CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

New Year Vision - How Reflecting on Five Years Can Shape The Next Chapter | Ep 456

• Sheila Botelho

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The start of a new year is always full of promise, and 2025 feels especially significant. In this episode, I reflect on the profound changes of the past five years, starting with the unexpected events of 2020. For so many of us, that year disrupted our plans and shifted our perspectives, offering both challenges and lessons.


As we step into 2025, I encourage you to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going. How do you want to show up this year? What energy do you want to cultivate? Your journey begins with the small yet powerful choices you make today. Let’s move forward together, choosing hope, peace, and aligned action.



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Sheila:

I made a decision to look into what I wanted my next five years to be like. What would my life in 2025 look like? And I created a whole outline of it and I recorded it to music and I've listened to it almost every day since. Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast. I'm an entrepreneur, self-care strategist and creator of the Season's Self-Care App. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your well-being and build your version of a happy, successful life. You're listening to a Monday Minisode that's designed to help you live into what lights you up this week. Welcome to 2025.

Sheila:

I am so excited for this year. If you have been listening to various people talking about the symbolism of 2024 versus 2025, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, go have a look. There's many different voices and people talking about these things and, of course, I'm an optimist, so I choose to look at the positive. So I'm thrilled for what's to come in 2025.

Sheila:

And what is really interesting for me is looking back over the past five years. Where were we five years ago? Truly, five years ago, I think many of us were thinking, ooh, 2020, 2020 vision, it's going to be an amazing year. And then we kind of went moving through the months and realized, not too far in, ooh, it's really going to be a different year. I know that was the case for me. What was very interesting for me?

Sheila:

A couple of things. I've always been one who's on top of the headlines, in a basic degree, about what's going on in the world, because I believe it's really important that we're aware of this world we're living in. However, I don't spend a whole lot of time following the bunny trails to go deep into big issues for long periods of time. I like to look to experts and, of course, you know who are the experts. Right, we get to decide who the experts are that we follow, and there's many of them, so I love to look at differing voices in terms of deciding where do I land with all of the information. And then I like to kind of have an idea of where things are headed and not get taken away by it, because, truly, our world is constantly in a place of polarity where we have a lot of good things and a lot of really disgusting, challenging, hard stuff too right Like this happens. And so I chose in 2020, I wanted to be more up on the news.

Sheila:

In 2020,. I wanted to be more up on the news, and so I subscribed to some news email lists so that I was making sure that every day of the week like just weekdays I had updates on what was happening. And then, of course, we were faced with a pandemic. And I don't know about you I got really sucked into the vortex of all of the messages like, oh, now what's happening? And now what's happening? Has anything changed? And we were in our homes and we were so glued to many of us what is going to happen next? Because this was so unprecedented.

Sheila:

And then I went out for a walk good old nature once again and I really tuned in and looked around me at the beauty of the nature around me, seeing these massive forests of trees and the big rocks and the hills around me and all the things that have existed long, long before we came here, and they've weathered the storms. And I just had this download for myself. This is nature. It's still here. We are still here as humanity. And I realized, okay, we've been through stuff before, really really tough stuff, stuff that we didn't know what was going to happen, like our ancestors did too, right and I realized wait a second, we're still here. Humanity will weather the storm. There are very smart people out there. Humanity will weather this storm. There are very smart people out there. We will figure this out. And what do we all get to do? And anytime where there is crisis in our life, we get to choose how we respond.

Sheila:

And it took me back on those walks, many of them, working through all of the philosophical things going on, how I was choosing to respond, how I was showing up for my family, how I was showing up for my friends and my loves, and I remembered I was also taken back to 2013, when my sister was diagnosed with cancer and when I was walking down that very, very short journey of her time from diagnosis to leaving this earth and wondering what everything meant and wondering how do we go on? And looking around me without her still in my life, physically, in the physical form. How do we move on? And looking at everybody living their lives, thinking how are people? How are we doing this? How are people still going about their days? This is just not right, right. I remember going through that.

Sheila:

I also had had the dream to start a podcast, and it was early on in the year and I had all these plans for it and, of course, with everything shifting, the podcast really turned out to be very similar to what I had initially planned. But I felt like, what do I talk about? How do I speak to hope when there's so much uncertainty? How do I do this? And so I waited. I waited until September of 2020 to actually launch it because I was more clear on really what I wanted to share. And, of course, things have unfolded since, and so that's a little interesting recap of the last five years where we were five years ago anyway, where I felt I was five years ago and the way I started my year looking so different from what I planned year looking so different from what I planned, and previous to that time, I had already decided to launch into the new year. I think it was 2018.

Sheila:

I decided to launch into the new year with more peace, because I just lost my mother in December of 2017. So I said I get to choose the pace that I want to start my year, and so I did, and then, of course, in 2020, that happened, and you may know if you've listened to previous episodes. Then in literally February 29th it was a leap year of 2020, my father passed, so it's so interesting like these timings it all kept pointing to. You get to go at your own pace. You get to start the year in the way you deem best and do it in a way that is heart-centered for you. So I say all this to say to you now as you are starting out this year. I know these are heavy things I just shared. These are maybe some dark things. I will say this so much beauty came from each of those circumstances. There is always going to be the darkness and the light, and it's up to us to choose what we want to focus on. And I'm so glad that I didn't let the darkness of 2020 stop me from stepping into my dream, because what I also did at that time literally, it was March of 2020.

Sheila:

Of 2020, I made a decision to look into what I wanted my next five years to be like. What would my life in 2025 look like? And I created a whole outline of it and I recorded it to music and I've listened to it almost every day since. So it's been almost like four and a half years of me doing that, and what has happened since that time has been pretty remarkable, because so many of the things that I was envisioning to happen in my life in 2025 started happening along the way.

Sheila:

Your growth, your joy, your future, your blessings, all these things, yes, it's how you determine you look at it, but also it begins here. It begins inside of you. So, no matter how fast or slow you want to start the year, no matter what you have on your agenda for this year, know that you do have a sense of how do you proceed, choosing your next steps, the energy you want to live in all of these things, and it starts in here, in your head and in your heart, and so I wish you a sense of peace and hope as you move forward into this new year, doing that thing that is calling you, the thing that is on your heart to do, and I am going to be cheering you on and I hope that you let me know what that is calling you, the thing that is on your heart to do, and I am going to be cheering you on and I hope that you let me know what that is. Please reach out to me.

Sheila:

I love when I hear back from my listeners. I love when people reach out to me and let me know what is happening in their world and the steps that they're taking, the big, scary moves they're taking, because all of this is building your self-trust and helping you get closer to that purpose that you are meant to be living. So I wish you all the best. Thank you for listening. Have a beautiful start to your year. I look forward to being here on episodes. I've got some interviews coming up with some wonderful people and I'm also gonna be doing a lot of podcasts, touring myself on other people's shows, so you'll be hearing about those. I am so grateful for you and, as always, have a beautiful rest of your day and I send you all the blessings in the world, thank you.