2025: The Threshold Year
This kind of year doesn’t announce itself. It just changes you.
I turned 40 this year with a sense of calm optimism. Not the performative kind, but the earned kind. I believed, maybe even trusted, that most of my hardest seasons were behind me. My family was healthy. My friendships (and relationship) were solid and life-giving. I felt content in ways I hadn’t always allowed myself to feel. I even made a list before my birthday... my “bad bitch at 40” list, complete with goals, milestones, and long-delayed personal wins.
Then the year took a left turn. The rabbit got me.
Instead of momentum, I met friction. Instead of expansion, I experienced constraint. What unfolded wasn’t chaos; it was silent grief. The kind that doesn’t stop your life, but makes you carry it differently. I still showed up. I still produced. I still led, created, and delivered. But I was also navigating uncertainty, questioning parts of my foundation, and holding emotional weight privately because that’s what many of us have been trained to do. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I had entered what I now understand as a threshold year.
What Is a Threshold Year?
A threshold year isn’t about failure or collapse. It’s not a breakdown. It’s a crossing. It’s the space between who you were and who you are becoming, before the new identity is fully formed, but after the old one no longer fits. Threshold years are uncomfortable because they ask you to keep moving while something internal is being dismantled and rebuilt. Nothing is “wrong,” but nothing feels settled either.
You may:
Outgrow people, patterns, or roles without drama
Feel grief that doesn’t have a clear name
Lose tolerance for things you once excused
Perform well externally while feeling internally disoriented
Question assumptions you thought were permanent
This kind of year doesn’t announce itself. It just changes you.
Why Threshold Years Are Especially Hard for High-Performers
Many of us have been conditioned to interpret productivity as proof that we’re fine. We know how to compartmentalize, to deliver through discomfort, to keep things moving even when we’re unsure. So when a threshold year arrives, we often misread it as a sign of weakness or regression. But threshold years don’t take away your competence; they reveal your capacity.
You’re not struggling because you’re failing. You’re struggling because you’re evolving. And evolution is rarely fun.
This year didn’t demand reinvention. It demanded discernment. It stripped away my tolerance for emotional inefficiency, habit of over-explaining and willingness to carry what wasn’t mine.
I didn’t become colder. I became more precise.
That’s the work of a threshold year...refinement, not erasure.
How to Move Forward After a Threshold Year
If you’re coming out of - or still standing inside - one of these years, here’s what helps:
Name it. Stop calling it “a bad year.” It was a necessary one. Language matters.
Honor what you carried. You don’t need a breakdown to justify rest or compassion.
Don’t rush clarity. Thresholds resolve in stages. Let the answers arrive.
Move lighter, not louder. Forward motion doesn’t have to be dramatic to be real.
Choose alignment over acceleration. Speed isn’t the goal...sustainability is.
A threshold year doesn’t mean you’re behind. It means you’re standing at the edge of something more honest. And when you finally step forward, you won’t be the same...but you will be more yourself.
So what now?
What’s next for me is an intentional pause followed by a deliberate choice. I’m pivoting out of my career and leaving my job...not out of urgency or burnout, but out of clarity. I’m giving myself the space to rethink how I want to work, create, and contribute without defaulting to momentum or expectation. The following season is about simplification: fewer commitments, sharper focus, and an honest audit of what actually brings me joy and peace. I’m choosing to sit still long enough to hear myself again, to move without performing, and to let alignment...not pressure...set the pace for whatever comes next.