The One Decision That Changed Everything for Me in 2025: How Proximity Reshapes Identity, Leadership, and the Way Women Rise

There is something almost sacred about the final week of the year. The world seems to exhale. The inbox quiets. The calendar loosens its grip. The mornings feel slower, the evenings softer, as if life is gently handing you a small pocket of space and whispering, “Look. Feel. Notice. Before the next season begins.” 

It’s the one moment where the noise settles just enough for us to actually hear ourselves again. And this year, in the quiet of that pause, I didn’t find myself thinking about strategy or metrics or the future of the business. I found myself thinking about myself.

I thought about who I was in January—how tightly I was holding on to things that had long since stopped feeding me, how often I kept performing for acceptance in rooms I had outgrown, how many times I said “yes” when my body was screaming “no,” simply because the consequences of disappointing someone felt heavier than the consequences of disappointing myself. 

I thought about the patterns I had carried for years, the ones that looked like discipline and ambition on the outside but felt like quiet self-abandonment on the inside. I thought about the expectations I still clung to out of habit, not alignment, expectations built by a former version of me who genuinely believed that shrinking just a little bit was the cost of being welcomed, accepted, or understood.

And then I thought about everything I let go of this year. The relationships that no longer felt reciprocal. The roles I’d been holding onto out of obligation. The narratives that had been weighing me down without my permission. The versions of myself I had been dragging behind me because I thought I owed them something. When I looked closely at the moments that shifted me, stretched me, or unraveled me in the best ways, I realized there was one thread tying every single breakthrough together.

The Rooms That Reshape Us

Each one began in a room.

Not always a physical room. Sometimes it was a conversation that shifted my trajectory. Sometimes it was a circle of women who saw me more clearly than I’d seen myself in months. Sometimes it was a mastermind call where someone reflected back a truth I had been avoiding. Sometimes it was a single moment of proximity to someone whose groundedness made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time—permission. Expansion. Relief. Recognition. A knowing. The right rooms have a way of bringing you home to yourself.

I found myself thinking about the spaces that shaped me this year—the ones that were bigger than strategy and deeper than networking. There were rooms where I remembered the power I had forgotten. Rooms where someone looked me in the eye and reflected back a level of clarity I hadn’t yet claimed. Rooms where my voice came out steadier than before because the environment around me didn’t ask me to shrink. Rooms where I felt myself rise without effort, not because anyone pushed me but because the energy held me while I stepped into a version of myself I had been circling around for years. Rooms where I didn’t have to prove anything. Rooms where my past didn’t define me and my future didn’t intimidate me. Rooms that invited me to choose alignment over urgency, truth over performance, identity over expectation.

When Women Enter the Right Rooms, Everything Changes

I’ve seen this in my clients, too—the unmistakable shift that happens when the room changes. One of them spent months building her offers from a version of herself she had already outgrown. She wasn’t blocked; she was misaligned. When she finally gave herself permission to dream from who she is now instead of who she was a year ago, everything opened. Her pricing. Her confidence. The level of responsibility she was willing to carry. The weight she’d been dragging behind her dissolved in a matter of weeks because she finally positioned herself in a room where dreaming didn’t feel irresponsible—it felt required.

Another client had been wondering why her strategy kept stalling. Every campaign looked good on paper, but none of them felt like they belonged to her. When we unpacked it together, she realized she had been subconsciously seeking approval from people who had never valued her in the first place. Her work wasn’t stuck; she was stuck in the wrong rooms. When she shifted her proximity, everything recalibrated—her conviction, her certainty, her execution. It wasn’t a new plan that unlocked her growth. It was being witnessed by people who believed in her truth more than the people she had been trying to impress. Once her circle changed, her voice came back. Her clarity sharpened. Opportunities began flowing to her because her energy finally matched her potential.

Another woman told me she was exhausted from carrying the emotional and strategic weight of being the most ambitious person in every room she walked into. Not because she needed to feel superior. Because she desperately needed a place where she didn’t have to teach the whole time. She wasn’t looking for applause; she was looking for resonance. Belonging. A place where her ambition wasn’t intimidating, but expected. When she finally stepped into a space that matched her capacity, you could feel the shift in her. It wasn’t louder. It wasn’t bigger. It was deeper. Her presence settled. Her ideas landed differently. Her spark returned.

None of these transformations happened overnight. They weren’t the result of a sudden revelation or a perfectly timed decision. They were the natural outcome of stepping into rooms that reflected the truth of who these women were becoming instead of reinforcing the identity they had already outgrown. Growth always accelerates when the environment matches the evolution.

Proximity Is Not Neutral

This year taught me that proximity is never neutral. You are always being shaped—by who you sit next to, by who you confide in, by who you allow to speak into your life, by who you spend your emotional energy trying to convince, impress, or soothe. You are either being anchored to a former identity or supported into your next one. The rooms around you are either expanding your capacity or shrinking it. They are either sharpening your voice or dulling it. They are either calling you forward or pulling you back into a version of yourself you no longer resonate with.

That realization forced me to ask harder questions. Do I still feel aligned with the rooms I’m in, or am I staying because they’re familiar? Do these rooms challenge me to rise into who I am becoming, or do they keep me tethered to who I used to be? Do I feel stretched or responsible? Seen or tolerated? Expanded or compressed? Am I being invited into deeper honesty, or am I performing a version of myself that no longer feels true?

These questions became the lens through which I made every major decision this year. They shaped conversations, collaborations, relationships, investments, creations, boundaries, and even the pace I chose to live by. And as I sit here reflecting on 2025, I can say with clarity that every meaningful shift I experienced—every breakthrough, every moment of courage, every step toward alignment—was born inside a room that held me to a higher standard of truth.

It wasn’t discipline that changed me. It wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t a mindset shift. It was proximity. It was the decision to put myself in rooms that matched my growth instead of rooms that required me to hide it. Rooms that didn’t ask me to be palatable, agreeable, or convenient. Rooms that didn’t reward self-sacrifice or endurance. Rooms that invited me to take up more space, soften into my truth, and lead from identity instead of proving from insecurity.

As you step into the new year, I want you to consider this with full honesty: the woman you are becoming deserves different rooms than the woman you used to be. Your pace, your voice, your leadership, your capacity, your visibility—they are all shaped by the environments you allow yourself to stay in. 

If you want 2026 to feel different—not just more successful but more aligned, more grounded, more reflective of the life you’re actually building—your proximity has to change. Not dramatically. Not chaotically. But intentionally. Quietly. Powerfully.

Because the rooms you choose will determine the woman you remember. They will determine the identity you reinforce. They will determine how you speak, how you create, how you rest, how you lead, how you show up, and how deeply you allow yourself to be supported.

If you want to explore what identity-shifting looks like, I’m unpacking it more in the full blog above. And if you’re craving a space that doesn’t just support your growth but accelerates it—New Year New Network on January 8 is exactly that space. The next version of your life will not be shaped by your goals. It will be shaped by who you’re surrounded by while you pursue them.

Your next room is waiting for you.