what went right in 2024...

and why we all need vision boards…

well, girls, we’ve officially made it over the calendar threshold of 2024 — congrats!

as part of my end-of-year ritual, I’ve been taking some time away from social media to reflect and get clear on my vision for 2025.

this time of year has always been important to me, so much so that my body now knows when to alert me of the seasonal retreat. i always get an internal notification, pinged by overstimulation from tiktoks and reels, along with social exhaustion.

during this time, I’ve been planning my 2025 vision board, and the process honestly took more time than I expected.

i’ve been creating a vision board since 2012.

i was starting the second semester of my freshman year in college — on the brink of academic probation — when one of my upperclassmen mentors took me into her dorm room and showed me her vision board.

the white poster board, filled with magazine clippings, pics of her and her sorority sisters smiling gleefully together, along with affirmations declaring her own academic achievement, sparked something in me.

while, I had never seen or heard of a vision board before that moment, it was as if my mind and soul had known of it all along.

she showed me how to do my own and that afternoon, I went to the library and started copying and pasting notes and pictures of what I hoped to achieve in my next year of college. I taped my probation letter onto my poster and wrote in red permanent marker, “I am not a C student!”

that next semester, I was back on the honor roll with a 4.0 GPA and changed my major from biology to marketing.

if I had remembered this story at the start of 2024, there’s no way, on Earth, I would have allowed myself to go that entire year without creating a vision board.

but it did, I broke my tradition.

i got so caught up in “resting” my way through the new year that I let January 1st turn into Valentine’s Day, and then my birthday (March 10), then to June, and August, and September… and wondered why I felt like I was floating through the year with no compass or reference guide.

and it’s because I had no direction.

i truly believe that the start of the year is sacred ground. and that while it’s great to celebrate the year with champagne and parties, there’s something special about bringing in the new year with stillness and solitude, in prayer, talking to God, and truly visualizing the life you want to see revealed across the next 365 days.

while the world is quiet and time is changing its guard, we too should embrace the quiet and moments of boredom to hear ourselves and the voice of God more clearly.

in this time, I’ve been going through my camera roll and photo albums to see what did go right in 2024, even without my vision board, and what I found was pretty amazing.

i legit became my own vision board.

while the first couple of moments started a bit shaky, I was able to meet some of my best friends, curate/organize large community gatherings for Black Girl Playground, and hit 5k plus on our IG page.

i have a growing TikTok community of 16k followers, went to an NBA game and sat courtside at a WNBA game, met Kelly Rowland, Travante Rhodes, and Ayo Ebribri, went to Culture Con (for free), attended some really cool brand events, got featured in 4 different publications, traveled to NYC, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis, and became more open and vulnerable with my friends and family.

ohh, and I chopped my hair off!

this isn’t to brag, it’s to document, document, document. because if you don’t acknowledge how far you’ve come, how can you acknowledge how much you’ve grown?

if all those things can happen with no vision board, just imagine what can happen with an actual vision and plan of action.

so this is my reminder to you to not only create that vision board but don’t just add random strangers on Pinterest to it, add YOU too.

because when you look back you wanna say, dang, I really did that because you already did.

if there’s one mindset that I’m going to take into 2025, it’s simply: be consistent and be expectant.

if you say you’re a content creator, influencer, writer, blogger, Substacker, [insert your creative occupation here] then be that — every day. no matter the numbers, the stats, the views, be that every day, babygirl.

anywho, happy 2025! I truly believe it’s gonna be an amazing year! don’t forget to leave me a comment to let me know what your word for 2025 is and your takeaways from this post.

— ya girl, Aley

follow me:

my IG is: @yagirlaley

join my social wellness club, Black Girl Playground: @blackgirlplayground

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