Embrace Change: The Power of 12New Things in One Year

Deep disappointment can crack open a life. For entrepreneur and author Shonda Scott, a closed door—the kind that shuts on a dream opportunity you've spent years building toward—became the hinge on which a transformative year would turn. Scott had already been experimenting with the idea of trying something new each month as a social media challenge, a playful way to push past comfort zones. But when the dream collapsed, she found herself in a place of real hurt. "I was in a place of deep disappointment when I wrote the book," she explained. The difference between depression and disappointment, she'd later recognize, came down to having the right tools. For Scott, that tool was writing.

What began as a personal healing practice—documenting a year of intentional new experiences—became the foundation for Give Me a Year: 12 New Things to Embrace Change and Live Your Best Life. The book is not a manual for overcoming catastrophe or achieving greatness through sheer will. Instead, it maps something quieter and more durable: how small, deliberate acts of trying can rewire the way you move through the world, even when that world feels uncertain or you feel stuck in it.

Why Disappointment Sometimes Comes as a Gift

Scott's genesis story matters because it cuts against the myth of the inspirational pivot. She wasn't running from failure into a spa day or a vision board. She had done everything right—set the intention, aligned the pieces, prayed. Then nothing. "It was my dream opportunity," she reflected. "I thought I wanted all my life and I put everything in place to do it and then everything had come to do the opportunity and I probably prayed God be your will or something better for me and literally the door shut and I wasn't ready for that."

What happened next is the real story. Rather than repackage the disappointment as a blessing in disguise, Scott sat with it. She talked it through with a friend. And her friend offered wisdom that proved foundational: "Years later you will know." That patience—the willingness to not yet understand why something happened—opened Scott to a new question: What if the point wasn't to recover from the disappointment, but to move forward within it? "As I'm writing the book God tells me me sharing these stories are not only just going to heal me they're going to heal other people," Scott said. The book became not a redemption arc but a bridge—from hurt to helping, from isolation to connection.

Transformation Doesn't Require Grand Gestures

The genius of the 12-month, one-new-thing-per-month structure lies in its accessibility. Scott could have prescribed a year of dramatic reinvention—sell the house, change careers, run a marathon. Instead, she discovered something her readers needed to hear: "Transformation doesn't matter if you do something big or do something small. It's just the openness that you need to have." That openness is the real practice. It's the permission you give yourself to be a beginner, repeatedly, at things that may not matter in the grand scheme but matter immensely in how they change the texture of a single day, a single month, a single year.

The intentionality of the rhythm—once a month, every month, for twelve consecutive months—created a structure that allowed joy to be pursued even during turbulence. "It gave me the intentionality to continue to pursue my dreams, to find joy even in the midst of turmoil, even in the midst of unhappiness, even in the midst of all that's going on in the world," Scott explained. "I could create joy by doing something new and different each month." This is not toxic positivity. This is the practice of agency in the midst of circumstances you cannot control.

The Power of Writing It Down

Scott learned early the incantatory power of the written word. Each chapter of Give Me a Year includes practical exercises, and the first among them is deceptively simple: write down your dreams. What you want to do. The changes you want to see. The places you've put off visiting. "Write it down and make it plain on tablets," Scott referenced the biblical instruction, explaining how writing transforms an amorphous wish into a plan. "If it's not in writing, is not a deal. It's not a contract. So, it's a contract with yourself. But it also gives you the tools to come up with the plan on how you want to approach your dreams."

The five-year timeline matters too. What you imagine doing in five months differs from what you can dream for five years. Five years grants permission to dream large. "If you dream big, the things you can manifest can blow your mind," Scott said, echoing a principle she'd witnessed repeatedly: the dreams we articulate tend to become the lives we build.

Fear and the Imposter Inside

Part of what new experiences reveal is the fear you've been carrying. Scott spoke candidly about the imposter syndrome that can whisper even to accomplished people that they don't belong at the table. "If you're supposed to be a woman of faith and you aren't one, pull one up. Or better yet," she suggested, "find the women in your life who are a source of strength, who believe in you, who show up for you, and the voices that you bring to the table." The idea wasn't to fake faith or borrow someone else's certainty, but to surround yourself with people whose presence reminds you of your own legitimacy.

This matters because the voices that talk you out of trying new things often aren't external. They're internalized criticisms, old stories about who gets to show up, who belongs in certain rooms. Scott's practice of trying something new, month after month, wasn't just about conquering fear. It was about building a library of evidence that the fear was negotiable. Each small attempt was a data point: I survived this. I learned something. I'm still standing.

Putting Yourself at the Top of Your List

A recurring theme in Scott's teaching is the radical act of self-prioritization. Many women, Scott noted, have internalized the message that taking care of yourself is selfish. When she asked women whether they put themselves at the top of their priority list, the response was telling: "Women were like, 'Boo boo, we're not doing that.'" Yet Scott found that when she chose to prioritize her own growth, joy, and rest, she became more capable of showing up for others. "We're letting ourselves know we're whole before we look out for others."

This isn't indulgence. It's maintenance. It's the oxygen-mask principle applied to the entire architecture of a life. When Scott chose to do something new each month—to pursue joy, to learn, to stretch—she wasn't withdrawing from the world. She was building the kind of resilience that allows authentic generosity.

Small Changes, Compound Effects

One of the quiet revelations of Scott's year was how small changes ripple outward. A dinner for twelve intentional guests became a gathering place for women to connect and challenge each other. "We had conversations like we needed to have," Scott reflected. What seemed like a single monthly experiment became the seed of ongoing community. This reflects a principle that compounds over time: consistency matters more than scale. Show up, month after month. Try something. Notice what it teaches you. Try again.

The practices Scott documents—from writing down dreams to creating space for joy in the midst of difficulty to surrounding yourself with people who believe in you—are tools available to anyone willing to use them. They don't require wealth, connections, or perfect circumstances. They require only a commitment to keep showing up, to remain open, to treat your own becoming as worth the effort.

When Life Doesn't Go as Planned

Scott's journey also aligns with a broader cultural conversation about designing a life you actually love—a theme that writer Jason McBride explored in his viral essay "How to Create a Life You Love: No Magical Thinking Required." The essential message in both is the same: you have more agency than you think, but that agency isn't about controlling outcomes. It's about controlling what you can control: your choices, your intentions, your willingness to learn from what doesn't work.

"Failure is part of the process," McBride and Scott both stress. It's not something to overcome on the way to success. It's something to metabolize. When you try something new and it doesn't land the way you hoped, you're not failing at life. You're collecting information. You're building tolerance for the unknown. You're proving to yourself that you can weather disappointment and keep moving.

The invitation, for readers and listeners, is neither to buy a ticket to extremity nor to accept a life that doesn't feel like yours. It's to begin. Pick one small thing this month that feels slightly outside your comfort zone. Not recklessly outside—safely unfamiliar. Write down what you want to create in the next five years. Look around for the people whose presence reminds you that you belong. And then do it again next month. Twelve times in a year is not dramatic. But it is enough to change everything.