraid that your friends from high school
are going to call you cringy.
I can't have you not ask for a promotion
because maybe your boss will say you're ungrateful.
I can't have you not wear a bikini
because you don't like your stomach.
If you want to wear the bikini, fucking wear the bikini.
We have one wild, beautiful, precious life
and you better believe I'm not wearing a snow suit
in the middle of the Italian countryside.
Let them, let them say what they're gonna say,
let them do what they're gonna do.
And they're always gonna have an opinion.
But the only person whose opinion really matters
at the end of the day,
when you're alone with your thoughts before you go to bed at night, is you.
So make yourself proud.
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I gotta be honest with you.
It's kind of gross out.
Even if you like the winter, even if you like the chilly weather, you
need some, some joy, you gotta find a little treat every once in a while
because it gets dark at 4.30
and I literally have a package from Quince
arriving at my house today and I could not be more excited.
Everyone needs a cashmere sweater in their closet
and you're like, but Tori, I don't have $300.
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Number three.
I said it in my book.
I've said it on this show.
I will undoubtedly say it again.
A goal without a plan is just a wish. A goal without a plan is just a wish.
And if you are someone who has so many big dreams, I know you are, that's why you listen to this show, but you have no plan to get you there, that's not really a goal. That's a dream, that's a wish, that's a fantasy, that is not an actual goal.
And one of the lessons that I have always known again,
always known, but I'm continuing to take into this year,
is that I can't just say,
I want to be better at this thing,
or I want my life generally to look like this, with no plan to get there.
And also with no accountability to get there.
If I am not saying my goals out loud, if I'm not writing them down, if I'm not creating
a concrete plan, then they're not goals.
They're just like immeasurable fluffy things in my brain.
So if you actually want your life to change, you have to change it.
And for me, one thing that I have done, and this bleeds into the fourth thing as well, and I'll get there,
is that I have said, I want to be stronger, I want to be fitter,
I want to feel healthier in my body.
And I've kinda done it, but like not really.
I have not said until this year,
I am going to only have dessert three times a week.
That is something I am committing to for 2025.
You heard it here first, you heard it on this podcast. If I've said it out loud, I have to do it now.
Because it's accountable, right?
I'm now accountable to you, the listener.
I am now accountable to Kristin.
I am now accountable to myself.
So I am only allowed, quote, unquote,
allowed to eat dessert three times a week
because I got into the habit of eating dessert all the time.
Now, this is not any sort of body shaming. This is not food is bad. This is just, I've realized working with a
nutritionist, I can't have dessert all the time. It's not a little treat if it's every single day.
So that is one concrete goal I'm making is I only am eating dessert three times a week.
And then when I get comfortable with that, I'm actually planning on
cutting it down to two.
But that is concrete, right? That is a plan.
That's not just, oh, I'm going to eat better this year.
That is a concrete plan. That is accountable.
I am now setting a goal specifically one and two, I'm being accountable
to somebody else.
I need you to take accountability into this year.
I need you to take specificity into this year,
because it's not enough to just say, I want to get better with money. It is not enough to just say,
I want to feel healthier. What does healthier mean? What is getting better with money mean?
Is it a number in the bank account? Is it having your debt paid off? Is it working out x times a
day? Is it doing a pull-up? Right? Like, I need you to concretely understand
what you're planning on doing for this year. Go without a plan is just a wish. So I need
you to have that plan, then it's a goal, right? Then it's not a wish, it's a goal. And also,
I need you to be accountable to other people. I need you to be accountable to yourself,
and I need you to be accountable to other people.
This is part of why we launched the 100K Club,
which is our program to help you
on your road to financial success.
So those first couple steps, like getting out of debt,
budgeting in a way that doesn't make you want to die,
saving money, understanding the money narratives
and your financial trauma, right?
Boosting your credit score, managing your credit cards responsibly.
We cover all of this in the 100K club, but there's also a group of people who are
doing it with you.
And we also have literally every single month live accountability events because
I don't want you to just say, I want to get better with money and have no concrete
goal, no concrete plan to get there and no accountability.
We know from studies that accountability is the way we achieve goals.
Doing things in community with other people who are like-minded, who are trying to reach the same goal. You feel more motivated.
It's the reason why when I go to bar classes, I work out harder because there's other people there.
And it's the reason I stay for that whole time.
because there's other people there. And it's the reason I stay for that whole time.
I'm more likely to turn off my YouTube video at home
after 10 minutes and be like, that's fine, that's good,
because there's no one there.
There's no one keeping me accountable.
But if I'm in a 45-minute class,
I'm staying for the full 45 minutes.
It's the same thing as why we built the 100K Club
in the way we did, right?
So when we're thinking
about setting goals and actually achieving them this year, you need a plan and you need
accountability. The fourth thing related to that, specifically for me that I am concretely
doing in 2025, is I've started to get really honest about where I'm at health-wise. Again, I've known that there's certain things
that I need to adjust.
I've known that I probably need to go in
and get my blood work done.
I've known all this stuff.
And I've taken like half steps to get there
because I'm a motivated person on a normal day, right?
On a Tuesday, I'm feeling pretty motivated.
That's just the way I am.
But it's not been concrete and
it's not been consistent. So I went and got my blood work done. And just as I expected, I am
pre-diabetic because diabetes runs in my family. Now I am like the lowest level of pre-diabetic,
which is great, which means that I can make adjustments
with my lifestyle, with my eating, with all of that. But that's real now.
That's real to me because I have the numbers, because I know where I'm at. And
I'm working with a nutritionist to concretely put a plan together in order
for my numbers to get better. So I have a goal for me, for myself, by the end of this year,
I want to classify no longer as pre-diabetic.
I also, these are just the fun numbers
that you realize when you get your blood work done.
My triglycerides need to be lower.
And so we're making and setting goals around that.
And those are the big two for me.
And by the end of 2025,
I will either know that I've done it or not
because I've set specific goals.
And I've also worked with experts to help me get there.
Yes, I'm consuming all the free content I can,
but I'm also going to a nutritionist
so I can be able to ask good questions, right?
Mentorship's really important.
So my fourth thing that I'm taking into 2025
is really taking my health seriously. I said in 2024 into 2025 is really taking my health seriously.
I said in 2024 that I was going to take my health seriously.
I think I did a pretty good job and it was a good like foundation for me.
And I'm really learning to build off of that foundation in 2025.
And again, back to my original point, I don't expect my health to change in two seconds.
That's not how this is gonna work.
I'm not mad at myself that at the end of 2024,
I wasn't exactly where I wanted to be.
I made really, really positive strides,
but I also understand that this is gonna take a while.
This is gonna probably be a multi-multi-year process.
That's okay, that's great.
So our number three, right, was accountability,
was goal setting concretely with a plan to
get there.
My fourth thing for me is really taking my health seriously, understanding my numbers,
not shying away from it, not being afraid to go and get my blood work done even though
they poked a needle in me.
And then also seeking experts to be able to advise me.
This is why I'm here.
This is why I have our stock market school and the 100K club is for you to be
able to get advice straight from me.
We do live coaching from me and both of those programs because you need mentorship with
your goals as well.
My final thing, my final lesson I am taking into 2025.
Almost all of my friends have moved away. Almost all of my friends that I had in 2019 in Seattle are not here anymore.
They have moved.
They have completely moved across the country.
They've moved a state over or they've even just like moved an hour out of the city.
The friends that haven't moved and some of them who have,
a lot of them have children now,
which is so exciting for them.
But that is not where I'm at in my life.
And it also makes scheduling time with them
just not impossible, but just harder.
They can't be as spontaneous.
I also tend to be friends with people who are like me, who are very ambitious,
who travel a lot, who are building businesses, or who are really focused on being the best
versions of themselves they can be. And so I've just found that I don't really have an in-person
community anymore. I run an online business. My team is remote. We have some folks in Seattle and I see them when I can.
But I, as someone who gets so much of my energy from other people and so much of my joy, speaking of that, from other people,
it's been really, really hard for me transitioning out of the pandemic to feel like I have an in-person community.
I have so many friends
I continue to stay in touch with, but just not a lot of them are here.
So speaking of the, a goal without a plan is just a wish, I can't tell you that I want
more friends without telling you how I'm concretely going to get there. So I have a goal that by the end of 2025, I will have
two new in-person friendships where I see them at least twice a month and I talk to
them regularly on the phone, texting, calling, et cetera. And I'm going to do that by talking
with friends of friends. I'm literally going to do like I would be setting up on a date.
I'm going to text my friends and be like, hey, you moved away,
but is there anybody in Seattle that you still, is still there that you think I'd get along with?
We're going to do some matchmaking, but for friendship.
And I'm also going to reinvest in the friendships I do have that are here in Seattle.
Because I'm, I miss being around people.
It's just so different.
My life changed a lot the past five years.
I mean, everybody's life did, but my work is not the same.
Where I live is not the same.
There's so many things that are different.
And friendships just very different now too.
So that's the fifth lesson I'm taking into 2025, is that as much as I love my quote unquote virtual friendships
or my friendships where I see people twice a year,
that's really hard.
That's not the kind of in-person support that I really need and love.
So that's my fifth lesson lesson is reconnecting with the friends I do have,
finding new friendships, investing in those relationships in a way that feels really,
really lovely and safe and comforting. Team, I would love for you to share your lessons that
you're bringing into 2025, the things you learned last year, the things you want to improve upon. And I would love to see you in our reset workshop. So you can
go to herforshenderk.com slash reset dash pod, and you can take our seven day money
reset class workshop with me. It's completely free. It's live. And I just am really excited
to kick off this year with you. Please stay safe. Please stay healthy. And I'm here if you need me.
Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100k podcast.
Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristin Fields and Tamisha Grant.
Research by Sarah Shortino. Audio and video engineering by Alyssa Medcalf. Marketing and
operations by Karina Patel and Amanda LeFeu.
Special thanks to our team at Her First 100K.
Kaylyn Sprinkle, Masha Bakhmikyeva, Taylor Chil,
Sasha Bonar, Ray Wong, Elizabeth McCumber,
Claire Karonen, Darrell Ann Ingman, and Megan Walker.
Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton,
photography by Sarah Wolf,
and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound.
A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100K community
for supporting the show.
For more information about Financial Feminist,
Her First 100k, our guests, and episode show notes,
visit financialfeministpodcast.com.
If you're confused about your personal finances
and you're wondering where to start,
go to herfirst100k.com slash quiz
for a free personalized money plan.