The year ahead has been looming large on my mind for many months. You can see that reflected even as I wrote about my theme for 2024.

This year, I am leading a large, complex project at work. In fact, the work started with a small core group a year ago. But soon it reaches full swing.

Flash back & forward

The last time I managed such a large project was my first go, in a new leadership role focused on this work. The work of many people, it would determine whether we continued to receive funding for our institute. Oh, and it was 2020. We had to transition to working from home. I had to hire and onboard my first direct report over Zoom and phone. Many of our contributors were physicians, treating patients in a pandemic. In December of 2020, I started my days on the laptop with coffee in hand, and I ended my days at my home desk, with an empty glass of wine at hand—often having eaten dinner, which my husband had made, at that same desk. There was very little running in the final months of the year. My stress and anxiety were high. My relationships were a bit strained. The year had drained me.

This year, we’re applying for our major funding again. This time, the funder has changed the structure and shifted focus. We have new leadership. I have broader responsibilities within the institute. But I can’t have the year I had in 2020. It was damaging to my physical, emotional, and relational well-being.

Something to lead 2025

As I sought a beacon for 2025, I thought about sustainable excellence. But that seemed to place the focus solely on my professional identity. I played with words around wayfinding, like North Star and compass and navigator or guide. But they felt too abstract and/or passive. Recent reading had me thinking about resilience. But that felt too focused on the stress, activating practices, many of which I already have. And it missed the exhilaration that accompanies work that matters and that you (sometimes) excel at. I then considered adaptation and Brad Stulberg’s concept of rugged flexibility. But somehow these felt too focused on changes, not adequately recognizing the foundations and experience that I didn’t have 5 years ago.

Finally, though, as I looked back over the lessons I (re)learned in 2024, a word glowed brightly. It hummed resonantly within me. I carried it with me a couple of days, and it took root in my heart and mind.

Trust (v.)

I have held high standards for a longtime. I have fallen into perfectionistic tendencies. I have doubted myself, my capabilities. I have even doubted others’ assessment of and faith in my skills and abilities. I have hauled around a lot worry and anxiety. I have taken on work that maybe shouldn’t have been mine, perhaps because I couldn’t let go of my expectations or because I felt it was my role to protect others.

Yet when I returned to my monthly reflections from the past year, I saw something I might have missed before. I saw strength. I saw recognition of skills that I’ve built over a lifetime. I saw acknowledgement of growth and change, even as I knew there was space for improvement (as there always is). I saw reminders to trust.

Trust is not a static thing. It is tended by ongoing engagement, though often in the background. We can say we have trust (n.) in something or someone. But its real value comes in the practice. We put our trust on the hook when we trust (v.) that capability or person and entrust (v.) it/them with the work at hand.

And so 2025 is my year to trust (v.)—not just to recognize skills, commitment, and accountability in myself and others, but to rely on them in the year ahead. A few specific areas where I can practice trust have emerged:

• Trust the training. This comes from my running practice. It’s about managing the nerves as you approach a big goal race. Know that you have done and are doing what you need to do—and that “cramming” in extra miles or workouts probably won’t help. It’s about the illusion of control, that more must be better. I want to bring this idea into other parts of my life. I want to trust that the experience I have, the work I have done and will do, is creating the conditions for success with sanity.
• Trust my intuition. I trained as a scientist. I can be incredibly analytical. And yet I often look back on a situation and see that the analytical side slowly arrived at the same end as my intuition. That doesn’t mean I should skip or ignore the analysis, but rather to not so readily dismiss instinct.
• Trust my people. This applies to my team, my leaders, my partner, my friends… I’m not in this life alone. We’ve chosen these relationships. I know what they can bring into my life, how they can help and support me—if I let them, if I get out of their way.
• Trust my wisdom. I typically think of wisdom as something that we learn from others. As I reviewed those lessons I wrote down from each month of 2024, I was moved and struck by how some cycled through the year in different ways. This isn’t about ego. I know I have so much to learn in life. But I’ve been on this planet for more than 4 decades now, and I can honor what I’ve learned along the way.