Final Reflection
Did You Thrive in 2025?
This is not a verdict. It’s a moment of integration. After reflecting on emotions, flexibility, connection, and meaning, this final post invites you to gather what you’ve noticed; not to judge it, but to understand it. Thriving is not something you either did or didn’t do. It’s something you practice in conditions that are rarely ideal. Before moving forward, pause here.
Integration Exercise
Read both sentences slowly. Notice what happens in your body before choosing.
☐ In 2025, I didn’t thrive because I failed.
☐ In 2025, I didn’t thrive because I was human in a demanding world.
If the first sentence feels familiar, that’s not a flaw; it’s conditioning. Many of us have learned to interpret exhaustion, struggle, or emotional overwhelm as personal shortcomings.
Now, intentionally choose the second sentence.
Not because it’s comforting, but because it’s accurate. Living through a demanding year while maintaining any degree of integrity, care, or connection is not failure. It is evidence of effort under pressure.
Now ask yourself:
What would thriving look like if I supported myself better?
Not if the world were easier. Not if you were more disciplined or more positive. But if your needs were taken seriously. Write without editing. Let the answer be imperfect.
What This Question Really Asks
This isn’t about designing a “better version” of yourself.
It’s about identifying:
Where support was missing
Where expectations were unrealistic
Where your system asked for care and didn’t receive it
Thriving often becomes possible not when we add more, but when we stop abandoning ourselves to keep up.
Bridge to 2026: Preparing for Get Your Kicks in 2026
Most New Year transitions are built on pressure: resolutions, reinvention, self-correction. This one is built on orientation. Instead of asking, What should I fix?
We’ll ask, What helps me feel alive, grounded, and present in my own life? Before the next series begins, choose three anchors; not as rules, but as supports.
Choose:
One value to anchor the year
Something that matters to you, even when life is busy or hard.
Examples: steadiness, honesty, curiosity, care, spaciousness.
Value: _______________________
One habit that supports mental health
Not a transformation, just a practice that helps your nervous system or attention.
Examples: stepping outside daily, journaling for five minutes, weekly check-ins, protected rest.
Habit: _______________________
One boundary that protects your energy
Something you will do less of, say no to, or stop pushing through automatically.
Boundary: _______________________
What We’re Working on in the New Year
As you move from reflection into 2026, The Thrive Guide will offer research-informed series designed to help you understand yourself, your relationships, and your inner life, without turning growth into self-surveillance.
Here’s what’s coming:
Get Your Kicks in 2026
A year-long orientation to living more fully.
A series focused on attention, meaning, curiosity, and choice, centered on what makes life feel inhabitable rather than optimized.
The Edge of Performance: New Frontiers in Sport Psychology
Beyond grit, mindset, and mental toughness.
An evidence-based series exploring the newest research in sport psychology, neuroscience, and embodiment, revealing how performance emerges from systems, not willpower.
The Caregiver Trap
When responsibility quietly turns into resentment.
An exploration of unspoken expectations, control, and urgency in caregiving roles, and how to interrupt burnout cycles without guilt.
The Truth About Intrusive Thoughts
Why your mind does this, and how to relate to it differently
Beyond control, suppression, and shame. An evidence-based exploration of intrusive thoughts, attention, and meditation, grounded in neuroscience, clinical psychology, and contemplative practice.
Outer Banks: A Psychological Deep Dive
Risk, belonging, and identity under pressure.
An exploration of class, loyalty, trauma, and impulsivity, and how young people search for meaning and safety in unstable environments.
What Love Really Is: New Frontiers in Understanding Human Connection
Beyond romance, attachment styles, and feel-good myths.
An evidence-based series integrating cutting-edge research in psychology, neuroscience, and relational science with ancient wisdom traditions. From Plato and the Upanishads to Toltec teachings, to explore what love actually is, how it develops, how it breaks down, and how it can be practiced with clarity rather than illusion.
Excuses vs. Reasons
Learning the difference between avoidance and self-respect.
A psychologically grounded look at how we explain our behavior, when “excuses” are protective, and how clarity, not shame, supports change.
Bridgerton: A Psychological Deep Dive
Attachment, desire, and social performance in intimate relationships.
A media-psychology exploration of longing, regulation, family systems, and identity beneath the romance and spectacle.
Putting the Psyche Back Into Psychology
Reclaiming mind, meaning, and consciousness in a field shaped by behavior.
A grounded, research-informed exploration of how psychology moved away from the psyche and how contemporary science is beginning to reintegrate subjective experience, consciousness, and inner life without abandoning rigor.
Scrubs: A Psychological Deep Dive
Humor, grief, and meaning-making in caregiving professions.
A reflective analysis of emotional labor, burnout, friendship, and coping through comedy in high-stakes helping roles.
Psychological Wounds: How We’re Shaped, Scarred, and Still Becoming
Adaptation, attachment, and survival beneath the surface.
An exploration of psychological wounds beyond simple mother and father narratives, examining how unmet needs, emotional absence, relational ruptures, powerlessness, and identity suppression shape the nervous system, self-concept, and relationships across the lifespan.
What You’re Curious About Matters
This guide isn’t meant to be one-directional. If there’s a topic you keep thinking about, something you wish existed as a thoughtful, research-informed series, we’d love to hear it.
That might include:
a show, book, or cultural moment you want unpacked
a psychological concept you want explained without jargon
a pattern you keep noticing in yourself or your relationships
or a question you don’t see addressed thoughtfully elsewhere
You don’t need to polish the idea. Curiosity is enough. You can reply to this post, leave a comment, or message anytime. Your questions help shape what comes next.
A Final Word Before 2026
You don’t need to engage with everything. You don’t need to reinvent yourself. You’re allowed to move into the next year with curiosity instead of correction; with attention instead of urgency.
One last prompt to carry forward:
In 2026, I want to feel more ______ than I did in 2025.
That answer is enough to begin. This is where Get Your Kicks in 2026 starts, not with pressure, but with presence.