An Ode to 2025

..the year I read 9 books (and learned to rest)

Hey rockstars,

Look who’s back!!!

Shout out to those who checked in, DMed, or tweeted about missing my newsletter, I missed writing here too.

200+ of you have joined us since I sent my last newsletter. Woohoo!!

---

New here? 👋🏽 Hi, I’m Wamide!

Welcome to OnGrowth&. Here, I write about career clarity, personal growth, and navigating transitions with intention - especially when you’re figuring things out in real time.

My unique perspective comes from 12+ years of working, building, and reinventing my own life - including five career transitions across HR tech, energy, e-commerce, and consulting - plus coaching hundreds of people to make braver, more confident career moves.

If you’re looking for clarity (not noise), you’ll feel at home here.

---

In this issue

🗓️ My 2025 Review - An honest look at the year across fitness, faith, finances, personal growth, and work.

🧠 What 2025 Actually Taught Me - The key lessons that emerged from consistency, missed targets, and small beginnings.

🔁 Lessons I’m Carrying Forward - The quiet patterns showing up across my life, and how they’re shaping how I’m approaching 2026 and life in general.

✨ My 2026 Offers - The ways I’m supporting you this year - content, coaching, and more.

Let’s go🚀

---

The Start: 2025

Much like how I’m feeling about the things I want to achieve this year, my goals for 2025 felt… ambitious.

At first, I struggled to make them cohesive, then I struggled to write them down.

And once I did, I initially struggled to believe I could actually achieve them. I didn’t let that deter me though.

I’d spent too long going in circles in certain areas of my life - and what I wanted most in 2025 was ease. Flow, rhythm, zen, a state of inner alignment.

So that was it.

Every year, I usually start off with a theme. Instead of a long list of never-ending goals, I start off my goal setting with one compass theme.

For 2025, my compass theme was to find rest and rhythm.

I burned out hard in 2024. And every time I prayed or reflected on the year ahead, one word kept coming up: rest. So I leaned in.

Not rest as in quitting - but rest as in building and finding rhythm without burning out.

My simple commitment was to build habits consistently, and not flake on myself.

I chose four core areas to focus on:

• Faith

• Fitness & Health

• Fit (Career, Business & Personal Growth)

• Finances

Then I set out to achieve 1-3 specific goals under each area.

---

Faith

I’ve been a Christian for about two-thirds of my life - most of my formative adolescent years and all of my adult life. And yet, consistency with my quiet time has always been a struggle.

I wanted to pray more.

I wanted to study my Bible regularly.

But I could never quite stick to a devotion plan.

So going into 2025, I made it my mission to build a simple, sustainable routine.

Fam, it was hard!

From January to June, it was a bit of a yo-yo. Sometimes I’d make it, sometimes I wouldn’t.

Then, in July, that shifted.

I got a random LinkedIn message from an acquaintance.

That message turned into a one-hour call. And that conversation changed how I approached my devotion life entirely.

Instead of trying and flaking on both schedules, I committed to a 10pm daily prayer time.

Since then, I’ve kept it up about 80–90% of the time, and that consistency has grounded me internally in a way no self-help plan ever has.

Key lesson: Sometimes we already know what we need to do. What we’re really missing is accountability and an external point of view.

---

Fitness & Health

Many of you know I started fitboxing last year.

But the truth is, I haven’t always been physically active.

I credit much of my interest in fitness to being a mom. In 2023, my post-pregnancy body was doing its own thing, and I knew I needed to take my health more seriously. I paid for a gym subscription, hired a personal trainer, adjusted my diet; and saw results.

But when we moved I didn’t know how/where to begin. I wanted something different from a regular gym - something that would hold my attention and push me. That’s when I found a fitboxing studio near me.

I walked in last January just to ask questions. But almost immediately, I knew: this might be it.

Still, I didn’t feel ready. But I did what I’ve learned to do over the years - I tricked my brain into starting anyway.

Not to lose weight - but to build discipline, clear my mind, and give myself a physical outlet especially since I spend a good chunk of time working from home.

And here we are!

Yes, I lost 3kg.
But what I gained mattered more.

Fitboxing stretched my mental capacity. It quieted my mind. And every minute I spend hitting that bag teaches me something about myself - about focus, resilience, and staying present when things get uncomfortable.

Looking back, I know this: if I hadn’t started with a personal trainer in 2023, I might not have trusted myself enough to try fitboxing. That earlier version of me built proof. And I carry that voice with me everywhere now.

Key lesson: Every hard thing you allow yourself to do today becomes permission to do other hard things tomorrow. Start before you feel ready.

---

Fit (Career, Business & Personal Growth)

This was the trickiest area of the year - because everything touched it.

I currently juggle three professional identities: a full-time VP role in tech, a career coaching business, and a nonprofit supporting women in STEM. By the end of 2024, I was tired in a way that rest alone couldn’t fix.

So in 2025, my focus wasn’t on doing more - it was on creating capacity and finding alignment.

I started with my 9–5, putting real systems in place: restructuring teams, expanding capacity, delegating more, and reducing how much lived solely in my head. That alone changed the texture of my days.

On the business side, I:

• worked with 145 people across 1:1 and group AMA sessions,

• partnered with 3 brands through my newsletter,

• had 10 speaking engagements, interview features, and podcast appearances.

But none of that would have been sustainable if I hadn’t finally committed to getting support.

This was the year I stopped trying to do everything myself.

I hired a virtual assistant to manage my inbox, calendars, follow-ups, admin tasks and speaking requests. And for the first time, I stopped managing my content manually. I started out with automating content, and then towards Q2, I brought on a content editor and social media manager to support my writing and posting across LinkedIn and Instagram. In September, I logged off social media for a full week - and honestly, that kind of freedom is the goal.

For my nonprofit, CAWSTEM, I didn’t set aggressive growth targets. And while that was hard to sit with at times, it was the right call.

What we did get right last year was our mentorship program. We had our third cohort, which ran incredibly well. Deep down, I wanted to scale it - to triple our reach and create more mentorship opportunities for early-career women, but with everything else I was carrying, it didn’t happen.

On fundraising, I spent a lot of time applying for three grants I felt deeply hopeful about. None came through. That experience was painful and disorienting, and it forced me to question a lot. But it also clarified what truly matters - and pushed me to think differently about how we build without burning energy unnecessarily. The mission hasn’t changed. Our execution will.

Whew, that was a lot to unpack. And I should say there were also things I chose not to do.

One of my original goals for the year was to create a course. But as the year unfolded, I realised I needed to listen more - to understand people’s real pain points before launching another solution. So instead of forcing a launch, I stayed close to the work: testing ideas, hosting conversations, and coaching more people. For this season, that felt like the right choice.

Finally, personal development became part of how I worked, not something I squeezed in around it. I set a real budget for it and honoured it - investing into career development, writing support, and business coaching (yes, I have coaches too). They’ve helped me grow in ways that felt supportive, not extractive.

Alongside all of this, I made space for learning (yes, I read 9 books).

But I also did stuff that had nothing to do with productivity.

I spent more time cooking (signed up for a cooking class), baking and burning cookies with my toddler, and trying more recipes. I also started learning Portuguese and joined a local language group. Small things, but grounding ones. Gentle reminders that my life is bigger than my social media/content creation.

Key lesson: You can’t do meaningful work in every lane at once. Focus, support, and timing matter. But not everything has to grow at the same time. Rest, recover, recreate. Rest!

---

Finances

My financial goals last year were pretty much straightforward:

I’ve always been disciplined about saving. But I realized in 2024 that while I was building an emergency fund and a family fund, I wasn’t actively building my personal investment portfolio.

At first, it felt out of reach.

I was juggling family responsibilities (including supporting family back home), running a completely bootstrapped nonprofit, and still in the early years of making four-figure revenue from my side business. Technically, I only had one stable, recurring source of income: my 9–5.

Then I read Morgan Housel’s The Psychology of Money, and one idea stuck with me: doing well with money has very little to do with how smart you are, and everything to do with your habits and behavior.

So that’s what informed the other goal: raise my income.

Here are the two things I did:

• First, I pushed for a raise at my 9–5. That buffer allowed me to save more consistently and cover my business overhead without pressure.

• Second, I doubled down on expanding my side-business revenue. Slowly, I raised my prices. I got comfortable charging in USD instead of naira (most of my expenses are in USD, so this shift mattered). My initial goal wasn’t scale - it was sustainability. By the end of the year, my side business could cover its own expenses. For example, revenue from digital products sold last year paid for my email service fees this year. Last year, I also expanded into newsletter sponsorships, pitched myself intentionally, and closed three sponsorship deals.

So eventually, I hit and surpassed the personal financial goals I set. And this year, I’m doing even more with money, from investing to long-term planning.

Now on the flip side, truthfully, I didn’t hit the revenue goals I set for my business. In fact, I only reached about a fifth of what I hoped for. But 2025 reminded me that small beginnings are still proof that your service is in demand. As I’ve said before: if you can make $100, you can make $1,000, $10,000, and eventually $100K. Making money is a mindset. Mastering money is a long game.

Key money lesson: Sometimes you’re not failing to save because you lack discipline - you’re just not earning enough. Set your financial goals, then push for ways to make them possible. Ask for the raise. Multiply your revenue streams. Raise your rates (and the value you’re giving).

---

Some lessons I’m carrying forward into 2026.

Everything really does start in the mind. We all want flow, ease, rest - and we are deserving of those things. But I’ve learned that they don’t come from trying harder. They come from committing to a higher version of yourself and letting go of the need to force everything.

I still believe in starting before you’re ready. But if I’m honest, paying for support has been my strongest form of accountability. When I put money behind something, I show up differently. That’s why I’ve already committed four figures to personal development this year - and I’m going to be better for it. Support keeps me honest with myself.

Consistency over intensity and willingness beats perfection every time. I’m not even sure where the extra time came from, but once I decided to read more - and actually buy the books - I somehow made space for it. I’m already on my second book this year. Will that pace continue now that work has fully picked up again? Maybe not. But I’ve learned that consistency matters more than intensity. Every small step counts.

I’m also learning that there are always options. The “no’s” we get aren’t dead ends - they’re redirections. Sometimes they’re necessary nudges toward what actually matters. Build the proof of concept. Stop waiting for perfect conditions. Start where you are. Momentum comes after movement.

You are so much more than your job or any title you hold. Everyone has a voice, but you don’t find yours by staying silent. That restlessness or dissatisfaction you feel? It’s worth paying attention to. It’s often your inner nudge to do more - to create, to share, to use your gifts beyond the boundaries of your day job. Use your voice. Be more. There’s room for it.

And our dreams? They’re valid. The big ones. The uncommon ones. The audacious ones. They’re closer than we think - but dreaming isn’t enough. Action matters. It might take longer than expected, or it might happen faster than you imagined, but almost everything we want lives on the other side of fear. No experience is wasted. Even when it doesn’t feel like progress, it’s still adding up.

And quietly, everything compounds.

As always - thank you for being here. Truly.

Almost every note I write starts with my own experiences, but it means everything when it resonates with you too. I think that’s the point, really. We’re all just naming things we’re learning in real time.

So here’s to more writing just like Austin Lugo says here:

---

Before you go,

Last year, I leaned heavily on coaches, friends, and collaborators - and it reminded me that thoughtful upward moves are easier when we don’t do them alone.

I spent part of the holidays resting and reflecting on how I can support you better this year.

I’d love your input.

(You can also reply directly to this email if you want to share more context or let me know which lessons resonated most with you.)

---

In case you missed it,

Some of the ideas I touched on here didn’t start this week. If you want to go deeper, these past notes might resonate:

How to Set Goals You Can Actually Achieve

---

My 2025 Gratitude List + FREE Worksheet

---

Start Before You’re Ready

See you in two weeks,
Keep growing 💜