Some years aren’t for winning. They’re for not falling apart.
In our achievement-driven culture, we’re programmed to always be looking for growth, expansion, and never-ending progress. That’s true in business, relationships, personal development, and health.
But some years aren’t about growth curves, promotions, or reinvention arcs.
Some years are about getting through the day without falling apart, then doing it again tomorrow.
And yet, we almost never talk about that version of success.
We’ve Over-Romanticized “Thriving”
Scroll social media for five minutes at this time of year and you’ll see:
- “Best year ever.”
- “Quantum leap.”
- “Built a seven-figure business while running marathons and meditating at sunrise.”
If you’ve had that kind of banner year, good for you! Truly! That’s awesome.
But no one posts:
- My marriage fell apart this year.
- My business sucked wads.
- Everything about this year was a struggle.
Some years you don’t build.
You endure.
And endurance doesn’t photograph well.
Survival doesn’t come with tidy before-and-after shots or punchy soundbites. It looks like showing up to meetings while your personal life is on fire. It looks like functioning on the outside while grieving, divorcing, caregiving, healing, or rebuilding your sense of self from the ground up.
If that was you this year, you didn’t fall behind.
You were doing the hardest work there is.
Survival Is a Skill (And an Underrated One)
Let’s reframe this.
Survival isn’t passive. It’s not weakness. It doesn’t mean you’re “stuck.”
Survival means:
- You regulated yourself when everything felt unstable.
- You made decisions while exhausted, scared, or unsure.
- You kept going without certainty, applause, or clarity.
That takes discipline.
That takes emotional intelligence.
That takes resilience most people never have to develop.
When you’re in crisis or in a life transition, the goal isn’t optimization.
The goal is stability.
And stability is the foundation everything else is built on.
You don’t scale when the ground is shaking.
You stabilize first.
The Lie That Keeps People Ashamed
Here’s the lie that does real damage:
“If I didn’t grow, I wasted the year.”
Or, even worse,
"If I lost (my marriage, money, home, friends) this year, I'm a failure."
No. You survived. You got through it.
Sometimes the win is not making things worse.
Sometimes the win is:
- Not blowing up your business while you were going through a divorce..
- Not quitting when quitting would have felt easier.
- Not abandoning yourself to meet someone else’s expectations.
There are seasons for expansion.
There are seasons for contraction.
And there are seasons when just maintaining the status quo is an accomplishment.
All are necessary. Only one gets celebrated.
Redefining Success After Crisis or a Life Transition
If you’re coming out of a hard season - a divorce, burnout, illness, grief, identity upheaval - then success for you needs a different definition.
Success might look like:
- Learning how to sit with discomfort instead of numbing it.
- Saying “No” more often, even when it disappoints people.
- Realizing the old version of you can’t carry what you’re building next.
That’s not stagnation.
That’s recalibration.
You don’t leap forward without first re-anchoring.
The Invisible Work Counts (Even If No One Clapped)
In our society, you don’t get bonus points for suffering quietly.
But healing, detaching, letting go, getting through a major life transition, and rebuilding trust with yourself - those are invisible wins. They don’t trend. They don’t fit neatly on a résumé.
But they change everything that comes next.
You’re Not Behind. You’re Between Chapters.
If this year stripped things away instead of adding them, you’re not broken.
You’re in a threshold season.
The space between who you were and who you’re becoming is always uncomfortable. It’s disorienting. It messes with your confidence. It makes comparison feel brutal.
But it’s also where clarity forms.
You can’t build a future out of chaos. First, you have to stop the spinning. Only then can you get quiet. Only then can you build something new.
What Comes After Survival?
Survival isn’t the destination. It’s the bridge.
Once you’re steady again - emotionally, mentally, financially - that’s when your momentum returns.
And here’s the paradox:
People who allow themselves to honor the survival years that always accompany a major life transition often grow faster later … because they’re no longer dragging unresolved weight behind them.
They move more easily.
They choose better.
They stop proving and start building with intention.
A Final Reframe
So if you went through a major life transition this year, like a divorce, a job loss, or the death of someone you loved, and you’re tempted to dismiss this year as a loss, pause.
Ask yourself:
- What did I carry that no one saw?
- What did I survive that would have broken the old version of me?
- What foundations did I quietly rebuild?
If all you did this year was survive, that counts.
More than counts.
It means you’re still here.
Still standing.
Still capable of creating what comes next, when the season is right.
And that is NOT failure.
That’s strength in its most honest form.
