A lot of change is coming for Hoda Kotb in 2025 as she prepares to say goodbye to the Today show next week, marking the end of a 26-year career at NBC.
On Thursday’s (January 2) episode of the long-running morning talk show, Kotb chatted with mental wellness advocate and motivational speaker Yasmine Cheyenne about ways people can approach bettering themselves in the new year.
“I think it’s scary to restart,” Kotb admitted. “Somebody gave me some good advice once. They said when you are taking a leap or a jump, you have to imagine yourself on the other side.”
She continued, “You have to know what you’d feel like in that new relationship, what his hand would feel like in yours. Or how you would feel in a new job. It’s almost like imagining what your new life would feel like when you repot or start over again.”
Kotb made the announcement she would be leaving the Today show back on September 26, telling her co-hosts and viewers, “It was such a monumental moment for me when I turned 60 years old because I started thinking about that decade like, what does that decade mean? What does it hold? What’s it going to have for me? And I realized that it was time for me to turn the page at 60 and to try something new.”
Ahead of her final day on the show next Friday, January 10, Kotb has been opening up about her future. In a pre-taped conversation with her co-host Jenna Bush Hager that aired on Today‘s fourth hour on New Year’s Day, Kotb said her word for the new year is “community.”
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“I’ve noticed about myself that I’m more about doing things in community with people… I just decided that I like community better,” she explained. “I go to workout classes — even if I’m not having big conversations, I’m around people who are feeling the same vibe.”
In her chat with Cheyenne on Thursday’s show, Kotb brought up another word that could impact her 2025. “A friend of mine said her word was ‘enough,’” she said. “I have enough, I am enough, this is enough. That feels good, too.”
Speaking with People back in October, Kotb revealed she wants to focus more on her two young children — Haley (7) and Hope (5) — with whom she shares with ex-fiance Joel Schiffman.
“I’ve been watching my kids, and I was thinking to myself, I wonder what I’m missing?” she told the outlet. “I knew that I wanted this decade to be different. I looked at my time like a pie. I was like, this is how much time I get, and now what am I going to do with it and how am I going to carve it up? And I wanted it to be filled with more of them.”
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