Radiant: Thoughts on being seen before you feel ready

New Year’s resolutions are not something I enjoy, so when I heard my friend Caroline from Leap Lab speak about her process for choosing a word of the year, it sounded more like me.

Not a goal. Not a resolution. A word to anchor my decisions and actions.

A word I can quietly reference when life feels noisy or when I’m tempted to wait (procrastinate?) a little longer before taking action.

After some journalling and quiet time at one of my favourite beaches, I landed on Radiant.

Not radiant as in shiny or perfect or always confident… but radiant in a deeper, steadier way — the kind of expansiveness that comes from being present in your own life, from being in motion without waiting for certainty to arrive first.

There is an unmistakable energy when someone trusts themselves enough to keep going. They aren’t performing, they are becoming and allowing themselves to be seen even if they don’t have it all together right now. They let who they are now be enough to take the next step.

The more I thought about it, weighing it against other options, Radiant seemed like a great fit for where I am now and where I want to go this year. It’s not the absence of doubt or fear or self-consciousness, it’s what happens when you accept yourself as enough.

We can get so stuck thinking that confidence is needed before we can move. More often than not it’s movement that creates the confidence. Waiting until you feel ready keeps you stuck - watching, preparing, imagining — missing opportunities.

I see this pattern all the time in the way people talk about photographs, or the way they talk about their bodies, or the way they talk about being visible in their own business marketing.

“I’ll do it when I feel more confident.”
“I just don’t feel ready yet.”
“Maybe later, when things feel more settled.”

In many ways it’s a form of self-protection, but I think there is also a cost. What if it means you end up withholding yourself from your own life.

Radiance doesn’t live there.

It lives in the moment you allow yourself to be witnessed — not for who you think you should be, but for who you actually are in this season of your life. That choice alone creates a shift. Something softens. Something steadies. You stop hovering at the edge and step into experiences instead.

I think this is why being photographed can feel like more than just having your picture taken.

It asks something of you.
It asks for presence, not mere performance.
To show up without armour and allow yourself to be seen while still feeling insecure.
It asks you to trust that you have the right to exist in the frame, exactly as you are. You don’t have to do more to “earn” that right.

When someone says yes to that (even tentatively) I often see a quiet recalibration. Not because the camera changed them, but because they allowed themselves to stay instead of retreat. They chose motion over waiting and participation over observation. They showed up.

That choice is brave.
That choice has power.

It’s the same energy that can be seen when someone leads imperfectly and speaks from the heart. There is a particular kind of radiance that emerges from honesty and allowing yourself to be real.

This year, I am using Radiant as an invitation to trust – to shine brighter and hide less.

To trust that clarity is created by movement.
To trust that being seen as I am is not a risk, but an opportunity.
To trust that I don’t have to become someone else before taking up space.

Not because I feel completely ready, but because I’m here – and that feels like enough.