Welcome to this 10-part series on 10 things to take into 2025.
Here are the previous parts:
Part 1: Digital tools over digital drugs (Alt: Go at human pace)
Part 2: Go deeper
Part 3: Build your bucket-line community (Alt: Mutual aid for life.)
Part 4: Slow travel
Part 5: Dance on the abundant edge (Alt: Be the weird one)
Part 6: Get to work in the non-monetary economy
Part 7: An ode to the public library
Part 8: Ripples make a positive difference (even introverts can do it)
Part 9: Learn new skills, then share them
What are you taking into 2025? Let me know in the comments, I’d love to know.
Thing #10: Adapt
It’s April, and we’re finally at thing number 10 of 10 things to take into 2025. I mean… we can still be adding things to our list of things take into the new year right?!
I’m going with it.
This last thing is about adaptation.
After changing our life so enormously recently to reduce stress and increase joy, I’ve become a big advocate for the power of editing your life in small and big ways.
When we look towards nature (which I like to do, because she’s the expert), we can see that it’s critical for every element of nature, from individual species to whole ecosystems, to adapt when the environment changes around them. They risk extinction if they sit on the couch, ignoring the changes.
Did you know that studies have found that in areas of Africa, where there has been heavy poaching for ivory, more elephants are now being born without tusks? Tuskless elephants are less likely to be killed and therefore are more likely to pass on their tuskless genes. (An interesting article here.)
Resisting change can feel pretty comfortable in the short term, but hanging on with white knuckles to old ways of life, old systems, old habits that no longer serve, and resisting change seems to lead to living from a place of fear instead of possibility.
Decisions become about avoiding discomfort instead of taking action and designing your own future.
Buuut… if we lean into change, even slowly, we open up pathways to learning, unlearning, healing, resilience, and that fizzy feeling of growth.
Let the lists begin!
Here are just some of the ways we’ve been adapting to an increasingly chaotic, burning world. We:
are converting our garden from a parched square of grass to a future-ready, productive patch,
are learning how to make and mend things in a time when shiny new things are becoming more expensive and unethical to buy,
endeavor to eat more and more locally, by ditching well-travelled ingredients and eating seasonally,
don’t hold on tightly to the education system, because it’s a hot mess. We give our kids a hybrid education by giving them loads of diverse learning and social opportunities beyond school.
and on a bigger scale, we sold our farm business and moved house, to reduce stress, reduce time in the car, and to make community building more accessible.
After seeing the positive effects of leaning into change in my own life, here are a few things I try to remember:
Always be editing, to avoid sleepwalking through life, and to avoid burnout.
Design your life. If you don’t design it yourself, it’ll get designed for you.
Always create life with a pencil, not a pen.
Pay attention to when things are changing and move with them.
When something comes to a natural end, it’s finished, it’s not a failure.
Dance on the abundant edge where all the positive action is happening.
After a lifetime of starting and stopping things (I’ve had 5 careers so far, just to name one thing), I know to begin a project/idea/job with a mindset that it’ll be finite. I look out for signs or that feeling that it’s time to move on to the next adventure, and try to adapt at the right time.
The world is changing rapidly, and it behooves us to stay clear-eyed about what’s coming towards us and stay on our toes, ready and nimble.
With adaptation in mind, I’m going to have a little break from writing this newsletter, so I can create some space for other projects that are important to me right now.
Other projects being:
Updating my website with some new visible mending offerings. I’ve started by creating this downloadable weave mending pocket guide.
Working on my community-building projects, and hopefully writing a couple of how-to documents.
Spending more time in the garden over autumn and winter.
And of course, continuing to make art for the Radical Postcard Club.
I’ve really enjoyed writing this series, so I’ll think about what to write another series on in the future. Stay tuned.
For me, 2025 has been and will continue to be a time for building, creating, and taking the ideas that we have right now and implementing them. I’m ready for less worry, less theory, and more sleeves rolled up and more boots on the ground.
Let’s not spend any more time staring at what's breaking and falling apart, and turn our attention to what we need to do now.
Thanks so much for reading this last installment of Ten things to take into 2025.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
This series is a homage to Catie Payne’s awesome Reskillience podcast's '10 Things’ series, in which her guests gather a list of 10 things to inspire a more resilient, skillful future.
Over 10 weeks, I’m jotting down 10 things (habits, ideas, mindset shifts, and gentle reminders) I’m taking into 2025, which is allowing me to sprinkle in all the juicy changes happening for me this year too.
This has been such a clear, simple and inspirational series of posts. Thank you so much.
Thanks Nat i have really enjoyed this series and look forward to what may come next.
As i read this post my thoughts kept coming back to more friction and less comfort as a way I need to adapt. I thought it went nicely with your desire to have less theory and more practical. Life feels so much better and more purposeful when i swap comfort and ease for work, effort, patience and just plain do-it-yourself.