Celebrating 100 Episodes and 2025 Life Lessons

Welcome to a special episode of the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast with your host, Aisha Tahir! 

 From overcoming challenges and embracing podcasting to financial stability and self-worth, this episode is packed with insights and reflections. Join us as we look back on an extraordinary year and look forward to an exciting 2026. Thank you for being part of this journey!

00:00 Introduction and Host Welcome

00:44 Celebrating 100 Episodes

01:40 Reflecting on 2025

01:56 Podcasting and Personal Growth

02:30 Podcast Stats and Achievements

03:31 Life Lessons from 2025

07:05 Understanding Self-Worth

11:58 Financial Stability and Lessons

14:59 Skills Over Titles

17:36 Looking Forward to 2026

19:41 Conclusion and Gratitude

🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at: https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

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Transcript

 Welcome to the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward-thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host, Aisha Tahir.

 Hello everyone. Happy Friday y'all. It's January 9th, Friday night and I'm sitting in front of my microphone talking to you guys and honestly, this is one of best hours of the week sharing wellness tips with you guys and recording this podcast. 

Today. In this episode, we are going to celebrate the a hundred episodes that we have published and some of the life lessons I learned in 2025 because they.  Because I think a lot of us go through experiences like those. But we have to learn the hard way. So if you could bypass some expensive setbacks because of my experience, I  would really like that.

 So can you believe it? We have published a hundred episodes of the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast. It's such a special moment for me that . I've been able to publish a hundred episodes because there were so many times last year when I thought I won't be able to continue this podcast. I'll have to quit podcasting. Or maybe I'll have to pick it up like two or three years down the line.

2025 was quite a year for me. It wasn't just another spin around the sun. It tested me in ways, but I learned some important life lessons.  I'm sharing those lessons with you here today.

One of the things, and you can call it a lesson or just a realization that I had, was how much I love producing this podcast. I miss the whole process of creating this podcast. I can't tell you how much I missed it. There are only a few things that I really miss if they're absent for my life, like running and I think the second one is creating content. And podcasting is my favorite medium to create content now,

so let's celebrate the podcast. First. I have a few stats to share with you.

I published 631 minutes of the podcast in 2025. Nine to five Wellness Podcast received 2000 downloads in 2025. That is amazing.

It was heard in 70 countries and 514 cities. The city where it was listened to most was. Brooklyn, New York. Hey, New York City. Thanks for listening to the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast. You guys rock. You guys are amazing. But honestly, thanks to all of you for making this podcast a success. This podcast will be nowhere without you guys. So thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate all of you.

So.  Let's talk about 2025. 2025 was the year that I had to rebuild and reboot my life. 2025 demanded a new kind of honesty from me. Honesty about my limits, honesty about my fears. And I learned what really matters to me in my life. It provided me so much clarity. I am now clear on my life goals, at least in this moment where I stand right now, and I am thankful for that. We often talk about years in terms of events, like a new job, a move, maybe a new relationship, maybe you had a baby. But, 2025 felt just so different.

It was so personal and it challenged my assumptions about strength, about people around me, about where I should be investing my time and about where to place my trust. Definitely all of those aspects of my life were challenged, but I also learned  very positive and good lessons out of this experience. I'm grateful for that learning coming out of this year, I've realized that true strength isn't about avoiding the fall. It's about the courage to get back up even when you're bruised and exhausted. It's the long game, and in this game of life, we all fall down. But the thing is like when you fall down, then you have to decide if you wanna keep going or you wanna stay behind where you are. Yeah, looking back, I can say, I decided to get back up and keep going because this is what I'm meant to do and this is what I believe in. I learned to let go of the rigid expectations of how my life should look, and started embracing how it actually is and how it actually was at that time. One of the best things I did this year was I delegated some of the responsibilities, because it freed up my time to do so many more productive things.

In relation to my business. I've built much better genuine connections and in terms of career goals, I realized how important my business is to me. I learned that as a professional, I bring so much to the table because of being an entrepreneur,  that was eyeopening for me because of the skillset I've developed running my own business.

I have so many tools in my toolbox, and that was a big revelation for me. This year in 2026, business is going to be my top priority. There are many good things in store for the nine to five Wellness podcast. I'm working on a few exciting projects behind the scenes right now related to podcasting.  I'll keep you posted as soon as things solidify. Don't have like a clear date set yet, but hey, stay tuned.

Now. Another important lesson that I learned is understanding my inherent self-worth. It's a life lesson that's as simple to say as it is difficult to practice.

Your worth isn't tied to other people or any job title or materials sing. It's not in the praise you get or the friends you have or the approval you seek. It just is. It exists. I realize that self-worth is mine and should be on my terms, and this year I'm taking that power away from other people and other things, to determine my worth.

Because I'm worthy of everything imaginable. And so are you. I know a lot of people who have been there. Maybe you were passed over for a promotion, you felt you deserved and you felt small. Maybe you didn't get the raise you were supposed to get this year.

Maybe a relationship ended. Or perhaps a friend said something insensitive, and suddenly you're analyzing every interaction you've ever had. These moments can make us feel like we need. External validation just to be alive and just to be ourselves. We start measuring our value with a social yardstick based on how much others want us around, how much they value our opinions, or how much they like us.

But my friends, external validation is a moving target. It's inconsistent, temporary, and entirely outside of your control. Hey, listen, people change their minds. They have bad days. They have different personalities, the traits of which you have nothing to do with. Their opinions are reflections of their world, not yours, but your internal worth. That's rock solid. It's the baseline. It's the factory setting of your soul. You have worth because you exist, period.

It's an unconditional truth. This was such an important lesson for me.

In order to have my self-worth on my terms this year, I am going to be my own cheerleader. I'm gonna stop waiting for others to notice my accomplishments or say, you did a good job. Well, , so this year, in order to step into my high self-worth and make sure that my worth is determined on my terms, I am going to be my own cheerleader.

I'm gonna stop waiting for others to notice my accomplishments or tell me that I did a good job. when I complete a task, I'll acknowledge it.

I'm doing it right now, like. I'm celebrating a hundred episodes of the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast, which I published in a very challenging, difficult year, so I'm acknowledging it.

I'm super proud of it.

Second is I'm gonna practice self-compassion. I've noticed this working with my patients and clients this year that we are so harsh on ourselves. When we make a mistake and we all do, we let that internal critic take the mic. Treat yourself with the same kindness. Treat yourself with the same kindness you'd offer a close friend. Acknowledge the humanity in imperfection. We are all perfect in our imperfect ways, so. It's all good. Be compassionate to yourself.

And another step that I have taken and I've decided is to set very clear boundaries. And this is a big one. People who are comfortable with their own worth are also comfortable saying no. Because if something is constantly draining you, it's okay to take a step back. It's actually important to take a step back so that you can conserve your energy for the things and people you love, so it's important to set boundaries, and I'm gonna practice that.

Now another important lesson I learned in 2025 is related to finances. And this is an area that I wanted to focus on for a while, but this past year kind of forced me to do it, and it's a good thing.

I'm perfectly fine with that, and I'm actually grateful for that. And I worked on financial stability, and I feel like I got a very good start on it.

One of the different perspectives on finances that I got this year was that financial wellbeing is primarily a result of my money habits and my behavior towards money, which matter way more than the amount of money earned. Even a high income cannot guarantee financial stability without discipline. In managing that money or habits can lead to financial struggles regardless of salary size.

Financial success requires discipline and the ability to delay gratification. And it's funny because I've been practicing all of this in terms of health and fitness and nutrition. I consider myself a very disciplined person, but somehow I was lacking in that discipline, this area

I practiced it this year and I'm feeling very good about it. I am prioritizing long-term goals over immediate, to avoid impulsive purchases and unnecessary debt. And I wanna be honest here though, I still buy current fashion because I wanna stay up to date on the styles, but that's okay because deprivation leads to anxiety and I don't want that. I've started taking small, consistent action, like regular saving and investing. So I'm excited about that. The prime example of what I'm talking about is  is about a person I read in Psychology of Money. It's a book, by Morgan Household. I love that book by the way. And he has written a story of. A man named Ronald Reed, who worked as a humble gas station attendant for 25 years, and later as a part-time janitor at JC Penney for 17 years in Vermont. And he quietly saved and invested his modest earnings over decades, leaving behind an 8 million fortune when he passed away. In 2014,  he surprised everyone with his wealth and donated most of it to local hospitals and libraries. He lived frugally patching his own clothes. He drove an old car and invested consistently in blue chip dividend paying stocks in blue chip dividend paying stocks. So 2025 taught me to take a page out of his book for financial stability.

 I also went back into the workforce, started working full-time as clinical exercise physiologist and working with so many executives of the Fortune 500 companies this year I learned that skills age better than titles. We live in a world obsessed with climbing the ladder. Collecting fancy titles like Badges of Honor, we often forget to look at what truly lasts the doing. Think about it. When you look back at a 10-year-old resume, what feels relevant? You were a senior architect or a director at a company that folded five years ago?

Or is it the skills you acquired in the role like complex problem solving, leading a cross-functional team, maybe negotiating vendor contracts, mastering three different. Programming languages, what is it? What stands out? Of course, the skills, right? Titles are signposts for a specific moment in time within a specific organizational structure.

They're transient. They are currency in a single economy scale, however. Universal currency, you can take the ability to analyze medical data, podcast production, telling a compelling story, or problem solving anywhere you go. So with tech and AI booming. Entire industries are evolving and job descriptions are constantly being rewritten. A title that means the world today might be obsolete tomorrow. Think about it again, like where your priorities are, because a lot of times what I'm seeing is that we are focusing on just one aspect of our life, and mostly it's even within that aspect we are focusing on the wrong things.

So the ability to learn,  adapt, and apply core competencies, that's always gonna be timeless. We get so caught up in the external validation that a title provides. It feels good to tell people that you're a vp. It feels like you've made it, but that feeling can be a trap.  The skills are what are gonna stay with you forever. So that was a good lesson for me to learn. You know, just seeing all of this in action and reflecting on what I was hearing from my clients.

So here we are facing a brand new year 2026, and I am entering it with so much gratitude. I am thankful for all the people who touched my life in 2025. All the people who supported me, all the people who showed me compassion.

All the people who listen to the Nine to five Wellness Podcast.  Thank you so much.

As I sit here at the start of 2026, I look back at 2025 with a strange sense of gratitude. It changed everything around me. Everything I knew. But it also forged a more resilient, a more clear, a more self-aware version of me. And that's a good thing. That's a win. I lost my old self, but I gained a new perspective and I'm happy about that.

And I'm not entering 2026 with a list of demands for the universe. I'm entering it with a newfound respect for my own strengths, capabilities, and resilience. My plan going forward is to leverage the clarity that I have now for my goals in life. And I want to lead with self-compassion to 25 tested me, and in doing so, it showed me what I'm truly made of. So I am grateful for that.

There are so many exciting and good things to come in 2026, especially for podcasting and for the Nine to Five Wellness Podcast.

So stay tuned. Thank you so much for listening to me today and for listening to me in 2025. Hopefully you will continue this journey with me in 2026. Thank you . I love you guys so much. Hugs and kisses, talk to you soon.

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