Year of Yes (& My Big Win Already!!)
WOW it’s been awhile. Like a. long. while. And I am back with an exciting 2026 update.
I AM DOING THE YEAR OF YES!!!
You might be wondering “Wait what is that?” or maybe you’ve heard of it before but you aren’t sure what it entails. I first want to give a big shoutout to two amazing women who led me down this path: Mel Robbins and Shonda Rhimes. I was listening to Mel’s podcast in November where she interviewed Shonda about her year of yes, and I was eating it UP. Put simply, the year of yes is saying yes to everything that scares you for an entire year.
Why did it strike me so hard? Well, I have been living in fear for most of my life, struggling with anxiety and panic on and off for over a decade. It had been especially debilitating and all-consuming during the second part of 2025 due to many really challenging circumstances aligning all at the same time and causing a ton of stimulation, and eventually dysregulation, of my nervous system.
So when I heard Shonda talking about how life changing this was for her, my ears perked all the way up. To be honest, I was desperate. I had tried so much to bring myself back into a state of safety, and it felt like nothing was working. This was an opportunity to look fear right in the eye, on purpose. To stop shrinking myself and my life down to bits of dust and to step into the spotlight that I deeply wanted, and that the universe wanted for me too.
I have SO many goals and dreams and passions and I realized I was doing myself, my loved ones, really the universe at large a disservice by hiding behind discomfort and anxiety. I had done it for too long, and I was done. Enter in 2026, a year one in numerology, a chance to leave behind all that wasn’t serving me and to step into a new nine-year chapter of bravery, intention, love, gratitude, and surrender in a way I never had before. A chance to lay down new seeds and watch them grow, nurturing them and watching in awe as the little daily actions propel your life forward.
Obviously I was (and still am) terrified! Feeling the fear and doing it anyway sounds dreamy and romantic in theory, but it is extremely challenging in practice. Your body does everything it can to keep you comfortable and “safe” and embarking on this journey is neither of those things. I knew that in order for me to follow through on this commitment, I was going to have my work cut out for me. The exciting part is, the work is internal. It doesn’t rely on anyone else, or on outside circumstances, or on money, but instead on me not giving up on myself. Knowing that on the other side of this stands the woman I already know I am but often suppress or throw under the bus or say mean things to so that she doesn’t put us through discomfort. That woman is who I want to be, and to keep her around, I must have self-trust, self-loyalty, and unconditional love for myself no matter how things go. I must believe with every fiber of my being that I can navigate through anything life hands me with grace, openness, and gratitude. That no matter how scary that opportunity seems, that I can do so with fear or anxiety sitting shotgun. That woman is kind, passionate, confident, present, joyful, curious, brave, silly, grounded, and grateful. She is a vessel of love and support for others in a way that takes the pressure off, not needing to be perfect or a master at her craft or be the best at anything. She is the universe experiencing itself, and she is here to live. She is here to feel. She is here to be as colorful as she possibly can be.
She knows she cannot be these things with fear running the show. It just simply cannot happen. So the year of yes was the permission to free herself from the chains that she might not have put there, but allowed to continuously cage her, knowing all along she was the only one with the key.
My goal is to document my Year of Yes on this blog, along with maybe other parts of my journey this year (because like I said, I have a LOT of goals, like big big big ones, that I am finally actioning). It is the 11th day of the year, and I already have a big one to document. Let me tell you, I sure am proud of myself already.
Yes Adventure 1: On January 6th, a Tuesday, at 3:30PM, my boss asked me to share a client success story at the all hands meeting the following morning at 10AM. If you know me, I am an over-preparer. While this isn’t the energy I wanted to carry into this commitment, I didn’t realize how quickly the universe was going to shove me outside my comfort zone. 1) I would never volunteer to speak in front of 100 people on purpose and 2) especially not on super short notice when I am already stressed to the brim with a million other things. But here we were, six days into my Year of Yes. Every fiber of my being wanted to haul ass in the other direction, but my mouth somehow formed the word “yes”.
Usually the night before a big speech I can’t sleep, but I slept like a baby that night. This was a pleasant surprise. Maybe it was the knowing that no matter what it was going to happen and that I had chosen this on purpose, I don’t know. Either way, I woke up that morning feeling fine. The usual nausea and frazzled brain was nowhere in sight! Cool! I started my day at 8:30AM and had back to back meetings until 10:30, knowing that as soon as I joined the meeting, it would be my turn to speak. Around 9:30, I started feeling those very familiar feelings of anxiety: dizzy and lightheadedness, cloudy mind, shaky hands, energy in my belly. I distracted myself until 10, when it started to build. The anticipation was heavy and I felt uncapable of fixing it.
I leaned into my usual strategies: long exhales, sighing, humming, EFT tapping, CBD tincture, my new vagus nerve stimulator device, positive affirmations. Nothing seemed to work. Why? Because I was trying to fix my fear. I was trying to push it away. I was trying to make it stop. And the first rule of surrender is to let yourself feel it, no matter how uncomfortable it is (& let me tell you, anxiety is UNCOMFY).
10:30 rolls around and the spotlight turns to me. I remembered my why: this is freedom.
And I CRUSHED IT. Did I feel super frazzled and uncomfortable while I was talking? Yes. But did I survive? Yes. And right afterwards, the sensations completely went away (which is a beautiful sign of a regulated nervous system! Yay!).
Was I where I wanted to be with my bodily sensations and limiting beliefs? No. But had I taken the first step of a year-long commitment that I knew in my bones would change my life? Yes. And that’s what matters.