Did I Do Enough?

There’s this question that always seems to creep in around November.
Quietly.
Sideways.
Like it’s trying not to spook us:

Did I do enough this year?

Not in a dramatic way — more like a subtle tightening in the chest.
A mental tally.
A comparison to… no one in particular, and yet everyone at once.

I felt that exact feeling this week on a group coaching walk around King’s Cross with @aniseb.
It was my first time doing anything like that — walking and talking, no small talk, no awkward name badges — just fresh air and honest conversation.
My kind of networking.

We were asked a question:
“What have you experimented with this year?”

Not:
What did you achieve?
What did you finish?
What did you tie up neatly?
How well did you juggle everything?

Just:
What did you try? What did you play with? What did you poke at to see what would happen?

And something shifted in me.

Because if I measure my year by finishing, then no, I didn’t do enough.
Not even close.
There were loose ends everywhere.
Still are.

But if I measure my year by experiments, by how it felt to try new things without a roadmap…
then I did more than I realised.

Here are some of the things I “didn’t plan for but somehow did anyway”:

✨ Midday showers and baths vs first thing in the am, which helped me to rest & take a proper lunch break.
✨ Sending a book pitch when I still wasn’t ready and now publishing a book in 2026 (must write it lols).
✨ SMUG Mints with @annikisommerville, a little fun side project to keep us both sane.
✨ Learning to build scrappy little apps on Replit and surprising myself every time.
✨ Diving into Pinterest and YouTube, new worlds, new muscles.
✨ Stretching on the floor before bed because my gut felt sluggish and I wanted to try something gentle.
✨ Softly brushing my hair each night, this tiny ritual I didn’t know I needed.
✨ Hand massages in bed, which made me realise how much my hands do.
✨ Shorter, easier runs, because the long ones bored the life out of me.
✨ Nude nails, which felt like a small personal rebrand.

None of this was part of a strategy.
None of it was on a vision board.
None of it was something I “finished.”

And then I remembered something else:
Back in January, during our intention-setting workshop, I literally could not set a single intention.
Nothing came.
Not one.

It felt strange, like something was wrong with me.
But maybe it wasn’t wrong.
Maybe it was the firstsign that this year wasn’t meant to be tightly planned.
It was meant to unfold.

And well,
A lot unfolded.

What the Honest Wellness Index is showing us

Women keep telling us the same things:

“I feel guilty for not doing more.”
“I’m carrying so much.”
“I’m spread thin.”
“I haven’t looked after myself enough.”

We’re exhausted.
Not because we didn’t do enough…
but because we kept trying to “finish” things in a life that never stops moving.

We judge ourselves on completion,
when maybe the real story is in the experiments, the courage, the small curiosities that kept us going.

Maybe the better question isn’t:

Did I do enough this year?

Maybe it’s:
How did this year feel?
What did I try?
Where did I surprise myself?
What tiny thing opened something in me?

Because life isn’t wrapped up in a bow in November.
It’s not finished.
It’s mid-sentence.

And it doesn't need to feel tidy, or finished either.