I tracked all my personal growth thoughts in January; Top 5 takeaways

This post was inspired by

's post here. Go check that out if you haven’t already! Really cool reading through y’alls reflections.

Soooooooooo sorry for the length lol, but I wanted to synthesize all the thoughts and this community is a great place to do that 😀

Last year in 2025, I felt like I made some forward momentum. But it was REALLY tough to go back and reflect on the specifics because I wasn't tracking anything.

So this year I decided to write more things down. The concept is simple. I started a google doc listing the days in January. Each day, I would add bullet points under that day.

I was inspired by my family, podcasts, growing my business, etc. Every time I had a thought that felt relevant to my personal growth, I wrote it down…the good, the bad and the ugly.

It wasn’t really journaling or a gratitude thing. I never forced myself to ‘make an entry’ for the day (some of the days were blank). It was just when I felt like ‘this thought COULD be helpful later’.

Now that I got the explainer out of the way, here are my top 5 takeaways (some are quite personal 🫣)

The Jump

I am going to quit my 9-5 job this year. Looking back at the last 15+ years of having a job, it’s disappointing to see how comfortable I got with trying to level up my life. Sure, I climbed the corporate ladder, that’s the path that was instilled in me since I was young. Do well in school, go to college, get a good job and keep getting promoted. I’ve done that, but I am on a real mission to find my true potential, as many of you are too.

So over the last couple months, I’ve been trying to reverse engineer what would be required financially to make this jump happen. Factoring in the requirements to continue supporting my wife and kids, mortgage, etc.

One day I mapped it all out and shared it with my wife as a projection to leave the job by the end of March. And while she has been super supportive, I could sense that she had the same ‘scared of risky thing’ mindset I’ve been working on overcoming myself for years. It was at that moment I was like ohhhh while my mindset has been getting more comfortable to adding positive risk, my wife hadn’t started her journey for that yet. So the plan is to continue pulling that thread

Risk Appetite

This ties nicely to the next one. Over the holidays, I found out my cousin’s husband (I call him my cousin too) put his entire life savings into starting a bar in his city with a couple of his other friends. This news hit me like a ton of bricks, because for extra context, none of my family even knows I’m on this entrepreneurial journey. I think it’s because I wanted to ‘fail in private’ (which I’ve done plenty of lol), so I never told anyone.

Meanwhile, my cousin was so confident of his decision to put everything he’s got towards his thing. I’m proud of him! But it took me in a thinking spiral for a couple weeks, which sparked a lot of the stuff in the first section.

I would justify my lack of risk taking by saying things like ‘he doesn’t have kids or a mortgage so of course it’s easier to take the risk’. There’s probably some truth to that, but risk is still risk, no matter how ya slice it. I need to slowly climb the positive risk ladder and start pulling my future forward. Positive risk is about believing in myself.

Valuing Myself

Which again ties nicely into this section (it’s almost like I planned it out). Something I need to overcome is the idea of ‘selling’ to other people. It’s always been uncomfortable for me, but kind of required to make money in the way I’ve structured the biz. I was listening to another video and the reason why it’s uncomfortable for me became so clear. In the video, the person said something to the effect of ‘you’re selling the thing out of your own wallet OR you value the thing less because you already know how to do it’.

Meaning, maybe I have thought my thing is ‘too expensive’ or no one would buy it because it’s ‘easy and obvious’. All the previous research I’ve done shows PLENTY of people are doing something similar to me and getting business, so it’s a mental block I have and just need to power through with a lot of practice until it feels normal. Everything I do has to be aligned with resolving this problem and making the right decisions.

Decision Making

Again, seamless transition. I’ve always been someone who likes to analyze every decision, all angles, and be like 90% confident. In order to leave the 9-5, or take on more risk, I need to make faster decisions without having all the information. And this was really hammered home when I heard this line about decision making.

If the decision is reversible, I’m better off just making the decision ASAP. Either it was the right call, or I found out it wasn’t and can pivot to the next thing. The decisions that are not reversible are the things that need more decision power. I feel like most things are reversible, and this idea could help increase my decision making. If I’m going to make the decision next month or next year, why not make it now?

Burnout

I was never sure if I believed in the idea of burnout, or that I was burning out. In order to reduce distractions, I reduced a lot of things that won’t help me reach my goals. Now I basically just spend time with my family, work on biz stuff, sleep, exercise, and the 9-5. Some of the things I gave up were things that allowed me to ‘escape’ life. But I was okay with the trades. Even reducing the amount of things in my life, it still felt like I was not succeeding in any of them.

For example, I would be doing a work out, but thinking about kids or biz stuff. Or I’m with the family but looking at the clock waiting to go to bed. I was never present in the thing. It just felt like all my tabs were open.

Then Georgiana made a post in here about a similar topic and I realized what the issue was. For more context, my days look like this: Wake up early and get out of bed quick so I can have a full exercise, so that I then have enough time to work on the biz before the kids wake up, where I have to help rush them get ready for daycare before leaving for work myself. Then I have to leave at a certain time from the job, no matter what, to pick them up in time, to bring them home to have dinner before their bedtime, which is hopefully on time so I can do enough biz stuff so I can go to bed on time and do it all over again. Everything feels so rushed.

I didn’t have any separation between the ‘tasks’ and they were overflowing into the next one. I don’t think I have a solution for it at this time, but at least I’m aware of it.

Bonus: Reading?

Ok, everyone talks about how great reading is, and I get it. I have a couple books I bought with the intention of reading, but they never seem to be prioritized over me taking action. So convince me on the value of reading over building! (these books are to improve myself, not entertainment)

Don’t feel obligated to respond to all these or anything. But what 1 thing stood out? How do you think about your personal growth?

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