What 2025 Taught Me About Work, Visibility, and Being a Type 9
When I think back on 2025, the word that keeps rising to the surface isn’t productive, successful, or even transformative.
It’s uncomfortable.
That word is now hanging on my office wall as I head into 2026—a quiet, daily reminder that growth rarely feels peaceful while it’s happening. Peace, at least for me, comes after I’ve stayed present with discomfort instead of avoiding it.
What’s interesting is that many of the insights I’m carrying forward from 2025 didn’t fully land until the very end of the year. December, in particular, brought clarity that reframed everything that came before it. Looking back now, I can see how this year kept gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) inviting me to notice where my Type 9 patterns were still operating, especially in my work and my visibility.
This isn’t a highlight reel or a list of accomplishments. It’s a reflection on the deeper themes that defined my year—the ones that shifted how I relate to my business, my voice, and myself.
1. Going “Back to Basics” as a Type 9 Wasn’t Regressive—It Was Revealing
At the very beginning of December, I attended an inner work retreat specifically for Type 9s.
If I’m being honest, I was hesitant.
Part of me worried it would be too basic. Another part of me assumed I already “knew” my Type 9 patterns well enough. And then there was the very real resistance of thinking, Do I really want to spend several days with a bunch of 9s? Between my dad, my sisters, my best friend, and—most recently—my business coach, I’m already surrounded by Type 9 energy in my life.
Still, something nudged me to go.
What surprised me most wasn’t learning anything new about the Enneagram. It was how deeply I recognized myself in the shared struggles of the other 9s in the room. Being among people who named the same internal negotiations—between comfort and engagement, harmony and self-expression—was grounding in a way I didn’t expect.
It also made something unavoidable very clear:
Sloth (the passion of Type 9) is still very much at work in my life and business.
Not as laziness, but as:
delaying action until things feel “just right,”
choosing familiar, low-friction paths,
and staying busy in ways that don’t require full presence.
Revisiting these basics didn’t stall my growth.
It sharpened my awareness.
It showed me that even when we’ve done a lot of inner work, our patterns don’t disappear—they get subtler.
And that awareness set the stage for how I reinterpreted other moments from the year.
2. Seeing My Own Voice More Clearly Through Two YouTube Interviews
Earlier in the year, I said yes to a couple of YouTube interviews—something that, for me, required pushing gently against that same Type 9 tendency to stay comfortable and unseen.
One interview focused on the Enneagram and creativity, and how that shows up for me specifically as a Self-Preservation Type 9. (Watch the interview here.)
The other centered on my work as a website designer and what it’s been like to niche down and serve Enneagram professionals. (Watch the interview here.)
At the time, I walked away from both feeling… not great.
I replayed my answers in my head, convinced I hadn’t articulated myself well, that I’d rambled, that I hadn’t been helpful. When I didn’t hear follow-up about one of the interviews being published, I quietly assumed it confirmed my worst fears—that it hadn’t been usable after all.
Months later, I watched them.
And my assessment was completely different.
I didn’t sound nearly as scattered or unhelpful as I had believed. What I heard instead was a grounded perspective shaped by lived experience. I heard nuance. I heard someone who does know what she’s talking about—even if she doesn’t always feel flashy or authoritative while saying it.
That moment landed more deeply than I expected. It reminded me that my voice doesn’t need to be perfectly formed or universally resonant to matter. My personal experience—both in business and in inner work—is not something to shy away from. It has the potential to support others in ways I can’t always predict.
And for a Type 9, that’s no small realization.
3. Design Is the Thread That Helped Me See What People Actually Want
One of the clearest realizations I had in 2025 was that design itself—not just websites—is where my strength and enjoyment consistently live.
Yes, that includes website design and branding. But it also shows up in the way I create resources for others: social media templates, lead magnets, visual systems, and tools that help people share their work with more clarity and ease.
This year was also the first time I seriously began creating Enneagram-based digital products.
I experimented with things like subtype workbooks and later, more streamlined type and subtype info sheets. I didn’t go into this with a perfectly formed strategy—I treated it as an exploration, paying attention to what people responded to rather than assuming I already knew the answer.
That clarity came into focus during my Black Friday Five Days of Deals.
One of the offers I tested was a 2026 vision kit—a business-oriented product that, to be honest, no one bought. In contrast, when I offered the type and subtype info sheets, people did respond. Even more so when I added the option to have those sheets branded to match someone’s own business.
The contrast was hard to miss.
It wasn’t that people weren’t interested in support for their businesses. It was that what resonated most was Enneagram-based clarity, delivered through thoughtful, practical design.
That moment helped me see something I might have otherwise explained away: people are showing me, in real time, what feels most useful to them right now. And it’s the Enneagram resources—especially when they’re well-designed, accessible, and easy to integrate into existing work.
I’m still offering business-related resources, particularly inside my membership, and I don’t see those disappearing. But 2025 helped me see more clearly where the center of gravity is forming.
Design isn’t just the skill I bring to this work. It’s the lens that’s helping me understand how—and where—my offerings actually land.
4. I Built for the Long Game—and Noticed Where That Let Me Hide
In 2025, I made a very intentional decision to focus on long-game marketing.
I committed to publishing two blog posts a week. For every post, I created multiple Pins and shared them on Pinterest. I showed up consistently in my email newsletter instead of disappearing for weeks at a time. None of this was flashy or fast, but it was steady—and over time, I began to see the results.
Traffic increased.
Engagement grew.
The foundation I’d been quietly building started to hold more weight.
On the surface, this all felt aligned—and in many ways, it was.
But as the year went on, I began to notice something else underneath it.
These strategies allowed me to show up without being seen.
Writing, designing, scheduling, and optimizing are all familiar forms of productivity for me. They’re thoughtful, contained, and largely invisible. They let my work speak for itself without requiring me to put myself fully in front of people.
Part of that is my Type 9 pattern—sloth showing up not as inactivity, but as staying just comfortable enough. And part of it is my social-repressed instinct, which has little interest in visibility for its own sake and a strong pull toward staying on the edges rather than in the center.
None of this means these strategies were wrong. In fact, they’ve been incredibly supportive.
But 2025 helped me see that consistency alone isn’t the same as presence.
I can feel that tension more clearly now—the difference between building systems that work and allowing myself to be known by the people those systems serve.
As I head into 2026, that awareness is shaping what feels “uncomfortable” in the right way: more voice, more visibility, more willingness to be seen alongside the work I create.
Not louder. Just more present.
5. A Shock Point That Changed How I Hold Trust
September brought a shock point I didn’t see coming.
I’m not going to share details here—not because they don’t matter, but because the specifics aren’t the point.
What matters is that something I thought was stable suddenly wasn’t, and the way I understood my life—and my sense of control within it—shifted almost overnight.
For a long time, I’ve relied on steadiness as a way of staying safe. Predictability, continuity, and keeping things running smoothly have always felt like virtues. In this moment, those familiar anchors weren’t available to me in the same way.
What I was left with was trust—or the lack of it.
In the months that followed, my relationship with God deepened in a way that felt less like clarity and more like surrender. I didn’t receive answers so much as an invitation to loosen my grip: on timing, on outcomes, on the belief that I need to anticipate every turn in order to be okay.
This experience didn’t resolve neatly. It didn’t give me a new plan or a five-step framework for moving forward.
What it offered instead was a quieter kind of grounding—one rooted in presence rather than certainty.
Looking back now, I can see how this moment reshaped the rest of the year. It softened my expectations. It changed how I measure progress. And it continues to inform how I’m entering 2026—with less insistence, more openness, and a growing willingness to stay with what feels uncomfortable rather than rushing past it.
Final Thoughts: Entering 2026 Willing to Be Uncomfortable
As I look toward 2026, there’s one word I keep coming back to:
Uncomfortable.
I didn’t choose it because it sounds bold or edgy.
I chose it because 2025 showed me—again and again—that the places where I actually grow are rarely the ones that feel settled, efficient, or familiar. They’re the places where my Type 9 patterns are gently exposed. Where I can no longer rely on comfort, invisibility, or quiet competence to carry me forward.
Having that word hanging on my office wall isn’t about pushing myself into constant tension or striving. It’s a reminder to stay awake to the moments when I want to smooth things over, delay, or retreat into what feels easiest. It’s an invitation to notice when I’m choosing comfort over presence—and to pause long enough to choose differently.
I’m entering 2026 with more clarity than certainty. More trust than control. More willingness to be seen alongside the work I create.
And maybe that’s the real gift of this year: not answers, not guarantees, but a deeper capacity to stay with what feels uncomfortable long enough for something truer to emerge.
If you’re closing out this year noticing patterns you can’t unsee—or feeling invited into a season that doesn’t come with a clear map—you’re not alone. I’m carrying these lessons forward slowly, intentionally, and with a lot of grace.
Here’s to whatever 2026 asks of us.
Even when it’s uncomfortable.
