My 2025 Circle of Influence

2025 will always be the year when things started to fall into place, and it all kind of made sense.

I was with my husband’s niece over the holidays, and she told me about the 2020 Taylor Swift song "Invisible String" as we talked about two people who met, felt a spark, but then their paths veered in different directions. Still, years later, they ended up together thanks to the invisible string connecting them.

I don’t think this concept only applies to romance. Every decision leads you somewhere new, but if you believe in the string, it will take you where you need to go.

2025 was a year of uncertainty for me. What was I doing with my career? What should I be writing about? Should I go to culinary school? How will I make money? Endless questions and frustrations.

Nothing is ever set in stone, but many of those questions have finally been answered. I said yes to a hunch that zeroing in on beans made more sense for me than writing about food systems, and to giving Instagram a real shot by consistently creating content. This choice was met with a big YES after a simple carousel post sharing my story went viral, confirming my belief that there are people on Instagram who want to learn and make changes for a better future, not just doomscroll.

Then my career started to fall into place, finally choosing a job that would be a creative outlet and not just something I should do. I took a risk and chose freelance over a 9-5, and I feel like my true self again.

I kept cooking. The more beans I made, the more confident I was about sharing recipes with people. I don’t need to make fancy recipes. Telling someone you can mash beans with olive oil, hot sauce, salt, and pepper and spread them on toast instead of avocado can be valuable, too.

Some of this change came through meditations and visualizations, or through ideas in the shower, but some of it came through talking with friends and mentors, and through expanding my world.

I wrote this post last year, and I still believe the word "influencer" carries an unnecessarily bad reputation. My rant is that some people provide value and do more than post aspirational content that makes us feel inadequate. One of the best messages I ...