New Year, New Box

As a way of wrapping up 2025 with introspection and meaning, take out the worry box you’ve been keeping this year. Open it up and review all of the worries you relinquished to the box throughout the year. Notice all you’ve overcome and endured. Celebrate the growth and progress you made over the year and the challenges you successfully navigated. Notice commonalities among your worries. Are there recurring themes? Is your energy often outsourced for the benefit of others? What thought distortions can you identify in your worries? Were any of them within your control?

Look at all of the worries that proved to be of no concern. A study by Cornell University found that 85% of worries don’t happen, of the 15% that do, most are manageable, meaning 97% of worries aren’t worth the energy. Decide which, if any, you’re going to take with you into 2026. Then destroy all of the others. Burn them, rip them up, shred them. Free yourself of their existence and feel empowered that you get to decide what to take with you into the new year and what to leave behind. This is a perfect time to restart with a clean slate, an “empty box.” You may even decide to make a whole new box for 2026; and it won’t need to be as big since you’ve grown wiser in what you choose to put your energy towards.