On Kindness, Humility, and the Year I Became Someone I Like

I used to think strength looked like exhaustion personified. Like being the busiest, the most worn-out, the one with the longest to-do list and the least sleep. I wore being tired like a badge of honor. If someone asked how I was, I think half the time I believed the honest answer was “busy” or “stressed.” I thought that proved something. I thought it meant I was working hard and doing more than everyone else.

But this past year taught me something very different:

You don’t have to fight yourself to prove your worth. You have to be kind to yourself to discover it.

This year didn’t make me stronger in the way people usually praise. It didn’t make me louder, tougher, or more rigid. It made me softer and gentler. It made me guess less and feel more. I learned that kindness, humility, and softness aren’t weaknesses; they are ways of being that make everything else possible and more lovely.

Kindness as a Practice, Not a Personality

I used to think kindness was something that happened when you weren’t mad, when nothing was going wrong, when everyone was being pleasant. That’s not real kindness. Real kindness shows up when it’s inconvenient. When someone is prickly. When your fries came out cold. When you’d rather scroll TikTok and ignore feelings.

This year, I found myself being kind in ways that actually transformed me, not just in ways that made me feel good for a minute. I think back to the friend who needed someone to talk to at 3 a.m., even though I had a 16 hour work day the next day. Or the time I gave the girl I just met at the bar a ride home after a few too many. Or when I asked my nail tech to tell me more about his mom who had just passed away while it would've been easier and more comfortable to just have a quiet appointment. I learned kindness is not a feeling; it’s an action you take even when you’re tired of taking actions.

Kindness became a tool, a way to better my environment and my relationships, not a performance. It became a choice I get to make again and again.

Humility

Humility was the real MVP of my year. Not the dramatic, “I’m humble” humility, but the kind that keeps you grounded in every room you walk into.

Maybe it was living in a new city and realizing I didn’t know everything about anything. Maybe it was admitting I didn’t have all the answers about work, friendships, or what I wanted next. Maybe it was realizing my self-confidence hadn’t arrived with fireworks. It arrived with patience and quiet truth.

When I moved to Wichita from the college town I’d called home for so long, I was filled with the kind of nervous excitement that feels like being a freshman again: hopeful, confused, and a little scared. I had to start over socially, mentally, and emotionally. I didn’t know who I was outside of the person wrapped up in a familiar place with a predictable routine. That humility (of being unknown again) taught me more about myself than anything ever has.

Humility helped me lean into where I was instead of constantly wondering where I should be.

Softness Does Not Mean Weakness

I’m honestly tired of being called “strong.” I am strong. But not because I call myself that or because I survived hard things. I’m strong because I am gentle with myself when I mess up, because I practice patience when I want to explode, because I stop to laugh instead of always sprinting ahead, and because

I’ve learned that discipline is self-respect, not punishment.

I used to think discipline meant pain. I thought suffering made me a better person. This year proved something different: Discipline doesn’t hurt you — it protects you. It’s the daily showing up, the routines that help you become the version of yourself you want to like, not the version of yourself you’re trying to escape.

And honestly? I am finally someone I like. I don’t wake up every day loving myself perfectly but I like myself in a way I never have before. That feels like softness. That feels like healing.

Things That Taught Me Softness

Some of the biggest ways I learned gentleness this year weren’t epic moments, they were ordinary ones.

• In late June, I had to move out after a relationship ended ( I had just moved to Wichita three weeks prior and trying to settle in). Naturally, I wanted to put up walls and distance myself from everyone and everything. I felt like I had let too much happen to me and was too open to protect my own heart and well-being. I wanted to harden my heart. Luckily, I moved in with my Aunt, Uncle, 14 year old cousin, and 9 year old cousin for almost 3 months. They allowed me to slow down and reminded me that softness, family dinner, jumping on the trampoline with the girls after work, movie nights, TJMaxx runs, and hanging out in the living room are wonderful things I hadn't had in a long time. This experience gave me space to be quiet when I needed to or be loud when it felt needed. My cousins brought the kid and excitement for life out of me again.

  
  

• I reconnected with my best friend from high school again this year. We were inseparable but for whatever reason, we totally lost touch and hadn't spoken to one another in about five years. I could've blamed her and I am sure she could've blamed me for the space that happened. But we didn't. We spent a weekend together catching up and talking. We didn't ignore what happened, we moved passed it and allowed one another to be open to restarting a friendship that has so many sweet memories attached to it.

  
  

• I started seriously running starting in August. It was tough because I am not only a competitive person but college athletics altered my brain to think that I am never good enough and that no matter how hard I try, I could do more. Maybe there is some truth to that. But running taught me that all I can ask of myself is my best and that my best can look different from day to day. This made improvement easier to notice and I don't dread working out or performing anymore. I am more soft with myself.

Kindness, humility, softness don’t show up once in a while. They show up in how you treat yourself every single day.

What This Teaches Me About the New Year

So as I look toward 2026, it isn’t about “fixing” the pieces of me that were broken. It’s about deepening the pieces already healed.

2026 is not going to be a year where I fight for a life I want. It’s going to be a year where I gently grow into the life already unfolding.

Some things I’m leaning into:

• Being deliberate about joy.

• Continuing routines that make me feel good inside not just look good outside.

• Choosing presence over perfection.

• Practicing boundaries not as walls, but as ways to protect softness.

• Letting myself love freely — even when it feels vulnerable.

• Keeping a pace that allows laughter, rest, and self-respect.

  
  

This isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about letting who I am now be enough while I get comfortable becoming more.

Closing Thoughts

I don’t want to be called “strong” anymore — not as a default compliment. Because strength is quiet here. Strength is soft. 

Strength is kindness practiced daily, humility kept close, and a life lived without needing to prove itself.

So here’s to the year I stopped fighting myself. Here’s to the year I chose gentleness. Here’s to the year I became someone I like.

Here's to not having to reinvent myself this next year and instead continuing the progress I've already been making!

All my love,

Neva