What happened to my goals?
My 2025 recap (it's not what you think)
At the beginning of this year I had a long, planned out to-do list of all the events I would produced, the brand partnerships, and all the things I would build. However, in January, in the middle of a call with a fellow creative friend planning an exciting collaboration, I got a call on the other line. It was the coroner’s office. My father had passed. They said something about paperwork, about next steps, but I was frozen on the other end. “You’re sorry for my loss?” How? What? Give me a minute. I need to process. I’ll call you back.
In that moment of complete disorientation, not knowing what to do with information I couldn’t yet comprehend, I called my creative friend back and blurted out what the coroner had just told me. I’m sure they were confused about why I even called them back. Truthfully, I didn’t know either. So friend, (you know who you are) I’m sorry for sharing that news in a moment of pure panic. Then I called my siblings. Then my mom. Each call making it incrementally more real.
This news disrupted all my plans and set me on a road of self-rediscovery. What followed wasn’t the year I had designed , but the year I desperately needed.
Funeral prep was a lot. I barely had time to grieve, just planning, and then the day felt like it went by in a breeze. I barely took it in. When I got back, the feelings hit me and I was paralyzed by tears…well grief, quoi?.
Here’s the thing about losing someone, at least for me, it forces me to look at my life. I kept asking myself: Do I love my life? If I only had 30 more years left, how would I want them to feel? How do I take control of the direction I’m heading? These weren’t abstract questions. They demanded honest examination of everything: my home, my relationships, my goals, the quality of people I surrounded myself with.
But, I was still pushing through, married to that to-do lists, trying to bring everything to life, but every wall I faced forced me to go inward, to shift my sense of self from external to internal strength and makeup . I stopped looking outward for validation or direction and started building from within. I meditated more. I read more. I spent more time in conversation with God. I ran, I golfed, I tried new things and surprised myself by feeling less afraid with each step.
Then came the achievement lists at the end of year, and with them, the familiar guilt. I had “done nothing” this year by conventional measures. The initial plan lay unchecked, unfinished, abandoned. But as I sat with that discomfort, something shifted. I actually like everything I did this year. All the internal growth, all the letting go, all the strengthening of foundation, even if none of it carries external merit.
This year has been one of my most emotionally challenging and simultaneously most rewarding. Losing my father forced me to prune and look within. It hasn’t been easy. I still have moments of fear, moments where I feel unaccomplished by the world’s standards. Even though there are still other challenges, I’m choosing to trust that I always land on my feet.
But as this year ends, I’m heading to some much need solitude to process and strengthen everything I’ve learned, to build on solid ground from a place of internal abundance. After a year of burnout followed by a year of rebuilding, it feels like exactly what I need.
I don’t know what 2026 will bring, but I know I’ll be equipped to handle it. Because this time, the foundation isn’t made of plans and productivity, it’s made of something much more enduring.
So I’m curious: if you’ve been through a lot this year, or that list you made at the beginning is unchecked or half-finished, what did you build instead?
What internal foundation are you standing on now that you didn’t have before? because trust me those are important too and they are amazing achievements that deserve to be celebrated!
Cheers to that and see you in the new year!
-Mehïka
