2025: The Year of a Spacious Bee Revolution
Another annual tradition: Setting the tone for the new year with two annual words and an animal to reflect on.
2024 was the year of the Declarative Turtle Athlete. Read more about that here.
I typically choose 3 guiding words for a calendar year to help me grow and reflect throughout the 12 months:
Adjective: chosen based on what I felt I lacked in the year prior
Noun: something I want to enhance in the new year
Animal: a bonus lens to give perspective to my challenges
As a part of my annual reflection and planning process, I sat down last week to randomly pick an animal card from this deck and to choose my 2025 focus words.
In 2025, I plan to become a “Spacious Bee Revolution.” What the heck? Let’s discuss.
To Bee or Not to Bee:
Buzz buzz— I drew the Bee for 2025! 🐝
“Bee: Earnest, hard working, democratic.
The bee personality is a delight to be around, especially when there's a team project on the horizon. Bees love to work steadily and thoughtfully until the final task is complete. They are sensitive creatures, aware of many subtleties at once. Since they're artists at heart, they usually add creative details to the overall vision. For the most part, they have bustling, joyous personalities, until they're too tired from all the work. Then, they gripe. And they sting.
When in balance: content, active, vibrant. When out of balance: overworked, annoyed. To bring into balance, take a mini vacation.”
My first reaction? Eye roll. Didn’t I already suffer through those Bee downsides in 2024?!
2024 left me overworked. Annoyed. Ready to sting.
I was hoping to be done with this.
But on second thought, when I looked closer at the Bee elements, I’m excited about a few perspectives:
Working creatively on team projects: HELL YES, I have some really awesome possibilities earmarked for 2025 on this. (Women’s ultramarathon co-directing! Potential women’s trail festival! Period power events!) These opportunities feel SO aligned with my values and my zone of genius, so I’m stoked to offer up some Big Bee Energy to teams who will bring these ideas to life.
Considering the word Artist: I’ve always considered myself a “creative,” but I’ve never used the word “artist” to describe myself. I’m curious what using that word as a new lens can bring to mind. What if Substack is an artsy practice? What if my podcast work is an art form? What if I bring an artist’s mind to events I host?
Mini vacations to reset: Sign me up. 2024 didn’t offer a ton of time for mini trips or escapes from daily life, which is unusual for me. I was so overrun with work and with training for my 100 miler that I didn’t get out of town or exploring as much as I love. Hoping that 2025 Bee will lead me to quick camping trips, bikepacking overnights, nights out in the city, or anywhere that breaks me out of my everyday life.
I don’t have a bee photo but I have many of me being a breadstick walrus.
Why I want to be more Spacious:
Nearly all of 2024, I felt like I was rushing.
And I’m now detesting having to rush at ALL. I’m getting resentful of small inconveniences more easily and I’m craving more slowness.
The word “spacious” kept popping into my mind as a symbol of slowness, not having to rush constantly, having both time and space to think deeply, to move intentionally, to breathe powerfully.
Why? Because, in my entrepreneurial self, not having spaciousness makes me neglect my human side. If I neglect my entrepreneur side, my business suffers. But if I neglect by human side, BOTH my personal life AND my business suffer.
A revelation: The bravest business owners have simple businesses. For me, spaciousness is a prerequisite to simple, and it allows for my own humanness.
What I want Spacious to look like in 2025:
Fewer meetings on the calendar (both per day and per week)
Doubling my timelines and furthering out deadlines
Having fewer clients and narrowed services in my work
Making sure I'm using my decision making filters to say no to things that shouldn't be yeses
Increasing my minimum monthly investment required for new clients
Really embracing outsourcing and delegation (2024 was a start but I have far more to go!)
Automation or less admin work (I’m still not even automating invoices, y’all…)
Phone or walking meetings over video calls
Having work check-in and check-out rituals so I’m not constantly in work brain mode
Holiday and vacation policies in self-employment
Experimenting with email boundaries (strategic auto-responses, only checking twice a day, etc.)
Why I’m seeking a Revolution:
I wrote this Instagram post shortly after the presidential election. I was (and am still) so frustrated by the barriers women face to reach their full potential in society. And I also believe that we all have more power and knowledge than we initially think to positively shape our communities.
I started to wonder what I could provide the revolution. I have a ton of reproductive health resources sitting in my cloud from when I taught fertility awareness. Why not publicize those so more women and humans can access what they need when the government restricts their rights?
After thinking about that, I become enthralled with finding more ways to create mini-revolutions. To me, a revolution mostly simply means shaking things up from the past, from the way they’ve “always been done.”
Just because it’s the way it’s always been doesn’t mean it has to look like that, in business or personal life.
Here's how else I expect Revolution to show up in 2025:
Exploring anti-capitalist practices. Listen, I'm here for commerce and for growth! I just don't want exploitive practices in my life or business, and traditional capitalism is typically centered on exploitation of people or the planet. Yuck.
Girl power! Finding more aligned projects, clients, etc. that value women’s voices and stories.
Examining effective communication that doesn’t drain me, like voice memos over live calls for work
Bookmarking interesting ideas I see from fellow self employed people, like having a prerequisite service for new clients, bartering, trading, pay-what-you-can, sharing economies, profit sharing…
“What if I’m not crazy, just the first person to do it that way?”
Bringing city-scale events to my small, awesome community
Monday Ski Days to kick off the week
Working fewer hours but making more money
Considering the quality of my days over the numbers of metrics
Digital connection without an emphasis on social media (lookin’ at you, Substack)
Spending way less time on social media
Fully leaning into the in-person revival
Y’all, we made it through. Even if it looked like this.
In 2025, I’m excited to share my process of becoming Angie the Spacious Bee Revolution.
I’ll be transparently sharing my thoughts and experiences around money, athletic training, running a business, travel, etc.
See ya on the flip side, and happy new year.
If you found this post and you’re like “Wait, where am I?” check out my About page to see why I’m sharing on Substack instead of Instagram these days.