I’ve been reluctant to write this post. I have a history of writing blog posts where I announce my mental health has improved. But it never quite sticks.

The last 16 months have been the most challenging time of my life. Without going into detail, I faced a series of personal crises which compounded. My own personal Kepler Syndrome. It felt like every time I thought things were finished breaking, something new would go wrong.

But things didn’t just go wrong. A lot of things went right.

The most important thing I did throughout this time – the thing that has helped and continues to help the most – has been to become a student of my self. I’ve gained a deeper understanding of myself than I knew was possible.

Growth can’t happen without discomfort. It’s true when we grow from children to adults; it’s true when we physically train; it’s true when we learn new professional skills; and, it’s true when we grow as a person.

I didn’t need my life to unravel in order to embrace this kind of growth, but I think that the pain and discomfort of last 16 months made it easier to look at the hard problems. It had been difficult to acknowledge the problems I had been avoiding while I was relatively comfortable. But it became much easier once I no longer had a stake in that (illusory) comfort.

I don’t have solutions to all the problems, but I no longer need everything to be solved.

There is a growing pushback among my generation to New Year’s Resolutions. The mantra of “New Year, new me” is being rightfully dismantled as unrealistic and self-defeating.

And that’s great, I fully support it.

But I woke up this year, literally looked at myself in the mirror, and I realized that I had already grown into a new person. A more authentic me. It’s not that a New Year will spur me on to become a “new me”, but that hard work and an open heart have already led me down that path.

New Year, new me.