Illustration provided by FreePik.com
Dear friends,
Can you believe that 2026 is here? Let us hope for a peaceful and fruitful year ahead. I’m writing this message on my last day of stay-cation, in between helping my youngest with college applications and my eldest with his search for summer jobs. In 2025 I started a new practice. I identified a “weekly win” in some area of my life, wrote it on a sticky note and put it up on a wall in my home office. I purposely wrote down whatever first came to my mind, and I never revised it. If there were two wins I was thinking about at the end of the week, I wrote down both, so I ended the year with 58 sticky notes on my wall.
I love seeing wins I’ve accumulated over the course of the year every time I look around my room. For me, it has been much more inspiring than writing things down in a journal, because of the ever-present visual reminder that there are always wins to celebrate, even if they are small.
It won’t surprise you to hear that at the end of the year, I decided to analyze this “dataset” of 58 observations. I started by designating each into categories as follows: self, family, friends, work. The breakdown is in the pie chart.
There are multiple lessons in this data, including that family is very much my life’s focus. For you, here’s a deeper dive on my work wins.
First, it’s important to note all of my work wins came either pre-Inauguration or in the fourth quarter when the dust was starting to settle. It was a hard year in academic medicine! Second, all my work wins were outside the usual routine. They included a memorable trip to give the Carrie Byington Lecture at University of Utah, an invigorating visit and brainstorming session from my closest collaborator, Dr. Courtney Lyles, the tenth anniversary of the PRISM conference, and some “academic altruism,” like hosting a departmental dinner to celebrate Anandibai Joshi, the first South Asian woman physician. This finding is a reminder that work can motivate and inspire us when we go beyond required deliverables. Finally, it’s not a surprise that 6 of my 7 work wins involved a social element. To me, all science is team science, and I do my best thinking in conversation.
Try writing down your weekly wins in 2026- I hope you will find it adds positivity to daily life and provides insights at the end of the year.
Wishing you peace, joy, and inspiration in 2026! As always, I love to hear from you. Please share widely, as usual, and let others know they can sign up here.
Warmly,
Urmimala