2025 Year in Review: Less Hustle, More Listening

An honest look at what actually mattered when momentum slowed.

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This isn’t a typical year-in-review about wins or goals. It’s a reflection for anyone who found 2025 heavier than expected — and who’s starting to feel that the answer isn’t doing more, but listening better.

If you’re craving a bit of clarity, permission, and a calmer way to move forward, this is for you.

Read time: 4 minutes

This newsletter was drafted with the help of ChatGPT, then refined and human-edited by yours truly before publishing.

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📌 Present: Where I’m standing right now

As I write this, it’s 1 January 2026 — and also my 47th rotation around the sun. A new year and a new personal cycle, which feels fitting after a year that asked me to slow down, shed, and realign before rising again.

A few days ago, my wife and I found a new café in our local area, and sat down together for our annual review session.

No spreadsheets.
No goal-setting theatre.
Just coffee, pen, and questions printed on A4 sheets.

As I write this, I’m not in “new year, new plan” mode.

I’m in a quieter place. The kind that comes after you’ve stopped forcing clarity and started paying attention to what the year actually left you with.

2025 wasn’t a year I could summarise neatly. It didn’t fit into tidy metrics or obvious milestones. It asked different questions — slower ones — and didn’t rush the answers.

This newsletter is my attempt to capture that pause.
Not to close the year with certainty, but to honour it with honesty.

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💡 Perspective: What 2025 was really about

For a while, it was tempting to label 2025 as a “hard year” and move on.

Here’s what that actually looked like in practice:

• A loss of significant income in the first half of the year

• Physical challenges that forced me to slow down, whether I wanted to or not

• Ongoing questions about whether hustle culture still has a place in my life

• Family responsibilities that required patience, presence, and restraint — sometimes more than I felt ready for

At times, it felt personal.
Like I’d lost momentum.
Like I’d made the wrong calls.
Like I was somehow falling behind while everyone else kept moving.

A few days ago, whilst driving the car home after a lovely lunch catch-up with some artist friends I hadn’t seen in years, I listened to Melanie Benson’s year-end business reflection. Melanie described 2025 as a year where things didn’t necessarily stop working — they just stopped feeling right. She felt the year felt heavy instead of expansive.

That framing made a light bulb go off in my head.

This morning, I watched Colin and Samir’s video titled “This was a hard year”, and I appreciated their reflection of how 2025 was a year of rebuilding and reinvention for them, grounded in real loss (their new homes were burnt down during the LA fires at the start of the year).

What stood out the most was when they shared a quote from their interview with Reid Hoffman:

“Turn crisis into opportunity. Never waste a crisis.”

And Colin went on to say, “That hit me like a ton of bricks… amidst how crazy this year has been, it’s actually a huge opportunity to reinvent.”

All of this has helped me see 2025 not as a year of failure, but as a year of recalibration.

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🚀 Progress: What actually moved the needle

If I strip the year back to what genuinely mattered, a few things stand out.

Anchors from 2025:

• Completing a Certificate IV in Screen and Media (Journalism) at TAFE Ultimo — and finishing it, not just starting

• Making new friends and media industry contacts at TAFE

• Rebuilding confidence through a tangible media portfolio

• Recording and preparing for the release of the first episode of Migrant Wealth Builders

• Winning Best General Podcast (MWV pilot episode) and Best Radio Piece (for our group effort) at the TAFE Media student showcase night (still feels surreal)

• In-person and virtual convos with good people.

@migrantwealthbuilders

Anf Chansamooth on Instagram: "We had a @tafemedia student show…

Each of these mattered for different reasons, but together they confirmed something important to me:

My skills still translate, even when I change lanes.

A few quieter wins mattered just as much:

• LinkedIn posts reaching over 220,000 people combined — not from posting more, but from saying the right thing in my own voice

• Finally working through years of overdue tax returns with my accountant (and my wife)

Alignment, it turns out, sometimes looks like admin, responsibility, and continually showing up for the things that matter most to you (especially when fear and self-doubt are present).

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🎁 Payoff: Why this matters for you (not just me)

During that café review session, we worked through a series of questions — some my wife curated, many from a list I put together back in 2016.

They weren’t designed to optimise performance.
They were designed to surface truth.

What stood out wasn’t the answers.
It was the relief.

Relief that came from:

• not forcing clarity before it was ready

• naming what felt heavy without immediately fixing it

• realising that reflection itself creates momentum

If 2025 felt slower, heavier, or less exciting than you expected, this is why this matters.

Because clarity doesn’t come from pushing harder into a year that already asked a lot of you. It comes from asking better questions.

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TAKEAWAY: A simple way to apply this right now

If you’re wondering how to close out your year — or how to step into the next one without repeating patterns that no longer fit — here’s a simple invitation.

Do a real review.

Not:

• a highlight reel

• a rushed goals reset

• a performance exercise

But:

• an honest one

• a slower one

• one that doesn’t need to be shared

How to do it:

• set aside an hour

• go somewhere neutral (a café, a park, a quiet corner)

• bring a notebook

• leave your phone on airplone mode (or off), and face down

Work through questions that help you reflect, not perform.

Because here’s the part many of us skip:
vision alone isn’t enough.

As Melanie Benson put it on her podcast:

“The right vision without the calibrated identity… cannot sustain itself.”

If you don’t pause to reflect on who you’ve become — what you’re still carrying, what you’ve outgrown, what needs recalibrating — even the best plans will eventually collapse under their own weight.

If it helps, I’ve been returning to the same 15 questions for years — including this week — and they’ve shaped how I make sense of each year.

Check out 15 questions for your best year ever here.

You don’t need perfect language.
You don’t need to answer everything.

Just answer honestly.

Because the biggest payoff of reflection isn’t motivation — it’s permission.
Permission to let your identity catch up to your vision.
Permission to move forward without forcing.

What’s one thing you’re ready to give yourself permission to do — or not do — next?

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CLOSING THOUGHTS

As I step into this new year, I’ve been sitting with the theme that shaped the last one and the one that’s calling me forward.

2025 was about Alignment — shedding what no longer fit and listening for what was true.

2026 feels like Rise.

I’m an Earth Horse, and 2026 is the Year of the Fire Horse — a shift from the Snake’s quiet shedding and recalibration into the Horse’s forward movement, courage, and momentum. Time to rise — grounded, not rushed.

Thank you so much for your support in 2025 — for reading, replying, and engaging with this newsletter. I’m wishing you and your family much health, clarity, and courage for 2026.

Live Confidently & Passionately,

Anf Chansamooth

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