Introduction

Every year, I write a personal review, but 2025 genuinely felt like a pivotal chapter—the year of finally achieving long-held dreams, including getting married. While reflection is often just for ourselves, the 8 major life lessons I learned in 2025 were too important not to share. This past year forced a complete mindset shift, from learning how to truly disconnect on holiday to dealing with the complex emotions of loss and realising that comparison is, quite frankly, a pointless exercise. Whether you’re planning your own wedding, struggling with a home renovation, or simply looking for inspiration for your own yearly reflection, this post breaks down the 8 major lessons that made 2025 my best year yet.

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Lesson 1: Major Life Goals Are Not the End—They Are Just the Beginning

Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to get married. When Mike proposed, it had been a long time in the making—we knew we were in it for life from the first time we ever met (we started speaking in March 2012 and first met in June of that year). We’ve been a constant in each other’s lives for so many years that our wedding day felt like a culmination of everything we ever wanted.

As the year comes to a close and I’ve come down from the excitement of the summer, I’ve come to realise that I’ve just lived through a major life goal and dream of mine. This thought stirs up so many emotions – sadness because it’s over, joy because we got to experience everything that we did and pride that I went through hard times in the past to be able to find Mike and have the future I’m living today. A major lesson I’ve taken away from this is, despite the busyness of everyday life, it’s important to take a step back and see how far both Mike and I have come.

Lesson 2: How to Achieve a True Travel Mindset (and Stop Sweating the Small Stuff)

Following on from the previous point, I’ve come to learn that there’s so much more to life than mundane stressors. While I feel I’ve tried to remind myself of this fact for most of my life, it truly bedded in this year. Being able to go on some incredible trips (skiing in January, our ceremony in Glastonbury, our honeymoon in Greece and an amazing trip with friends in North Wales) forced a mindset shift.

While life isn’t all about holidays (we all have bills to pay after all), my mind is now firmly in a place of not sweating the small stuff. There’s a whole world out there and being able to disconnect and just enjoy the things and people around you is liberating in comparison to worrying about whether you accidentally worded an email incorrectly. Previously, I feel like I used to pack my worries in my suitcase and take them along with me but this summer was different. While I know that stress will always come and go in life, I’m happy to have experienced the other side of things in 2025.

Lesson 3: The Secret to Stopping Comparison (Hint: Nobody Has It Together)

This year has been a year of what I’m dubbing ‘benchmarking’. When I look around, I see friends at all stages of life. Some are single and trying to get their careers off the ground, others are starting families, others are getting married, and others are just getting by in whatever ways they can. I used to look at people and compare myself – this would result in beating myself up over things I couldn’t change or trying to force myself down paths I wasn’t in alignment with. However, in 2025, I feel like I’ve seen things differently.

While posting photos from mine and Mike’s wedding day, I came to the conclusion that there are probably people seeing those images and comparing themselves to me, just as I would compare myself to others. In life, I make a point -when it comes up- of telling others that I never want them to compare themselves to me. I have more flaws than I can count and, while I try to be as honest as possible online, social media still comes across as a highlight reel.

On realising this – that comparison goes both ways – I began to slowly shift my mindset to a place of curiosity. If someone is somewhere I want to be in life, what are their habits? Understanding that nobody truly ‘has it together’ was a major learning experience for me. Taking inspiration of others positive habits is a healthier way of reframing comparison.

Lesson 4: Loss and Absence: The True Meaning of Not Taking Time for Granted

In the summer of 2024, we lost two family members. Both losses were intense in various ways but the one that hit me in my everyday life was my grandfather. I’ve already talked about this in last year’s review article but 2025 was where his absence was truly noticeable with it being our wedding year. To keep this section concise, losing loved ones is a major reminder that life is short and to never take anyone’s presence for granted.

Lesson 5: Finding Comfort in Spirituality After Loss

I don’t think I ever truly understood people when they said they’d turned to religion or spirituality as a source of comfort when dealing with loss or hardships in life until I experienced it myself. While I’ve always been a spiritual person, 2025 has been a year of leaning into what I believe in as a way of feeling connected to those who are no longer around or just connected to the world around me in general. While I want to write a much longer piece on this for those interested, I feel it important to share that believing in ‘something’ bigger than yourself has been an eye-opening experience for me.

Lesson 6: Marriage Prep: The Lessons Learned Before and After the Wedding Day

I’ve already gone into detail about some of the lessons we learned during the wedding process in a previous post, covering everything from managing expectations to the stress of making budgeting decisions. But there’s a topic I keep circling back to now that the big day is done: the common phrase, “It’s only a piece of paper.”

Mike and I have been together for well over a decade—we’ve navigated career changes, house moves, and profound loss. What could a signature on a document possibly change? The answer, I’ve discovered, is that it changes everything and nothing all at once. The core of our relationship is exactly the same, yet the commitment feels subtly but powerfully intensified. It’s like a quiet, internal confirmation that you’re truly in this partnership for the long haul, solidifying the foundation of the life you’ve already built.

And it’s not just how we view ourselves; it’s how the world views us. It’s strange, but since we got married, I feel like people have started taking us weirdly more seriously as a couple. Perhaps it’s a reflection of traditional societal views, or maybe the public declaration of commitment signals a new level of permanence. Whatever the reason, the subtle shift in how we are perceived has only deepened our own feeling of being an inseparable team. It turns out that piece of paper, while simple, carries a weight and significance that is far greater than its physical form.

Lesson 7: Sometimes Life Has to Be Inconvenient (The Reality of Renovation)

This lesson is a constant, messy, dusty reminder. Right now, our home is completely upside down because of our renovations. We’re working full-time, navigating the chaos of half-finished projects, making endless decisions, and generally living in a state of exhausting, temporary inconvenience. It can feel draining, and honestly, sometimes you just want the normality back.

However, the major lesson here is the acknowledgement that sometimes life has to be inconvenient and exhausting for a while to reap the rewards. We are so incredibly grateful to even be in a position to renovate our home, and every bit of exhaustion is a step towards a space we will love and appreciate for years to come. It’s a powerful metaphor for life, really: you often have to push through the challenging, messy, middle phase to achieve something wonderful. It’s about gratitude for the opportunity, and patience for the process.

Lesson 8: Creating Your Own ‘Year of “Finally”‘ in Your 30s

If 2025 was the Year of ‘Finally’ for my life, I want to make sure I carry that mindset forward. When you reach a certain age—your 30s, for example—you start to understand just how precious and finite your time is. Life truly is too short to postpone your own happiness or to continually put off those long-held personal goals.

It is important, therefore, to regularly review your goals and, crucially, take considered, deliberate steps to make them happen. It’s easy to get trapped in the loop of ‘I’ll do that next year,’ or ‘I can’t afford it yet.’ While planning is vital, sometimes you need to declare, ‘It’s now or never’ (while being financially sensible of course!).

For us, that major step is Japan. It’s a trip Mike and I have dreamed about for around ten years. We have the guide articles, the endless saved Instagram posts, and the sheer longing for the culture and the food. So, as part of our commitment to living the best life possible, we finally hit ‘book’ on the 2026 adventure. It felt terrifying and exhilarating all at once, but seeing that confirmation email land was a physical confirmation that we are prioritising our shared dreams. If you have a personal goal, whether it’s a career change, a new skill, or a decade-long dream trip, the biggest lesson I learned this year is that you have to be the one to kick-start it. Stop waiting for the perfect time—make the time perfect.