What Was the Hardest Personal Goal You’ve Set for Yourself?

The hardest personal goal I’ve ever set for myself wasn’t climbing a mountain, running a marathon, or even finishing my book (though that came close).
It was this: learning to stay.

Not in one place, necessarily — but in my own life.

For years, I was always chasing the next thing — a new city, a better job, another version of “success.” I moved countries, switched careers, reinvented myself like clockwork. The hustle was familiar, comforting even. It kept me from sitting still long enough to feel what wasn’t working.

And then life — as it does — threw me a pothole the size of a crater.

The day I lost my tech job in the US, I thought I’d lost everything. My visa status collapsed overnight, my carefully curated plans scattered like confetti. I remember standing in my half-packed apartment, staring at my dog, Sauli, who looked up at me with that calm, unbothered wisdom dogs seem born with — as if to say, “So… what now?”

What now, indeed.

That was the beginning of a goal I never knew I needed: to rebuild my life — not by running, but by staying. By sitting with uncertainty long enough to see what it was trying to teach me.

Back in India, surrounded by noise, opinions, and my father’s engineering lectures about “real jobs” that involved bridges, not code, I had to face the silence inside. There were no shiny titles to hide behind, no external validation to chase. Just me — a woman trying to figure out who she was when all the old definitions fell away.

And let me tell you, staying put in that chaos was far harder than moving continents.

There were days when I wanted to escape — through travel, through work, through distractions that looked a lot like “productivity.” But I learned that healing isn’t about motion. It’s about presence. It’s about waking up in your childhood home with a migraine, drinking too-sweet chai with your mother, and realizing that even in the most ordinary of mornings, life is still happening — quietly, patiently, waiting for you to notice.

The hardest goal I’ve set — and keep setting — is to stop running from myself.

To be still long enough to listen.
To forgive the detours.
To embrace the potholes.

Because About Life Choices and Potholes — my story, in all its imperfect turns — isn’t just about moving countries or careers. It’s about finding your footing after every stumble. It’s about realizing that the road doesn’t need to be smooth for the journey to be worthwhile.

And sometimes, the hardest personal goal is simply to look at your life — exactly as it is — and say, “I’m staying.”

Even when you don’t know what comes next.