7 min read
2025: My Year in Review
A Year of Resilience and Rest
Inspiration
Nabhel Harmony
Product Manager
I help teams to shape brands, build products and digital experiences.
Introduction
If I had written a vision board for 2025, I can confidently say this year did not look anything like I envisioned it. Not even close. And yet, here I am, grounded, happier, wiser, and more myself than I have been in a long time. This year stretched me in ways I did not expect. It broke illusions I did not even realize I was holding onto. It introduced new joys, forced me to slow down, and taught me how to choose myself again and again. This is my honest year in review.
Rejection and Relocation 🐣
The year started with a heartbreak. On January 3rd, I received the rejection for my UK Global Talent Visa, and I will not sugarcoat it, it broke me. I had built entire plans around that visa. Timelines, dreams, versions of my life that felt so real I could almost touch them. Watching all of that fall apart felt like standing still while everything I worked toward slipped out of reach. But eventually, I did what I always do, I moved on.
I relocated from Bali to Jakarta and found a new place. A bigger, beautiful two-bedroom apartment that felt calm and safe. I spent the rest of the month turning it into a home. Buying things slowly, I finally got the standing desk I had been eyeing forever and adjusted to my 9-to-6 office life. Corporate culture is still not my thing, but I made the best of it. I bonded with colleagues over padel and badminton. I tried to make a reel summarizing the month of January here.
Friendships and Community 👭
One of the best things this year gave me was community. I found my home at The Collective Church, and that changed everything. I joined the production team and began serving as a ProPresenter operator and sound engineer. This year also brought unexpected friendships, Mike, Dimitri, Christiana and Amaka. Amaka deserves her own paragraph, honestly. One of the best friendships I formed this year. She shows up for me in so many ways. She gifted me very cute bags, does my hair, and loves me loudly and gently at the same time. I am so grateful for her and I love her so much.
I also went to a club in Jakarta for the first time, actually, in my big age, with friends. Got VIP tickets from one of my friends to attend Indonesia Fashion Week and I had a blast. Absolutely enjoyed myself there. I tried to stay consistent with content creation too, documenting my life on Instagram as things unfolded, Here’s the reel for February.
Books and Building 📚
This year, my goal was to read at least four books. April through May became my season of growth, quiet and intentional. I picked up my first book of the year, “The Psychology of Money”. It reshaped my relationship with money and made me more aware of the habits and beliefs I carried without realizing it. That shift led me to “IKIGAI”, a book that made me look at life and purpose through a completely different lens, reminding me that happiness can be found in the simplest moments. As the months went on, I read “Come Home to Yourself”, “101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think”, and finally “A Gentle Reminder”. By the end of the year, I had read five books in total, and each one met me exactly where I was, offering lessons I didn’t know I was ready to learn.
I continued investing in myself. I took online courses, learned Framer, revamped my portfolio, and finally committed to learning French. Slowly, consistently, even on days when motivation was low.
Traveled to Japan 🇯🇵
June was packed in every sense of the word, emotionally, mentally, and physically. I quit my job, a decision that came with equal parts of fear and relief. You can catch all the highlights in my blog post on Chasing Recognition
I traveled to Japan and it was incredible. I made new friends, reconnected with my Japanese friend, ate amazing food with his colleagues, and explored Umeda. I visited shrines, wore a traditional kimono, took photos and videos that I’ll treasure forever.
Japan felt like breathing in possibility. I came home with a heart full of memories and joy. You can catch all the highlights in my blog, Nabhel in Japan 🇯🇵 June was the month I created the most content because there was so much worth capturing. Here’s a reel that sums up my June.
Love & Loss 💔
This year I fell in love. The kind of love where you feel safe enough to hope and imagine a future. I genuinely adored him, and when we got into a relationship, I truly believed I had met my person. Long story short, he broke up with me, and I walked away. Although he came back apologizing and begging, asking for another chance. Something in me had already shifted. I knew that wasn’t how I wanted to be loved and I didn’t give him a second chance.
I lost my side gig, a job I had been doing for almost three years. Losing it hurt even more than the heartbreak. It wasn’t just work, it was stability, consistency, and a reliable source of income. At the same time, I was deep in the application process for a design mentor role at the Apple Developer Academy. I was hopeful in a way I hadn’t been in a long time. I passed every stage of the interview process and all the assessments. I then got a call with an offer from the head of the academy.
Hope rushed back into my life. I thought, finally, things are aligning. This role came with relocation, and I needed a work permit, I was already imagining myself going to work. I felt proud and excited. I felt like everything I had lost was leading me here. Then came the call that changed everything. They told me I couldn’t start the job. Not because I wasn’t qualified, not because I failed. But because they couldn’t get me a work permit due to my nationality, my passport.
That moment shattered me. It broke my heart in ways I still struggle to put into words. Of all the things that broke me in 2025, this was the most painful. It ripped away every bit of hope I had been holding onto.
I captured everything and more in my article, Passport Privilege 🇳🇬
2025 took so much from me, love, stability and certainty. But it also showed me who I am when everything falls apart.
Rest & Resilience ✨
For a little while, I lost my spark. The feeling to create disappeared completely. I didn’t open Figma. I didn’t touch any design tools. I stopped trying to force productivity and, for once, I just let myself rest. The kind of rest with no guilt attached. I wandered into new interests like cybersecurity and product management, grasping for something, anything, to make sense of what I was feeling. This year alone, I went through more interviews than I had in the last three years combined.
September arrived with my birthday, and honestly, I felt beautiful and at peace. I love my new age, and I couldn’t have asked for more. I treated myself to good food and received thoughtful gifts from my friend Amaka and my cousins. It was simple, soft, and deeply meaningful, and I felt so loved. My spark to create found its way back to me, and honestly, I am my biggest admirer and fan 😍. Here’s a recap reel of my September.
Career-wise, I tried to stay connected in the ways I could. I joined She Code Africa as a mentor and poured into other designers. I got invited to speak to university students in the U.S.A. at Baruch College and Yeshiva University, moments that reminded me that my voice still mattered. I was also invited as a top design mentor to a mentor night diner organized by Felix Lee, the CEO of ADPList.
The Real Win 🥇
This year tested my resilience repeatedly. Visas were rejected, jobs didn’t fall through, relationships ended and doors closed again and again in my face. But somewhere between the disappointment, I found peace and rest. 2025 may not have given me the career wins I expected. But it gave me boundaries, discernment, community, language, self-trust, and the ability to sit with uncertainty without losing myself.
This year, I rested deeply, I took an unplanned career break, I stopped paying black tax, I said no without guilt, I kept my boundaries and I focused on what I have instead of what I lack. I am ending 2025 joyful, rested, fulfilled, deeply grateful to God, and drop-dead gorgeous. This year, I felt more beautiful than ever. I gush when I look at my pictures, still amazed at my age and how stunning I look 😍. Here’s a recap reel for 2025.
Looking forward to an awesome 2026. 🍾
🦋 Nabhel.
