Hey there,

By now, you’ve probably set your goals for this year. Or maybe you don’t care at all about that stuff. I’ve personally been on the fence the past couple of years about how useful resolutions can be.

But the truth is, being goal-oriented has proven to have better results when it comes to actually growing as a human.

And when it comes to marketing, the child of capitalism, growth is what we want, right? … Right?

Growth in meaningful fulfillment in your life doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing as growth in numbers, revenue, or impressions. And believe it or not, despite being a marketer by trade, I’ve really started to decenter the latter from my business model.

We’ve seen time and time again how this growth-centered system can — on top of being so comically fantastical if it weren’t so destructive to our world — rob us of our collective humanity, compassion, and empathy. Seeing that effect play out in my own mind in the years since starting my business has activated me toward change.

Let me clearly state that there is literally no way to completely remove this numbers-numbers-numbers–oriented way of thinking from my marketing plans. I do, though, actively try to center the more human part of the experience. This is the human part that encompasses the nuances and complexities of emotions, cultural backgrounds, and understanding. Those things play a role in my everyday marketing activities just as much as the bottom line.

But what if the bottom line wasn’t just my livelihood — my ability to put a roof over my own head as an immigrant of color in Europe? What if it was more about connection and meaning with my clients, my audience, and the strangers I’ve never met but whose art, creativity, and genius I learn from nonetheless, thanks to the universe of knowledge at my fingertips?

I’ve thought a lot over the last couple of weeks about how I can actually do that in practice. And it doesn’t require reinventing resolutions, hacking my mind, or chasing efficiency. It just means centering the things I know work for me, and doing more of that.

So here are three marketing resolutions I want to bring into the new year that I think might help me do just that. They’re not much different from what I’ve already been doing for years, but at least there’s intention behind them.

I take for granted my four-year marketing degree. And I take for granted my deep, near-fifteen-year-long career in this field. Not everyone knows what inbound marketing is. Not everyone cares about SEO’s benefits, or it straight up does not apply to them. And part of the job, as a business owner, can feel like you’re constantly convincing someone to come over to the other side. It’s part of the reason people feel icky about working with marketers and salespeople in the first place.

I don’t care to convince anymore. I’m okay with educating, which means teaching without an ulterior motive. Sure, I’ll add a CTA here and there. But in the end, if putting knowledge out into the world means someone who didn’t have the same access or privilege I had gets to learn something new, then that feels worth it to me.

Last year, I picked up web development as a new skill, and it was genuinely rewarding. It brought back memories of playing around with HTML on Tumblr and taking a random CSS course in college. On a whim one February morning in 2025, I thought, what if I just built a site for my new petsitting business? I picked it up pretty easily, and I built five sites last year, which still feels kind of wild to say out loud.

One of the biggest, most consistent challenges that came up during website development was design work. I like to think I have a good foundation there, but in my business, I work best when a design is already given, and not every client has that in place.

Working with Olivia Daniels helped close that gap, and it also made something clear: design is an intrinsic part of the marketing umbrella. I want to get more curious about design (learning more about color accessibility, theory, and web design as a practice) and getting my hands dirty is the best way I know how to do that.

Reckless is not a word people usually associate with me. But I need an outlet that lets me get messy on purpose. Because if I don’t, I’ll get messy anyway, just in ways I can’t control.

I can apply this reckless experimentation to my marketing plans quite easily. Maybe I can start posting on Instagram without having this expectation that I need to hack the platform’s SEO to get to the top. Maybe I explore posting on Medium. Maybe just showing up is enough.

I’m still figuring this out as I go. If you’re thinking about learning, unlearning, or experimenting this year too, you can reply and tell me what that looks like for you.