The end of the year has a peculiar way of putting people on trial. Suddenly, timelines are filled with lists: milestones reached, goals smashed, dreams manifested, bodies transformed, businesses scaled, love found, joy multiplied. It is celebratory on the surface, but beneath, something quieter happens. End-of-year reflections can gently shame some people. They can intimidate. They can make some feel small, behind, or invisible. Sometimes, they can even tempt people to exaggerate, to polish the truth, to tell a slightly shinier story than the one they actually lived, not because people are dishonest by nature, but because nobody wants to admit that their year didn’t look triumphant. There is an untold truth we don’t say loudly enough at this time of year: it is okay if all you did was survive.

Speaking honestly, on some level, I feel like I belong in that category. This year did not arrive wrapped in neat victories or dramatic ‘before and after’ moments. Much of it required endurance – holding on, staying present and keeping faith with myself even when the outcomes were unclear. Yet, this is where the truth becomes somewhat layered still — survival was not the only thing happening. My theme for the year was juxtaposition. Life has a way of doing that: placing growth alongside grief, clarity alongside confusion, hope alongside fatigue. While surviving, I was also becoming. While holding on, I was also letting go. While standing still, I was quietly re-learning how to move differently.

There were new ideas. New approaches. New ways of seeing familiar things, especially detours. What once felt like delays or wrong turns began to reveal themselves as transformation opportunities – not glamorous ones or Instagram-ready ones, but honest ones. I learned this: when you plant a seed, you do not dig it up every day to check if it has roots. You plant it, you water it, you protect the soil, and then you wait. Some of us spend entire years digging up what we planted too soon, convinced that if we can’t see growth, nothing is happening. The thing is growth doesn’t announce itself loudly. Roots form in darkness. Strength is built underground. Some plants take longer than others, and that doesn’t make them failures; it makes them deep. This has been my biggest takeaway of the year. Not everything needs proof. Not everything needs applause.

Not everything needs a caption. Some seasons are about trust, about allowing unseen work to take place without interference, about resisting the urge to measure progress by external markers alone.

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So when I look back on this year, I don’t ask myself, ‘What did I achieve?’

I ask, ‘What did I survive? What did I learn to see differently? What seeds did I plant that I am now brave enough to leave alone?’

Maybe that’s a better question for all of us as the year closes. What do you think?

If your year was loud and victorious, celebrate it genuinely. If your year was quiet, heavy, uncertain, or humbling, please know this: you are not behind. You are not late. You are not lacking. You are not required to perform a miracle just because the calendar is changing. Sometimes the bravest thing you do all year is stay. Stay curious. Stay kind.

Stay alive to possibility, even when nothing looks certain yet.

SuSo here is the untold truth I want to leave you with as the year ends:

If all you did was survive, that is not a failure. That is a foundation. Those seeds you planted…you planted quietly, imperfectly, patiently, they are not dead. They are just growing where no one can see them yet.

What did you survive this year?

See you next week.

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