I can’t believe I’m typing this, but we’ve made it to the final episode of The Modern Editor of 2025. Naturally, I decided to use this episode to reflect on what I’ve learned this year, both personally and in my business. I could easily talk about all the things that went wrong and the goals I didn’t hit this year, but I want to focus on the good instead. Two things can be true at once: The world can feel like it’s on fire, and I can be excited about my business. I can feel proud of what I’ve built and also wish it were growing faster. I think it’s important to hold space for the good and the bad, but celebrating the good doesn’t mean you're ignoring the bad. So without further ado, let’s celebrate the best of 2025.
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but we’ve made it to the final episode of The Modern Editor of 2025. Naturally, I decided to use this episode to reflect on what I’ve learned this year, both personally and in my business.
I could easily talk about all the things that went wrong and the goals I didn’t hit this year, but I want to focus on the good instead. Two things can be true at once: The world can feel like it’s on fire, and I can be excited about my business. I can feel proud of what I’ve built and also wish it were growing faster.
I think it’s important to hold space for the good and the bad, but celebrating the good doesn’t mean you're ignoring the bad. So without further ado, let’s celebrate the best of 2025.
Welcome to The Modern Editor Podcast, where we talk about all things editing and what it's like to run an editorial business in today's world. I'm your host, Tara Whitaker. Let's get to it.
Here we are, the last episode of 2025. And I know it's super oversaid, but I seriously don't know where this year went.
Time is a complete illusion anymore, and I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or because of #theworld or some other mystery. But when I sat down to think about this last episode of the year, I naturally thought about reflection. It's a thing of mine. I'm a big fan. If you're a Freelance Editors Club member or a coaching client or a regular listener of the podcast, you know what I'm talking about.
I think it's really important to pause and assess how things went after anything, after a project, after anything slightly larger, so you can make informed decisions moving forward. Otherwise, we're just kind of chugging along on a hamster wheel without knowing where we're going. It would be very easy for me to do an episode reflecting on how hard the year has been, what went wrong, the goals I didn't hit.
Focus on the ick, right? And to be honest, I'm over the ick and not in a “I'm gonna ignore the bad things and toxic positivity” and all of that. Of course, we're not doing that, but more of a, right now I'm choosing to remember the good. Take action on the things that are important to me rather than whining or wallowing that I can tend to do.
And don't get me wrong, whining and wallowing is allowed. It's necessary. It's part of the process. And I honestly go by the hour some days, feeling positive and then hopeless, and then whining, and then taking action. And it's a back and forth. It's a constant struggle, but I will say this year has really made me focus on what matters most to me, what makes an impact, and how I wanna spend my time.
And I am certainly not happy about many of the things that happened this year and will most likely continue to happen. And I can be grateful for the lessons that I've learned. And I'm really embracing living in the “and” right now. More than one thing can be true at a time. And I'm, like I said, I'm really trying to embrace that duality.
The world can be on fire and I can get excited about my business. Feels very strange, but it can happen. My business might not be growing as much as I want it to, and I'm proud of what I've created. Both of those things are true.
So in today's episode, I'm gonna share the top six things I've learned or double downed on this year, both in my business and personally.
And what I hope is that it'll help you reflect on your own year in a little bit of a different way. Not like just looking at your list of goals and saying, oh, I got that done. I didn't get that done. And basing your progress or worth on that and get yourself a little more aligned for 2026.
Not that you have to be ready to go January 1. I like to take January slowly and ease into it. But you do you. And real quick, I'm just gonna share this now in case. I'm probably gonna have some swear words today, given the subject matter. So heads-up if that bugs you or if you have other people around that bothers or if you have little ones.
If it doesn't have any swear words, I won't put the E explicit tag on this, but if it does, you've been warned.
So these are in no particular order either, but they do feed into each other. So the first one is, it is imperative to have systems in place for when shit hits the fan. A lot of stuff happened this year, again, as we all know, and stuff happens to us individually all the time.
And it happens by city, state, country, globally. For me in particular, September and October were really rough this year when ICE was doing their shenanigans in my neighborhood. I live in the Chicagoland area. We had a rough couple of months. I dropped a lot of work stuff to be able to focus on getting them outta here and keeping my community safe.
I played a very small role in the grand scheme of things, and still it took up the vast majority of my mental, physical, emotional energy. And when I was able to come out of it, a bit out of the fog in November, I finally had some, you know, brain space to look back and realize how much that consumed our day-to-day lives and what happened in my business while these things were happening.
And it made it crystal clear that there were some spots in my processes and my systems where I am the bottleneck. I don't need to be. I'm doing some things manually that should not be done manually, and it made me realize that I can automate more in my business without losing the human connection that is inherent and so important to me.
And I made a lot of progress last year or this year in 2025 with my systems. But in 2026, I am going to get them tight and efficient AF. Because I don't ever want someone to have a poor experience because I am doing something manually and I either get distracted or I forget or drop the ball when it didn't need to be that way.
It could be something that I could enhance or work on without losing that human connection. So for you, take a look at your processes, see if there's spots or a spot where things would fall apart if you weren't doing them. And if, I mean, there are, right? Like if you don't edit a project, things are gonna fall apart.
But in onboarding or offboarding or something that you're doing manually that you don't need to, that would affect your client's experience. See if you can tweak that because inevitably something is going to hit the fan. Whether it's ICE or who knows what else, and you wanna make sure that those are all buttoned up and working efficiently.
All right, number two, it is okay for priorities and goals to morph and shift. When I was looking back at the goals I set in, I think I set them in 2025 for 2025, I laughed. If I were to base my success purely off the goals that I fully accomplished this year, I would be a complete failure 'cause I didn't accomplish many of what I set out to do.
But what did happen is my goals completely shifted throughout the year. Some things took way longer than I expected, but they did get done. Other things have just lingered and have been pushed month to month, and I've made progress on some of them, but they're just not fully finished.
And guess what? The earth continued to turn. I continued to make money. I continued to serve my clients. It doesn't mean I didn't accomplish anything. It just means I accomplished different things. And it's taken me a long time to realize that because I was very much, oh, set the goals, accomplish the goals, no wiggle room. You either do them or you don't do them and your worth is tied to that.
No. That's not how it works, or it's not how it works well for me, because I don't do well when I feel crappy about myself. And here's a good example of what I'm very proud of doing that wasn't on my list of things to do this year. I had to talk to my kids who are young about things that I never expected I would have to talk to them about at the age they are at, or honestly ever.
But yes, if you're a parent, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not a parent, it's just, think of a difficult conversation of having to explain things to somebody on a level that they understand that doesn't scare them, or keeps them mentally, emotionally safe.
It's hard. It is so hard, and I don't think it gets talked about enough about how business owners who are also parents juggle so much. Oh my goodness, just the mental gymnastics of explaining things that as adults, fine, we get it. But as a seven-year-old, like phew.
So I did accomplish a goal this year of keeping my kids safe and informed and mentally and emotionally, hopefully steady. But that was not a goal I set in 2025 necessarily, but I accomplished it and I'm proud of it, but I didn't accomplish other things, and that's okay.
That leads me into number three for me is that business comes after family and loved ones always. I didn't learn that this year, but I did have things happen, like I said, that reiterated that core value of mine.
And I know I've said this before in other episodes, but I firmly believe that when you have very clear expressed values, it makes decision making so much easier. I don't know about you, but I am decision fatigued to the extreme. If I can help myself make a decision in any way possible, I'm going to do it.
And you know it, maybe it feels silly or too woo-woo or personal instead of business for you, but I challenge you to stretch yourself and do it. Take a good hard look and see what your values are. Not just personally, but for your business too, because the time is inevitably going to come when you have to choose between two or more things.
And those values being clear and expressed are going to save your butt because you're going to be able to look at them and go, oh, hey, I have a decision between my business and my family. Which one wins out? If you've got clear values, you know immediately what's gonna win out. But if you don't have clear values, you might be like, well, maybe just this one time, or, you know, my family will understand if it's between business and family and my friends. That is a slippery slope.
Next thing, I think we're on number four is things are going to take longer than you expect or want. Again, didn't learn that this year. Needed a good reminder of it this year, and maybe you do too. This was a year in patience, a lesson in patience for me. Some of you might know, maybe you noticed the podcast art changed a little bit for the podcast, but I just finished a full branding and logo project for the first time.
Never done that in my business for thirteen years. And I have logos for all of my entities and ugh, I love it. It's so good. I'm so proud of it. And it took ten months and two designers. So I'm gonna have Molly, my designer, come on the podcast next year, but I wasn't expecting that, right?
I was expecting maybe like, three months total to get it all done. It took ten and it took twice the amount of money because the first designer, we weren't a good fit. So ultimately it was the right route to take and I'm thrilled with the results and proud of the decision and it was a great reminder to buffer in extra time.
Not saying that, you know, you should buffer in ten months of time for a project, but when you're planning an editing project or anything that's going to take a decent chunk of time, we should always underpromise and overdeliver. Always put in buffer time. It can never hurt. It can never, ever, ever hurt.
Trust me, I have an Editing Project Tracker that helps with that on my website so that you do know right up front like, hey, I can do this project in so and so weeks, but let's be for real, I'm gonna get sick. A kid's gonna get sick, the power's gonna go out, the internet's gonna go out. My computer's gonna crash, so I'm gonna throw in a few extra days, or even a few extra weeks depending on the project.
Buffer time is your BFF and a very big reminder to don't overschedule yourself or expect things to happen exactly on the timeline that you think they are.
All right, number five. Find something outside of your business that lights you up purely for the sake of joy. So does anyone else try to monetize their hobbies or make them productive, or do you think you have to find a hobby you're gonna do for the rest of your life in order to justify investing any money into it?
Or do you have to be the absolute best at the hobby you try for the very first time? Mmm, no, just me? I've been working on getting better at all of these, and 2025 made it abundantly clear that we need to do things because they make us happy and nothing else. Maybe I'll try a hobby and I'll get bored with it in a month.
So what? I got to enjoy something for thirty days. That's a win. Why are we made to feel shame about doing stuff like that, about hobby hopping? You know how collecting is a hobby? Like you can collect certain things? I am a collector of hobbies. I like having lots of different things and I jump between them, or sometimes I completely abandon them.
I mean, I've done quilling and watercolors and diamond painting and crochet and cross stitch and latch hook, and I'm sure a bunch of others I'm forgetting about. That's not a bad thing. I'm not advocating, you know, for spending thousands of dollars you don't have, but there is no harm in trying new hobbies and doing different things and doing them because you like doing them and doing them even if you're not good at them or the best at them, or selling the things that you're going to make, or, you know, monetizing it in any way.
Just doing it purely for shits and giggles, just for fun. I am really gonna focus on that next year and remind myself that it's okay to hobby hop. It's okay to have multiple hobbies. It's okay not to do one hobby for the rest of your life. Oh, the other one I got a Panda Drum. Yes, the social media ads got me when I got back on after my hiatus. Damn them.
But I love it and I'm so excited to learn how to play. I used to play the flute and I've wanted to play an instrument, and so I'm gonna do this. How fun is that?
Okay, and last but not least, this is a big one for me, is that action is always going to win for me. Before when I would feel hopeless or defeated or down or stressed or you know, whatever, I would talk about it in my Instagram Stories.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all. It absolutely helps to talk it out and commiserate and feel validated. I've actually started doing this a little bit more again in Stories after my hiatus, and I've talked about this a little bit before with the social media series, but it got to the point to me where I was like, great, Tara, get on Stories and talk about it. What the fuck are you actually doing about it?
And in my case, it wasn't much. And that was a light bulb moment for me that if I'm going to feel any better about any situation I need to take action. And action is going to look different depending on the situation, depending on you, your abilities, so many different factors, right?
And it can be super small, and small is better than nothing. It doesn't have to be grand or expensive or complicated. For me, it just has to be something. And for whatever reason lately, I have found that physical action is a bonus, and I realize I'm fortunate that's a possibility for me, and it might not be an option for everyone.
But for example, I'm on the steering committee now for our community fridges in my community. I donate money to the fridge fund. That's great. We need money. All nonprofits and mutual aid and everything needs money. That didn't feel productive to me or good enough. So I physically shop every week now and fill a fridge with food and that makes me feel better.
The actual like, going to the store, getting the food, and putting it in the fridge and talking to the shoppers and having conversations and being able to interact with people at the fridges is so much—it just makes me, it makes me feel better, but I'm not doing it to make me feel better.
It makes me feel like I'm actually taking action on something. And like I said, there's probably gonna be a time where maybe the shopping isn't an option for me and it's money and I can just donate money again. Great. We need both things, but the physical work of it and getting out and talking to people, that's what I feel for me makes me feel like I'm moving the needle in a significant way.
It can be anything, though. Maybe you're like, business isn't as steady as I want. We can talk about that on Instagram Stories, or we could send an email to a colleague for a coffee chat. Maybe it doesn't turn into anything but you're networking. Maybe you look up one thing like an editing skill that you need to get better on.
You just look up one thing and do some exercises for that. Small, right? But it's action. You're taking action, and the action might be uncomfortable. It'll take you out of your comfort zone, but it is okay, and we need more of that. And I need more of that to get me out of my comfort zone because unfortunately, that is where the growth happens. I sometimes wish it didn't, but that's the way it works.
So that's what I'm taking with me into 2026. Not what I expected, which honestly at this point never really is. But I guess it's what the universe decided I needed. And I have no clue how 2026 is going to go. I tried to do a little bit of like, some predictions and I'm like, I'm not even gonna waste my time because I have no idea and I'm just gonna roll with it.
But I do feel a little more prepared knowing now that I have looked back on 2025, I have the information I need to make a plan for next year, but also know that plan could go completely dumpster fire and completely change. 2026 is going to have a lot of lessons as well, I'm sure. But that's life. That's what it's all about.
And I am equally terrified and excited for what's to come, and I'm excited to invite you along on the journey next year. I am wishing you, your families, your loved ones, and your businesses all the very best. I wanna thank you so much for listening, whether it's just this episode or you've been a longtime listener, I appreciate you so much. And until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and I will see you in 2026.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. If you enjoy The Modern Editor Podcast, I would be so grateful if you left a review over on Apple Podcasts or wherever you consume podcasts. And don't forget, you can head to TaraWhitaker.com to connect with me and stay in touch. We'll chat again soon.