Take a step back, reflect, and look ahead.
This year—2025, the Year of the Wood Snake—is a rare, once-every-60-year occurrence where the snake, known for its intuition, creativity, and transformative energy, combines with the wood element, symbolizing growth, stability, and creativity.
This combination offers a time to find balance, where the snake represents change and rebirth with the shedding of its skin, while wood symbolises strength and stability with its roots firmly planted in the ground.
Let’s face it, in 2025 (and every year) we could all use a little more balance. Here are a few things you can focus on in the Year of the Wood Snake to harness all the upcoming year has to bring:
Shedding your (metaphorical) skin
Just like a snake sheds its skin, shed your metaphorical “skin”—aka anything you’ve carried for too long that’s no longer serving you. The imposter syndrome that’s keeping you from asking for a raise? Shed it. The need to make everyone else happy while completely ignoring your own needs and ultimately leading to burnout? Shed it. The disappointment of not being “perfect” even when you’ve given it everything you’ve got? Shed it. You get the idea.
Exploring new outlets and opportunities
Wood represents growth, while the snake represents a rebirth—both symbolizing that it’s time for a change. The possibilities when it comes to trying something new are endless—but don’t let that overwhelm you. Start small. Do a Google search about something you’re interested in. Find a free class, read a few blogs, see if it’s worth investing your time and energy. If that’s not quite it, start over with something else. Once you find something that clicks, the sky’s the limit.
Building healthy habits
This is where the stability of wood comes into play. Building healthy habits that set you up for success every day provide a solid foundation of consistency to keep you stable through all the growth and change. Whether it’s shutting off devices an hour before bedtime, exercising before work, taking a daily walk, or cooking at home more, establishing one small daily habit at a time will ultimately snowball into a more successful 2025—and beyond.
Thinking outside the box
Time to replace old strategies that aren’t working, and approach challenges from a new perspective—this is also known as the more uncomfortable (but oh so necessary) part of growth. The saying “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” can only take you so far. Sometimes, you have to accept that it actually is broken and it does need to be fixed—and that’s okay. Approaching the same old situations from a new perspective can provide a sense of clarity, closure, and accomplishment that will serve you well in the new year.
Wondering what any of this has to do with General Assembly’s tech training?
Whatever the Year of the Wood Snake brings, building tech skills (hello, new outlet and opportunity) is going to be a helpful tool for finding balance in 2025.
Whether it’s learning to use AI to automate mundane tasks so you have more time for things like cooking and exercise, learning data analytics so that you can take your job title from associate to manager, or making a complete career pivot in months so that you can better provide for your family—the Year of the Wood Snake is a great time to embrace transformation and lean into new tech skills and new opportunities.
Don’t worry, you’re not in it alone—we’re here to help every step of the way. You never know, it could open doors to opportunities you never even thought possible.
From all of us at GA,
Happy Lunar New Year