how to leave behind 2024 + make 2025 the best year yet

we're back baby!

+ i missed you so much. if you're still here, i'm grateful for you. if you're new, i'm so happy you found us.

the past few months have been a whirlwind of excitement from our immersive self-love event, bloom, with tons of time to catch up and get everything confidently together for 2025. i don't know about you, but i spend the beginning of the year closing things out, and preparing my brain for the year ahead. so in today's episode, i want to say hello, welcome back, + show you how to leave behind last year to make this year the best year yet.

connect with julia on instagram @beautybyjulia + tik tok @juliasalvia

unlock more archive content on instagram @theselflovearchive + tik tok @theselflovearchives

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Transcript

how to leave behind 2024 + make 2025 the best year yet | the self-love archives podcast episode 40

Julia Salvia: [00:00:00] Hi Welcome back to the Self Love Archives podcast, the relaunch of the Self Love Archives podcast. I am Julia, your self love bestie, and I'm so excited to be here with you today, back with a brand new episode. And I'm just excited to be back posting every other Sunday for you, 12 o'clock Eastern time, with brand new episodes.

Thanks to share other people's stories, to connect you with those stories and to show you that you, that in 2025 it's time to love ourselves more. So welcome back. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Let's get into the episode. We are officially one month into 2025. And what I love about the new [00:01:00] year is that it's a moment in our lives, because time's a mental construct, we have this Gregorian calendar that we go off of, but time is truly a mental construct.

So we could begin goals and start new things whenever we want to, but what I love about the new year is that it gives us kind of this point in time where that's the trend. It's time to reflect. It's time to look back. And it's time to think about what we want to do moving forward. But have you ever gotten to the end of the year and you're looking or trying to figure out what the heck did I just do for a year?

You feel like you have accomplished nothing, you've done nothing, you have You feel like you've set out to do all of these things, all of those things on your vision board from the year prior, and you feel as though you haven't [00:02:00] accomplished anything. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is not true. And I hope that you know that it's deep down not true, either.

Because We have accomplished so much. You lived through an entire year of life. And you are here right now, listening, listening to this podcast. You are here right now, in the flesh, alive. And that, ladies and gentlemen, that alone is something so amazing. And so, thank you. beautiful that you are standing here right now.

Well, I'm standing here right now, but you are here right now living. But of course we have all of these goals and all these dreams and all these things for ourselves and get to the end of the year and ask ourselves, well, what happened to everything else? Have you ever taken a moment to scroll through your camera [00:03:00] roll?

If you're a picture person or to look through your calendars or to take note of the things that you gained that are more tangible to hold. Because I think that's what we forget and why I love the end of the year and everyone's sharing their 20, you know, 20, 20 whatever recap of the year. This is what I did.

This is what I accomplished. This is what I did because they actually sat and in a way forced themselves to think about, okay, what did I actually do? If you're not doing that, I encourage you to do that. I encourage you to take note of the things that you gained. Tangible, intangible, material, not material in the past year.

And just [00:04:00] write it out. I said this in last year's podcast episode around the new year, where one of the greatest things you can do is take in all of this information, take note of all of the things that you've accomplished, maybe month by month, quarter by quarter, um, time period by time period, whatever works for you, and, Take in all of this information and actually write out your entire year.

Just almost give yourself this little moment to reiterate what happened and what you did. The best way that I personally do that is I will look through my camera roll or my calendars, or I will kind of organize it by category. categories work best. Organize my brain into career, relationships, home, finances.

Like, you know, however works for you. But writing out your entire year after [00:05:00] taking note and kind of, it's almost like I picture grabbing all of the pieces that you need. Like, taking your old vision board, looking at all of the pictures that you took throughout the year. Taking your calendar, uh, doing almost like an inventory of all of the things, and then writing out your entire year.

And I think as you do that, you start to remember things that have happened. Because a year is really a long time. It's a short time, but it's a long time. And we tend to hyper focus on only certain things. And something I've noticed is that For me, that I think can help you so much is I personally tend to hyper focus on only the tangibles.

Only the things that have actually fully come to fruition. For example, let's say that you are saving up to purchase your dream car. And in the past [00:06:00] year, you still don't have your dream car. So, to you Right off the bat, just grazing over, just looking at it for what it is. You feel as though you haven't accomplished anything because, well, you don't have your dream car.

But in actuality, in your savings, you have half of all of the money that you need to put towards your dream car. Or, another example, It's kind of like the out of sight, out of mind mentality. You're not really seeing your savings all of the time. So it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. So, while you don't have your dream car sitting outside your window in your driveway, You are half a step closer to getting to your dream car.

And that is something to celebrate. That is something to be excited about. That is something to jot down and say, I accomplished this, this past year. [00:07:00] Another example could be the healing that you experienced this past year. That healing that you have experienced isn't necessarily tangible. It's not something that you can hold in your hands and say, Hey, here's, here's all of my healing that I did this past year.

No, it's not like that. It's found in maybe moments in time or memories that are attached to a photo in your camera roll or a picture. book that you read, or a podcast that you listened to, or something that you did, or something that you remember, a conversation that brings to fruition that healing that you had gone through in the past year.

That's something to write down. That is something to be proud of. So you see, at the end of the year when we're looking in the past [00:08:00] and we're trying to Get together and say, okay, well, what the hell did I do this year? Take into consideration that a lot of your wins, a lot of your nudges forward, a lot of your small steps forward sometimes aren't something physical or something that's right in front of you.

Sometimes you have to really think about it. But what I really want you to know is that those things matter so much. Because if you didn't save up half the money towards the car, you'd be at zero. Because if you didn't gain any healing from the things that you've gone through, then you're back at zero.

You're back in that, that hole that's even tougher to get out of. I think it's so normal for us to be hard on ourselves. We have such high standards and high expectations of ourselves. Some of those are [00:09:00] ingrained in us from childhood. Some of those are just subconscious thoughts. Some of those things are things we just do without even realizing we're doing them.

I am part of that analogy. We are so hard on ourselves. And I'm telling you to not be hard on yourself. Even though we're a month into 2025, that doesn't mean you have to have it all figured out. It doesn't mean you have to have your vision board ready already. That doesn't mean you have to have already written out your 2024.

That doesn't mean that you are behind. All that it means is simply that we are a month into 2025. That Let's say you've done nothing but relax. That is so incredibly important. We need rest. Our bodies need rest. We need time. We need space. And we are deserving of time and space, you [00:10:00] know? We are deserving of rest because in order for us to do everything that we are pasting onto our vision board, we need rest in order to do it.

So I'm here to let you know that you're not late. You're not behind. You can still do all of these things to prepare for an amazing next year. 2024 was one of those years for me that I had really a tough time kind of doing my, like, social media recap because there were so many months that And so many big moments that lasted so long in 2024.

We hosted Bloom, Self Love Archives hosted the very first Bloom in New Jersey back in September. I went on a three week vacation to Italy, to um, a bunch of places in Europe, and most especially to see my family in Sicily, who I haven't [00:11:00] seen in so long. And the beginning of the year was really a lot of These little bits and bits and pieces of getting back to hosting events, having finally my website and all of those good things.

And I pulled back a lot in 2024 in regards to building and focusing on relationships with other people other than my very tight knit circle. And that I think was done. I want to say intentionally but also not intentionally because I really wanted these things for myself in 2024. I really wanted to give you guys more than just this podcast that we have here.

So I kind of hit the ground running and have been working on so many things behind the scenes. [00:12:00] Um, and Bloom kind of just came out of nowhere. Nowhere. Like, it wasn't out of nowhere I've hosted so many events before, but Bloom was just a long labor of love to put an event on of that size of over 200 people, um, with such a small team.

was insane. It took up a lot of 2024 so I'm incredibly proud of it. There were so many things I learned in the process but because of how crazy that process was, there was little time for other things to get themselves off the ground and to be something more tangible that I could hold in my hand. So I hope this message comes to you, well it genuinely comes to you from me, from my heart, and also something that I Need to hear and listen to as well I want to give you a recap of 2024 and the things that i'm taking away from 2024 But [00:13:00] also the things that I really struggled with in 2024 to see if we can find a common ground here because I know that I know you're gonna relate to some of them.

So Do you want the good or the bad first the good or the not so? We'll say the good and the challenging um in 2024. Maybe we'll flip flop. Let's flip flop. Let me not hurt my soul a little too much. So in 2024, I felt like I had really good boundaries. Did you feel like you had good boundaries in 2024? I'm really proud of myself.

I said no more in 2024. I made it a point to go. Be better I'm gonna say with my time management. I say that very lightly for those of you that know me. I did my best with time management [00:14:00] overall. It's not my strong suit, I'm working on it, but I do believe that in regards to the boundary aspect of time management, I did a much better job at saying no to things that I really didn't want to do or really didn't want to go to.

And normally when you feel As though you really don't want to do something or you don't want to go to it. You don't give the time that much respect. So you're running late. Um, you're taking your time getting there and you're not really in the moment when you get there. So my time management I think goes beyond that.

My time management is a brain thing. It doesn't mean I don't want to be there. But this year I paid much more attention to the places, the things, and the people that I didn't want to You I didn't want to do, I didn't want to hang out with, I didn't want to go to, I was very on top of that this year and I'm very proud of myself for it because I [00:15:00] think in building relationships with other people and other things and doing things, like, I know I want to spend time with someone who wants to spend time with me.

And I want to go somewhere with people or with my, just myself, where we're going to have a good time. And we're going to enjoy the moment that we have there. Now, I had really great boundaries this year. But, I'm curious how other people feel about my boundaries in regards to asking for help. So, I think asking for help and having the strength and courage to ask other people for help is so incredibly important.

And, um, I feel like I did a really great job at doing that this year because there were some things that I physically and mentally could not do by myself. This year I had an event planner, um, Marissa, who we spoke with a couple of episodes ago that was just such an amazing conversation, so [00:16:00] please give that a listen.

She was so helpful in setting up Bloom and making it happen. Along with hiring my assistant, Jenna, who has been such a wondrous help, um, hiring an email marketing team and just doing a lot of things that I felt really uncomfortable doing because I had never done them before. I had never had asked for that kind of help before.

And then of course instilling my friends and my family and Nick of course to help me do things that I would just try to figure out somehow by myself. So I think that asking for help is so important in building a trustful relationship with other people, but if you need help, ask for it. The people that care about you and love you will help you.

In whatever way, or whatever capacity they possibly can, they will help you. They will be there for you. So ask for help. We [00:17:00] are not meant to. just be individual and, and only do things on our own by ourselves. We are not meant to do that. We are supposed to ask for help. So I hope you have the courage this coming year to ask for help in 2025.

In the midst of all of these really amazing things in 2024, there was a lot of overspending, overdoing, and quite a lot of caffeine and fast food. And I'm not proud to say. Any of those whatsoever. Did the caffeine get me through some really long days? Yes. Was the fast food the most accessible thing at the time when things were super busy?

Yes. So I give myself grace and hope you give yourself grace for things like that too, because it is totally okay to, you know, grab a meal because you deserve to eat. Your body needs fuel in some way. And. [00:18:00] the caffeine. I've, I've gotten to a point where I have a small caffeine addiction. I have a coffee here with me.

But it was mostly energy drinks for 2024. So I'm hoping personally just for my health to cut back on that in 2025. Now the overspending. That's truly just an obvious thing. I think I was just like, I think throughout 2024, yes, I deserve that. I'm gonna buy it. Yeah, I want that. I'm gonna get it.

That's a pretty, pretty, I guess, easy one to understand. I think I was very lenient with myself in regards to spending and I hope in 2025 we can tone it down a little bit and question those. Decisions over creating. [00:19:00] I tend, as I think most of us do, to do too much to overdo, to make up for someone else's, lack to make up for someone else in the relationship that we're in.

I notice that I personally will overc create or overdo things. because I don't think what I'm doing already is enough. And that stems from a long line of things just never being enough. When I was a kid, when I was in, um, relationships, it was just like every single thing that I did wasn't enough. If I got a B, oh, well, why didn't you get an A?

If I Cleaned this up for an X or something like that. Oh, well why didn't you do this too? It was, it's a pattern of never feeling like I am enough and [00:20:00] never feeling like I am doing enough. We tend to overdo, overdo what we say over, do what we're doing over create, over do anything. In any way, when we feel like we aren't enough.

That we're not doing enough, we're not creating enough, we're not saying enough. We feel self conscious about what we're putting out there. Whether that's the exertion from our physical self, mental, our hearts. And that insecurity can be so detrimental to so many parts of who we are. Our confidence in ourselves.

Our, uh, the courage that we have. Our self love, most especially. I want us all to move forward with this irrevocable, [00:21:00] knowledge that we are more than enough, that we are good enough exactly the way that we are. If we woke up and did absolutely nothing today, that is totally okay because you deserve that rest.

You deserve a day where you do absolutely nothing. And that doesn't make you less than, that doesn't make you anything other than just you. And that's exactly the only person that you need to be. In 2024, there was quite a lot of that, and I don't tend to stop because in 2024, I pushed myself quite a bit to work with people I've never worked with before, to hire people I've never hired before, to learn things that I've never learned before, and to push myself to create.

bloom and this birthday event that I hosted in February and to [00:22:00] travel to Europe and to do all of these things that were maybe initially kind of scary. And I'm proud to say that I had pushed myself in 2024. There's some sort of balance that we need to reach between pushing ourselves and doing too much to the point of overexertion and overdoing and just over everything.

There's some balance in between there that we need to reach. But I think it's so good to be in a place where you are consciously pushing yourself to be better. but not overdoing it because of something that you feel or you think, which is a lie, is flawed in you. 2025.

Please share with me what you're looking forward to in 2025. What are you looking to do for your [00:23:00] self love in 2025? And self love all encompasses everything. Self love is all about you. What are you looking to update, change, or love more about yourself in 2025? Taking everything that I have learned and have looked at from 2024 in 2025, I would really, really love.

to fix my posture. I know you weren't expecting that one. I have struggled and I'm so self conscious about my posture and I know I'm not alone. My posture is shit and I have tried so many things and will continue to try to work on it but I think the most important thing in regards to my posture that needs to be worked on in 2025 is simply my health.

and stretching, being more mindful of [00:24:00] why I'm feeling this way. My back is killing me all the time, but being mindful of where I'm feeling, whatever I'm feeling in my back, which is a lot of things all the time, but also being self aware of fixing my posture, making sure that I'm not hunching over, um, I'm starting to get that little hump.

Um, on my upper, like, shoulders and back and neck. And honestly, it's not even per se the way that it looks, but it's more so how I feel. How I feel about the way that it looks, but also how I feel when I go throughout the day. You know, it's a little tough to breathe, I'm in pain, all of those things. And I'm the kind of person that will do everything on the planet to Fix something on my own and in the ways that I am, I know how, like stretching more [00:25:00] before I take it to a doctor.

Because I think a lot of that is just band aids, but that's a whole other story and whatnot for another podcast another time. So that's one of my goals in 2025 is to fix my posture, focus more on my health, stretch more. And I think you're gonna, this is an obvious one, finances. Get that in shape, get that in order.

No overspending, no buying things that are just unnecessary in 2025. And being a lot more smart with my money. You're gonna love this. I would love, love to get back to creating really cool makeup looks in 2025. I already have created a few towards the end of the year that I was really excited about. They weren't anything crazy, just lots of rhinestones, lots of red.

I've been obsessed with red lately. I'm wearing red right now. And I'm excited to tap into that [00:26:00] creative part of me, along with reading. Those are two creative parts of me that I've kind of put behind to focus on other things and I want to bring them back Into my life a little bit and really make time for those two things in 2025.

Do you guys have any of those Smaller things like they're not small like reading is such a great thing Getting creative is such a great thing, but you know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's just more of this consistent thing that you just want to do more of in 2025. Do you have any, any of those? Because I, I love that.

I'm like, I'm getting excited talking about it. Like, I'm so excited to just sit and, and really find the time to read a fucking book. Or sit and just put tons of makeup and rhinestones on my face and get creative in those two different types of way. And the biggest goal for you guys, for me, for the Self Love [00:27:00] Archives in 2025 is to focus.

It's to keep going with all of the things that we as a team can do. have been working on behind the scenes and, and show you these amazing tools and these amazing things that are going to help you love yourself more in 2025. You may have heard already, but I am working on the Love Yourself More card deck, which is going to be launching really, really soon.

I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. So I want to make sure that this is ready to go and that this is truly going to be something that you are going to take with you, you are going to journal with, you are going to use, and you are going to feel like you got every penny's worth when this is in your hands.

And my goal is to get that to you in early 2025. So please keep a lookout for it and Thank you for being here. Thank you so [00:28:00] much for being with me through the ride in 2024, and I cannot wait to see what you are going to do, what you are going to be, and how much you are going to love who you are becoming, and who you are in 2025.

I will see you next time. on the Self Love Archives podcast. I love you so much. And I hope that this is helpful in kicking off your 2025 in all the ways that you could have ever hoped for. Bye!