Stop asking God to take you off the strongest soldier list
hang up and do it yourself (+ DMV New Year event recap)
Happy New Year!!
Hope your 2025 is off to an amazing start, and you took the last few days of 2024 to really rest and spend time with people you love.
As we wrap up every year, one reoccurring video or meme that always trends is the one where people are calling God, asking him to take them off the strongest soldier list for the next year.
Seeing it crop up again over the past few days, I realize that for many of us, God isn’t the problem, we are.
Let me explain.
I’m good at a lot of things. I pride myself on that. And the things that I’m not good at, I figure it out.
For AfroKlash for example, I built the website, I create all the graphics on Canva, I post on social media, I reach out to all the speakers for each event, I secure the venue, I ideate the decor, I create all the event assets, I work with all the vendors, I get all the tech figured out, I edit the YouTube and on and on.
Did just reading that make you exhausted? Writing it out was worse.
Every year, I repost those funny videos asking God to take me off the strongest soldier list, and every year I imagine him looking down at me laughing saying: girl, I’ve done my best, but you need to do it yourself.
This became even more clear to me when the day before last year’s AfroKlash event, I was with my mom doing last minute prep, and a friend reached out asking if they could help with anything. I said no we’re all good! The day of the event, I was running around picking up food, speakers, ice, mics, finishing up decor setup etc.
When we were nearly done, my mom looked at me and said “but I thought you said you didn’t need help when your friend asked you? So many of these things he could have helped you with. What if me and your sister weren’t here?” Dragged.
I keep asking to be taken off a list I refuse to remove myself from by trying to do everything alone.
For many of us, especially women, especially type A perfectionists, there’s this belief that we can do everything better than most people. Or maybe you just don’t like asking people for favors. Or maybe you feel like you’re inconveniencing them. However, that only leads to burnout, frustration, irritation and exhaustion.
Some reminders:
As we head into 2025, I want us to take ourselves off the strongest soldiers list. You’re making the call to God, but as it is said: “God helps those who help themselves.”
I want you to take a moment and reflect on all the things you’re doing that you actually don’t HAVE to do. I want you to ask for more help, reach out to your network, be vulnerable enough to let people know what you need, and delegate where you can.
I shared that my words for the year were alignment and flow. My singular focus for 2025 is to only do things that align and easily flow in my zone of genius (next piece on this!) Anything else; get someone else to do it!
To really double down on this idea, as I thought of how I wanted to start 2025, last night I invited some women in the DMV who have been part of the AfroKlash community for a night I called: An Exchange of Strengths.
I asked each of them to come thinking of two things:
Their zone of genius (that thing or things that they’re really good at they can help other people with)
The things or things that they need help with this year
Some of them knew each other, some were meeting for the first time. And we spent some hours together talking about our past year, our goals for 2025 and pulling on each other’s strengths for advice, insight and inspiration. A major theme? We all need to ask for more help.
Everyone left feeling so full and it was the perfect way to kick off the new year.
If you’d like to be at the next one, join an upcoming virtual founder club or book club, or hear some upcoming interviews with inspiring women, be sure you’ve upgraded your subscription to join the membership community.
I hope that your 2025 is filled with peace, alignment, ease, and flow.
Till the next one. Keep Klashing,
Bosola.