New Year 🥳: Why 2025 Doesn’t Need a New You!
Issue 2834— January 6, 2024
As the calendar turns to a new year, the phrase “new year, new you” inevitably surfaces in advertising campaigns, social media posts, and sales on clothing and cosmetics.
I’ll admit it: I have a negative reaction to that message.
What’s wrong with the old you or me?
Yes, the start of a new year can be an opportunity to set intentions, reframe perspectives, and leave behind habits or experiences that no longer serve us. But even those things that were negative or painful in the past year are part of who we are. They shape us, teach us, and prepare us for what’s next.
You are unique just as you are. No need for a new you in the new year.
Dismissing the “old you” in pursuit of some idealized version of the “new you” overlooks the value of what’s already been built. Instead of erasing the past, shouldn’t we honor it while continuing to grow? If you know the 9 Leadership Power Tools, you remember that Power Tool #1 is, for good reason, “Know your history and you can create the future of your choice.”
We move forward in time, not backward. Each year offers an opportunity to reflect and reset, to ask ourselves what we’ve learned, what we’re carrying into the next chapter, and what we will cheerfully release.
That’s why I’ll pause for a moment and ask you these two questions:
1. How would you describe 2024 in one or two words?
2. And how would you describe 2025 in one or two words?
Before you read further, I encourage you to jot down your answers for yourself. Take a minute to reflect. What were the dominant themes, emotions, or lessons of 2024 for you? And what are your aspirations, intentions, or guiding principles for 2025?
If you’re willing, share your answers in the comments and/or with me on social media (@GloriaFeldt). I’d love to hear from you and engage in this collective reflection.
Here are my answers:
For me, 2024 was all about regeneration.
It was a year of rebuilding and renewal, both personally and professionally. Post Covid, post recovery to the extent one can from the loss of my husband. By the end of the year, post the high of thinking we might see a Black and Asian woman break through that highest hardest glass ceiling followed by the low of realizing that it was not to be — yet.
Similarly, Take The Lead, with its nonprofit mission to achieve gender parity in leadership, went through its own regenerative process. We revisited our strategies, strengthened our foundations, and reconnected with our purpose.
We delivered our signature program, 50 Women Can Change the World, this cohort made up of 70+ entrepreneurs for the first time. We regenerated the 9 Leadership Power Tools online courses, including a new version for entrepreneurs since women are starting new businesses at warp speed these days and we are here to help them succeed.
My word for 2025 is scale. It’s time to take that regeneration to the next level — wider, higher, and deeper. Scaling doesn’t just mean doing more; it means doing it more effectively and with greater impact.
It’s about building on what we’ve already achieved to create something bigger and more powerful. Personally, I’ve found myself embracing a sense of rejuvenation — scaling my energy and recommitting to the work of gender equality that fuels my passion.
For Take The Lead, scaling means accelerating our programs to prepare more women for leadership. It means expanding our reach to ensure that all women — across sectors, races, and economic backgrounds — have access to the tools, training, and networks they need to succeed. It’s about breaking down systemic barriers and creating opportunities for women to claim their fair and equal share of leadership positions in every sphere of life.
Watch this spot for news about upcoming events including a summit on “Women, Wealth, and Power,” a five session program for small businesses in collaboration with JPMorgan Chase, scaling up of the 9 Leadership Power Tools courses, screenings of the upcoming film “Lilly” chronicling women’s fight for equal pay, and of course on Women’s Equality Day, August 26, our signature Power Up Concert an Conference. (Don’t tell anyone, but I can’t resist giving you a sneak peek that we will provide you with ways to spread Take The Lead far and wide.)
Lilly Ledbetter — a trailblazer for equal pay of whom the upcoming movie “Lilly” is focused on.
Scaling is about embodying the power we already have — a principle you might have heard me emphasize. We aren’t empowering women because, frankly, women already have power.
My role, and the role of Take The Lead, is to help you recognize your power and use it effectively. That includes owning the power of your voice, self-advocating, and being heard in workplace cultures that often dismiss or undervalue your perspectives.
As we roar into 2025, I invite you to think about your own power and how you can scale it.
What would it mean for you to step into a bigger, bolder version of yourself? How can you build on the foundation you’ve already laid in order to make an even greater impact?
Let’s resist the urge to buy into the “new year, new you” narrative. Instead, let’s honor the journeys that have brought us here and commit to moving forward with intention. The world needs your full, authentic, and powerful selves — to lead, to advocate, and to scale positive change.
I can’t wait to hear your reflections and intentions for the year ahead. Let’s make 2025 a year of growth, impact, and meaningful progress — together.
GLORIA FELDT is the Cofounder and President of Take The Lead, a motivational speaker, a global expert in women’s leadership development and DEI for individuals and companies that want to build gender balance. She is a bestselling author of five books, most recently Intentioning: Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) Good. Honored as Forbes 50 Over 50, and Former President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she is a frequent media commentator. Learn more at www.gloriafeldt.com and www.taketheleadwomen.com. Find her @GloriaFeldt on all social media.