What Your Metrics Miss: The Invisible Wins That Made Your Year

By Jessica Silva, Coach, Author, and Founder of The Restless

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As business owners, we’re taught to measure success in metrics, milestones and year-end dashboards. But some of the most meaningful achievements aren’t visible at all. They live in the boundaries we finally held, the conversations we stopped avoiding, the courage we quietly practised, and the self-care we protected even when everything felt urgent.

Most of us have had that moment at the end of the year when we look at the numbers and decide whether the year was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. However, I counter that the success of the year is bigger and broader than what the spreadsheet shows. 

My thinking changed after a round-table end-of-year session where I was dreading the ever-so-cheery “let’s share our wins for the year”. I was wriggling in my chair, all I could think about was that I hadn’t hit my targets and I really didn’t want to declare it publicly. I was barely listening, I was so caught up in my own impending embarrassment. Then I caught a few words that focused my attention.

“...The year didn’t go as I expected, but I’m proud of how I showed up.”

Wait. Back up a minute. She just said she’s proud of herself even though she didn’t hit her goals?

How could that be? 

Then it hit me. She was measuring something bigger. 

It wasn’t about how many clients she had or how many milestones she hit. It was about the values she honoured. The difficult conversations she finally had. The things she learned about herself. The no she said and actually stuck to. The limits she kept. The tiny habits she protected, even when life got messy.

Looking at it like this changes how you see the whole year. These quiet wins might not appear on a dashboard, but they shape your confidence, your resilience and your sense of who you are becoming. They are the foundation beneath everything you do.

Your quiet wins

If you put the numbers aside for a moment, what are you genuinely proud of this year?

Think about moments when you showed courage. Maybe you turned down a client who wasn’t a good fit. Maybe you finally said what’s been bothering you. Perhaps you chose rest instead of pushing through. Maybe you asked for help instead of trying to do everything by yourself.

Think about the boundaries you held. The small-but-brave steps you took outside your comfort zone. The times you reacted with calm instead of responding with knee-jerk emotion. Or the moment you realised something wasn’t working and gave yourself permission to change course.

Think about the growth you can feel but can’t quite quantify. The mindset shifts, the emotional stamina, the wisdom that arrived quietly and didn’t ask for applause.

Sit somewhere comfortable with a blank piece of paper and write them down. Take your time. Notice how you feel as you revisit these moments. Pay attention to the ones that spark something in you. These are clues to what has genuinely strengthened you this year.

The value of the quiet win

Reflecting on your quiet wins updates your internal sense of “what I’m capable of”. It turns vague feelings into something solid and something you can return to when you need a reminder of what you can do.

Our minds love repetition. If we keep replaying the difficult or disappointing moments, they start to feel like the whole story. But when we replay the times we acted with integrity, courage, kindness or grit, we’re reinforcing a much more accurate picture of who we are. We’re reminding ourselves that we can handle hard things. That we can grow. That we already have.

And this is where the invisible wins become incredibly powerful. They’re not just a warm and fuzzy end-of-year exercise. They shape the confidence you walk into the new year with. They help you set goals that match who you are now, not who you were twelve months ago.

So before you tidy up the final tasks of the year, give yourself a moment to notice the quieter successes. They may not be measurable, but they matter deeply. They’re the proof that you’ve grown in ways no spreadsheet will ever show, and the fuel you’ll carry into whatever comes next.