Every once in a while, life hands you a question so clear it almost stings: If the next twelve months looked like the last one, would you be proud of where you end up?
It’s an uncomfortable question, mostly because it leaves no place to hide. It doesn’t ask whether you’re busy or trying hard or moving fast. It cuts straight to the truth: is the life you’re living, right now, the life you actually want to build?
Most of the time, we confuse motion with progress. We fill our days with meetings, messages, and momentum, convincing ourselves that effort equals meaning. But movement without alignment is just drift. And drift is the slowest, quietest way to lose your way – not by a single dramatic misstep, but by a thousand small days where you let urgency crowd out importance.
When I look back at the people and organizations I’ve had the privilege of working with – those building companies, communities, or causes they’re deeply proud of – a pattern is clear. It’s not the ones who hustle the hardest or set the most aggressive goals who create lasting change. It’s the ones who live by design, not by default. The ones who are willing to stop, mid-stride, and ask themselves: is this still the right race?
They understand something that sounds obvious but is surprisingly rare: you don’t become your aspirations. You become your habits. The life you want isn’t waiting for a future version of you to suddenly emerge – it’s quietly being built, in the invisible decisions you make today. In how you spend your attention. In what you choose to nurture. In what you choose to ignore.
And here’s the quiet truth we don’t talk about enough: twelve months is a long time. Long enough to change your trajectory. Long enough to realign your work with your deeper values. Long enough to not just dream differently, but live differently.
But change doesn’t happen when we’re looking for perfect clarity or perfect timing. It happens when we decide, even with imperfect information and messy circumstances, to stop drifting. It happens when we are willing to see today not as an isolated moment, but as a seed.
Of course, not every month will be dramatic. Some months are about planting, others about pruning. Some are full of breakthroughs; others feel like a long, slow tending to invisible roots. That’s life. But there’s a difference between patiently building something meaningful and staying busy to avoid uncomfortable questions. Deep down, we can feel the difference.
If you were to string twelve more months together like the one you just lived, where would you land? Would you find yourself closer to the kind of work, relationships, impact you hope for? Or would you have simply gotten better at surviving a life you don’t love?
Pride – the real kind, the kind that lives quietly inside – doesn’t come from external trophies. It comes from knowing you lived awake. That you didn’t sleepwalk through a year of your life. That you chose, even when it was hard, even when it was easier to coast, to live in a way that felt true.
Twelve months will pass no matter what. There will be distractions. There will be detours. Life won’t slow down to give you a more convenient starting line. But right now, there’s a small window – a moment between reflection and action – where you can decide what the next chapter will feel like when you look back.
Not perfect. Not easy. Not always certain. But purposeful.
And maybe, just maybe, enough to be proud of.