Choosing Grace over Pressure

I’ve always loved New Year’s resolutions. Every January, I fell into the same cycle of trying to reinvent myself, start fresh, and create a long list of goals that I needed to accomplish by year end. Save “X” amount of money, apply to grad school, buy a house, etc. Every goal that I created needed to have physical proof of its accomplishment. My whole identity became the things that I could show for my hard work.

In 2025, I was a new mom but still pulled my white board out to write down everything I needed to accomplish by December 31, 2025. But my year didn’t go according to plan. In all honesty, I neglected to think about how much my life would change with a baby. So when December came around, I was overcome with sadness. Feelings of being a failure and trying to think back to what I did with my year.

But with a little distance, I realized something important: I ACTUALLY HAD DONE SO MUCH. It just didn’t look like the kind of progress that I used to measure. My growth wasn’t living on a spreadsheet or the white board on my wall. It was happening in the quiet moments, the messy moments, the moments where I was learning to be someone’s mother while still trying to remember how to be myself.

2025 was not about checking boxes. It was about adapting. It was about late nights, early mornings, figuring out things as I went, trusting myself, and giving love even when I felt like I had no more to give. It was about navigating a new season.

By the end of December, I realized that my worth doesn’t come from what I accomplish or produce. It comes from who I am becoming. And becoming takes time. More time than we often give ourselves permission to take.

So as we are halfway into January 2026, I am releasing the idea that a new year means reinvention and rebuilding. I’m not starting over. I’m continuing. Im choosing grace over goals, presence over performance, and gentleness over pressure. If you’re reading this and feeling heaviness of “I didn’t do enough,” I hope that you know that you are allowed to be proud of quieter victories. You are allowed to honor the unseen growth. You are allowed to be enough, exactly as you are, right now.