January arrives with optimism. New year energy. Fresh possibilities. A belief that this could finally be the year things change. And every January, I watch people respond to that optimism the same way. By adding.

More workouts. More structure. More goals. More commitments. More pressure to transform. We add healthier meals. We add more family time. We add more career focus. We add more boundaries. We add more growth. Somewhere along the way, transformation becomes a list instead of a direction.

But what no one talks about enough is this: You can only receive what you actually have space for. You don’t have unlimited energy. You have 100 percent. That’s it.  Not 120. Not 200. Not grind harder and magically find more.

Your body knows this even if your calendar ignores it. Your nervous system knows it even if your ambition doesn’t want to admit it. When you try to pour more into a cup that’s already full, something spills. Usually it’s your peace. Or your consistency. Or your health.

What I’ve learned over time is that most people don’t need more motivation. They need clarity. Not more goals, but priority. Not more opportunity, but discernment.

So this January, instead of asking what you’re going to add, I want to offer something different. What if this year becomes a season of no.

No to things that drain you. No to things that distract you. No to things that look good on paper but don’t feel right in your body. And to make this real, here’s how you actually do it.

Identify your one true priority and protect it

Most people struggle with saying no because they haven’t clearly said yes to anything first. When everything matters, nothing actually does. Pick one priority for this season. Not 10. One.  Once you identify it, everything else gets filtered through that lens. Does this support my priority, or does it compete with it?

Earlier this year, I had two leases in my hands. One for Shaw and one for National Landing in Virginia. From the outside, the move felt obvious. Growth is celebrated. Expansion is rewarded. More locations look like success. But my gut and my nervous system told me I couldn’t do both.

Saying no felt like failure at first. It felt like I was slowing down when I was supposed to be speeding up. But what I was really doing was choosing alignment over optics.

I knew what I was capable of thriving in. I knew my limits. I knew my personal life mattered. My boyfriend mattered. My family mattered. My physical health mattered. My mental health mattered. Looking back now, saying no was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself and for my team.

If something feels forced, rushed, or misaligned, trust that signal. If it’s meant for you, it will come back when the timing is right.

Look inside before you look outside

So many of us are chasing who we think we’re supposed to be— who the city needs us to be. Who social media rewards. Who our resume says we should become next. But clarity doesn’t come from noise. It comes from stillness. Moments of silence. Moments of gratitude. Moments where your nervous system can settle. Your body already knows who you are long before your ego tries to upgrade you.  

One of the most powerful phrases I ever practiced was simple: You are enough.

I said it for years before I believed it. And when I finally did, everything shifted. I stopped chasing growth just to prove something. I stopped adding just to feel worthy.  I could maintain. I could breathe. I could be OK where I was.

Gerard from Baltimore was enough. Anything else I added became extra.

Turning 40 made this clearer than ever. My twenties were about finding myself. My thirties were about proving myself. My forties are about being myself.

I wish I knew then what I know now. I hope the 20 year olds catch it early. I hope the 30 year olds don’t wait as long as I did.

Because the only way to truly say yes to yourself is by saying no first.

Remove more than you add

Before you write your resolutions, try this. If you plan to add three things this year, identify six things you’re willing to remove. Habits. Distractions. Commitments. Energy leaks.

Maybe growth doesn’t look like expansion for you this year. Maybe it looks like focus. Maybe it looks like honoring your limits. January isn’t asking you to become superhuman. It’s asking you to become intentional. And sometimes the most powerful word you can say for your future is no.

With love always, Coach G.

Gerard Burley, also known as Coach G, is founder and CEO of Sweat DC.

Gay Alexandria City Council member Kirk McPike emerged as the clearcut winner in a hastily called Jan. 20 “firehouse” Democratic primary for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Alexandria.

McPike, who was one of two gay candidates running in the four-candidate primary, received 1,279 votes or 60.5 percent, far ahead of gay public school teacher Gregory Darrall, a political newcomer who received 60 votes or 3 percent. 

Former Alexandria City School Board member Eileen Cassidy Rivera came in second place with 508 votes or 24 percent and Northern Virginia criminal law defense attorney Chris Leibig finished in third place with 265 votes or 12.5 percent.

Each of the candidates expressed strong support for LGBTQ-related issues.

With less than a week’s notice, Democratic Party officials in Alexandria called the primary to select a Democratic nominee to run in the Feb. 10 special election to fill the 5^th District House of Delegates seat being vacated by state Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker (D-Alexandria).

Bennett-Parker won the Democratic nomination for the Virginia State Senate seat being vacated by gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria), who is resigning from his seat to take a position in the administration of Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who took office on Jan. 17.

 Bennett-Parker won the nomination for Ebbin’s state Senate seat in yet another firehouse primary on Jan. 13 in which she defeated three other candidates, including gay former state Del. Mark Levine.

 McPike, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate, first won election to the Alexandria City Council in 2021. He has served for 13 years as chief of staff for gay U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.) and has remained in that position during his tenure on the Alexandria Council. He told the Washington Blade he will continue as chief of staff until next month, when he will resign from that position before taking office in the House of Delegates.

He received the endorsement of Ebbin, U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), and the LGBTQ Victory Fund in his race for the 5^th District Va. House seat. Being an overwhelmingly Democratic district, virtually all political observers expect McPike to win the Feb. 10 special election. 

He will be running against Republican nominee Mason Butler, a local business executive who emerged as the only GOP candidate running for the delegate seat.

“Thank you to the voters of Alexandria for choosing me as the Democratic nominee in the House of Delegates District 5,” McPike said in a statement released shortly after the vote count was completed. “It is an incredible honor to have the opportunity to fight for our community and its values in Richmond,” he said.

“I look forward to continuing to work to address our housing crisis, the challenge of climate change, and the damaging impacts of the Trump administration on the immigrant families, LGBTQ+ Virginians, and federal employees who call Alexandria home,” he stated.

He praised Ebbin for his longstanding support for the LGBTQ community in the Virginia Legislature and added, “If elected to the House of Delegates in the Feb. 10 general election, I will continue to fight to protect the rights and freedoms of LGBTQ+ Virginians from my new position in Richmond.”

Gay candidate Darrall’s campaign website said he is a “proud progressive, lifelong educator, and labor leader running to put people first.” It says he is a political newcomer “with more than 20 years in the classroom” as a teacher who played a key role in the successful unionization of Fairfax Public Schools.

“He is a proud member and staunch supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community,” his website statement said.

Jessica Stern, the former special U.S. envoy for the promotion of LGBTQ and intersex rights, on the eve of the first anniversary of the Trump-Vance administration said its foreign policy has “hurt people” around the world.

“The changes that they are making will take a long time to overturn and recover from,” she said on Jan. 14 during a virtual press conference the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, a group she co-founded, co-organized.

Amnesty International USA National Director of Government Relations and Advocacy Amanda Klasing, Human Rights Watch Deputy Washington Director Nicole Widdersheim, Human Rights First President Uzra Zeya, PEN America’s Jonathan Friedman, and Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Federal Policy Council Liz McCaman Taylor also participated in the press conference.

The Trump-Vance administration took office on Jan. 20, 2025.

The White House proceeded to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, which funded LGBTQ and intersex rights organizations around the world.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio last March announced the State Department would administer the 17 percent of USAID contracts that had not been cancelled. Rubio issued a waiver that allowed PEPFAR and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the U.S. foreign aid freeze the White House announced shortly after it took office.

The global LGBTQ and intersex rights movement has lost more than an estimated $50 million in funding because of the cuts. The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down.

Stern noted the State Department “has dismantled key parts of foreign policy infrastructure that enabled the United States to support democracy and human rights abroad” and its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor “has effectively been dismantled.” She also pointed out her former position and others — the Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, and the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice — “have all been eliminated.”

President Donald Trump on Jan. 7 issued a memorandum that said the U.S. will withdraw from the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women and more than 60 other U.N. and international entities.

Rubio in a Jan. 10 Substack post said UN Women failed “to define what a woman is.”

“At a time when we desperately need to support women — all women — this is yet another example of the weaponization of transgender people by the Trump administration,” said Stern.

US ‘conducting enforced disappearances’

The Jan. 14 press conference took place a week after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman who left behind her wife and three children, in Minneapolis. American forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at their home in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, during an overnight operation. Trump also continues to insist the U.S. needs to gain control of Greenland.

Widdersheim during the press conference noted the Trump-Vance administration last March sent 252 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center, a maximum-security prison known by the Spanish acronym CECOT.

One of them, Andry Hernández Romero, is a gay asylum seeker who the White House claimed was a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang the Trump-Vance administration has designated as an “international terrorist organization.” Hernández upon his return to Venezuela last July said he suffered physical, sexual, and psychological abuse while at CECOT.

“In 2025 … the United States is conducting enforced disappearances,” said Widdersheim.

Zeya, who was Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights from 2021-2025, in response to the Blade’s question during the press conference said her group and other advocacy organizations have “got to keep doubling down in defense of the rule of law, to hold this administration to account.”