The end of the year can feel like a big sigh of relief. You’ve been breathing in everything that’s happening every single day.

For me, 2019’s big breath included: piloting Crabwalk’s 5-Week Program for the first time, saying goodbye to and eulogizing my grandfather, coaching and meeting with hundreds of MIT student entrepreneurs, traveling back to Buenos Aires, starting this Crabwalk blog...oh wait, this all actually happened in the first quarter of 2019, so you get the idea and I won’t go on! 

I spent the last two weeks of 2019 trying to exhale all of the year’s happenings, out. One thing I sought to be better at in 2019 was leaning on and sharing with others. I’ve always been pretty good at sharing what’s happening for me professionally... accomplishments, struggles, interests. Sharing about what’s happening for me personally or emotionally has not been my thing. My parents and husband will back up this claim.

But, I co-founded a business that teaches others how to lean on the people that are in their lives. So, I decided I better get better at that habit - that I’ve so successfully employed throughout my professional life - to my personal life too.

In addition to shaming myself into this exercise because of the business I co-founded, I also know that this is vital because our personal lives are really not linear. “Life” comes at each of us, relentlessly, all of the time and I am no exception to that rule! 

So, what changed for me in 2019 because of this new focus? A lot! Taking steps throughout the past year to figure out what was blocking me from reaching goals, identify what or who could help me get past whatever was blocking me, and asking the people in my life for help, allowed me to take small exhales throughout the year. Exhaling more frequently makes me feel less alone, like I can drop-kick my anxieties away, and it turns out, get the things I want, faster!

I’ll let you in on one personal example from my 2019. My husband and I bought an apartment(!) last summer. It took us 11 months of searching to finally have an offer accepted on a place that we loved. Over those 11 months, we both got a lot better at leaning on the people in our lives which absolutely contributed to us successfully acquiring our current home.

Our community shared their own harrowing apartment searching experiences (turns out, everyone goes through the same hellish experience - we weren’t alone!), convinced me to up our final bid by 5%, and once we won the bid, made the mortgage and moving process a bit less painful because I crowdsourced just about every vendor we used (there are so many options - how would you even pick otherwise!).

The 5-step Crabwalk framework will absolutely help you move forward in your career when you are looking to make a transition, even if the road isn’t clear. But, it’s also a handy tool to keep yourself supported and achieving in your personal life too.

Here’s to many mini exhales in 2020.