Honoring your 2025 challenges
And celebrating the smallest shifts.
As 2025 closes out, there’s often the temptation to reflect on the year in terms of goals and achievements, while small wins and the challenges get overlooked.
It’s all too easy to recognize all the goals that didn’t get fulfilled, the ideas that got stuck, and the moments of emotional distress that overwhelmed us…and to feel lousy because of all of it. What would shift if we actually embraced the challenges we went through?
Revisiting our tough moments opens a space to ask: how did I get through that? Even if it feels like you handled the challenge “poorly”, there was likely subtle growth. Without recognizing this growth, we can gridlock ourselves into constantly feeling like we’re not moving forward, deepen our inner criticism, and get restrained by negativity bias. We confuse progress with outcomes and fail to observe the forward momentum.
Acknowledging small shifts isn’t just a feel-good practice—there’s solid neuroscience showing how powerful it is. Each time you notice a tiny moment of progress, your brain reinforces the pathways involved in that behavior or thought pattern. Over time, these small recognitions can strengthen motivation, build self-trust, increase emotional resilience, and gradually create healthier habits.
It’s the steady accumulation of these micro-moments—not dramatic breakthroughs—that ultimately shapes meaningful change. Known as the compounding effect (similar to financial investing) when we engage in small, consistent actions, they eventually snowball into large results.
This is particularly true for re-wiring both the nervous system and the automatic negative narratives we hold. Both systems hold moments that feel like we’re “going backwards”, when in reality, our body and mind are simply diverting back to their versions of familiarity and safety. Re-training the nervous system to be safe and creating neutral, helpful, and compassionate self-talk take time, small steps, and gentle, constant practice.
Some examples of subtle but meaningful changes:
Times you calmed their body during stress, even if for a moment
Moments you were aware of your inner dialogue
Moments you challenged an unhelpful thought
Setting or maintaining a boundary (even a tiny one)
Pausing instead of reacting right away
Choosing rest over productivity-anxiety
Asking for support
Starting a project (even if left unfinished)
Asking for what you needed
Being able to observe body cues or emotional needs
Setting an intention
That last one is especially not to be overlooked. The fact that you’re getting this newsletter indicates that you’ve been on a journey to gain stability and deepen your wellness. Intentions are everything. They set you into motion.
As you look back on this year, consider your challenges and where you saw the most subtle growth. Where you did something just slightly differently than you did in the past. Celebrate the tiny wins, give yourself gratitude, and continue with the small steps. Growth rarely looks dramatic; often it’s quiet, gradual, and easy to dismiss. Scroll down for a framework on how to review this year’s challenges and identify the ways they helped you grow🩶.
How to Identify Growth Hidden in the Challenges
Take inventory of the challenges of this year— beginning with January, gently reflect on the year and the situations or moments pushed you, caused inner turmoil, felt deeply uncomfortable, or left you feeling stuck.
Reflect on the emotional experiences. Note down (without judgment or analyzing) which emotions came with these moments. Try to stay in observation mode rather than analysis: “sadness was here,” “fear showed up,” “I felt overwhelmed.” This helps shift from fusion with emotions to witnessing and acknowledging them with clarity.
Identify how your emotions linked to what is important to you. For example, if world events left you feeling hopeless, sad, and angry, what does that indicate about what is important to you— advocacy, human rights, environmental care, etc.? If a personal relationship became tense, what values felt misaligned? If anxiety constantly took over, what was it around?
Identify how you coped. Bring awareness to any way you responded, even the smallest action or inner movement. For example:
choosing not to react impulsively
setting or considering a boundary
taking a mindful pause
asking for help
journaling or self-reflecting
noticing what an emotion felt like in your body
staying loosely on track with routines or habits despite turmoil
Be very generous with yourself in this step and set aside tangible, outcome-driven “solutions”. Notice how you managed the situation in a more intentional way as compared to past years. This step invites you to widen your definition of adaptive coping and recognize your inner resources.
Connect your coping to values. For example, personal growth, courage, curiosity, self-compassion, hope. What inner attunement came with managing the situation(s)?
Reframe any narratives that are deeply self-critical and unhelpful, such as “I should have handled this better”, “I failed at this”. Acknowledging our missteps is useful, only if done with a gentle tone and openness to change, rather than a harsh, beating-yourself-up dialogue. Reframe any narratives and/or tones to create flexibility and empowerment to move forward in a different way.
Acknowledge how you showed up in the face of these challenges, even if it wasn’t the most ideal response. Give yourself credit for any effort made, and gratitude for the subtle shifts, small wins, and tiny coping responses.
Bonus step: consider how you want to keep showing up in alignment with your values in the face of challenge, moving forward. Ask yourself: How do I want to show up next year when difficult moments arise? Choose one or two values to guide your future actions. Keep the intentions gentle, spacious, and flexible—something you can return to when life gets messy.
