The End of the Year Is Not a Performance Review

Endings do funny things to us.

The big ones. A job loss. A breakup. Losing someone you love. They crack something open and suddenly we’re asking real questions. Who am I now? What matters? How do I want to show up?

Then there’s New Year’s.

Same language. Very different energy.

Somewhere along the way, December 31 turned into a full-blown self-evaluation exercise. This is my chance to finally do the thing. Use the gym membership. Eat like an adult. Write the novel. Become a more optimized version of myself. Or maybe that's just me. <shrug>

If you’re even a little analytic, this time of year adds another layer. You want to take inventory. You want to assign a score. You want to decide whether the year was “good.”

Not surprising that my brain doesn’t ease into this gently.
Initial rating: minus 100.

That’s not because nothing good happened. It’s because humans are excellent at spotting gaps and terrible at noticing what quietly worked. We replay mistakes. We skim past stability. We discount the mundane because it doesn’t feel impressive.

But the mundane is doing more work than we admit.

Most nights this year, I sat on the couch with my husband and watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Same shows. Same couch. Same rhythm. Nothing remarkable happened.

And yet.

That routine is a gift. One I will almost certainly miss someday. It counts, whether or not I thought to count it.

When real endings hit, we often soften. We look back with more generosity. We notice what mattered once it’s no longer guaranteed.

What if the end of the year didn’t require quite so much self-criticism to count.

The end of the year is a point in time.
It’s not a verdict.

My wish for you, as this year closes, is a little more self-compassion and a little less self-criticism. I hope you’re able to notice the gold mixed in with the silt. The ordinary moments that held you up. The things that quietly mattered, even if they didn’t sparkle. And consider how you want to carry those things with you into the new year.