"I'm always there when you need me." This is the quote printed on the side of my tissue box. And let me tell you, the box doesn't lie. These tissues have most definitely been there for me in recent days. At this point, I've gone through two full boxes, each tissue serving its purpose in helping me drain the flood of gunk trying to escape my nose. Slowly, my face has turned into something resembling Rudolph, just in time for a holiday I don't even celebrate. What a way to end the year. Getting sick right before 2026 starts is annoying, but I'm also seeing it as an opportunity to remember an important lesson: you should always expect the unexpected. I've been trying hard to end this year on a high note. Since the beginning of November, I've been uploading a weekly YouTube video without fail every Tuesday. I also set a new goal for the month of December to run one mile every day. On top of all of this, I was just starting to see my first clients at my new internship. Things were looking really good. The momentum was already strong, and my New Year's resolutions were just going to be an extension of what I was already doing. The best part was that I had nothing coming up that would potentially derail me. No big travel. No major events. The stuff that would usually cause me to reset was not a concern this time. It felt great knowing I had a long runway ahead of me to keep going strong. But then I got sick. Like, really sick. I'll spare you the details, but I ended up catching a pretty intense respiratory infection, similar to the flu. I even passed out one morning due to dehydration from the fever I had. Have you ever fainted before? It's an incredibly weird sensation. I went from ears ringing and head spinning to waking up on the bathroom floor with no memory of falling. Thankfully, Harleen was there to break my fall, but dang, that was a scary situation. It was in this moment that I knew my plans for the rest of the year had just gone out the window. All that momentum I had built? Bye-bye. Tuesday came. No video published. Days passed. No miles run. Day after day, I had to keep canceling my client sessions at the new internship. Nothing is more gut-wrenching than just sitting on the sofa with a heart full of desire to get up but no physical capacity to do it. At the end of my _Lessons From 2025_ book (which I just finished as of writing this), I wrote that the real goal of 2026 is not to maintain strict consistency with everything I'm working on. Rather, it's to bounce back when life happens. What I didn't realize was that sometimes I'll need to bounce back when I least expect it. Normally, I can mentally prepare myself if I anticipate my consistency is about to break. But I wasn't prepared for this cold-turkey situation. Having to stop everything all at once, right when my energy was at its peak. Now, instead of starting January with weeks of progress already under my belt, I'm having to accept that my goals are already imperfect. Accepting imperfection is a skill I'll need to become comfortable with in the year ahead. I'm learning that one of the bottlenecks in my life is my ability to bounce back when life comes up. When I break a goal I've been working hard at, I find it incredibly challenging to keep going, because the result will no longer be what I hoped for. But what's the logic in that? As I write this, I've "lost" almost a full week of time due to illness. In terms of my personal goals, that's one YouTube video missed and seven miles lost toward my monthly target. Yes, that's frustrating given how consistent I've been in the weeks leading up to this. But what would be even more disappointing is if I didn't bounce back now that I'm feeling better. I originally thought ending the year strong would mean having a lot of momentum built up. But what if I was wrong about that definition? What if ending the year strong actually means bouncing back after a setback? What if it means proving to myself that I'm capable of overcoming unexpected obstacles? Now _that_ would be a great way to start the new year. Let's set an example that I can follow when something like this inevitably comes up again in 2026. --- Related Notes: - [[Lessons From 2026]] This note was originally created on **December 2025**.