Small Wins in our PhDs for 2025

We shall celebrate every single thing we consider a success! Plus, the Music Highlight

Photo by Marcel Schreiber on Unsplash

Happy New Year, everyone! 🎉

Hope you had a great time and managed to rest a bit if possible, see your family and friends, read something unrelated to your PhD or just watch Home Alone for the 125th time (I love that movie!)

As we move into 2025, let’s remember something really important: small wins are everything.

The PhD is full of ups and downs. Some days, you’re doing amaizng things and understanding things you never thought you would. Other days, you’re pausing, not having time to do anything for your PhD, catching your breath because of family, work, caregiving, general exhaustion. It’s easy to focus on the big milestones—publishing journal articles, defending your thesis, finishing your data analysis. And all of this is great, but they aren’t the whole story.

The beauty of the PhD is in the small wins:
📝Writing 50 words when your goal was 500.
📝 Figuring out how to write an article.
📊 Understanding something difficult that suddenly makes sense.
🎉 Having a great meeting with your supervisor.
☕ Remembering to eat or drink something.

Small wins are important. They keep us going. We need them and nothing is too small, or too unimportant or too silly to mention.

In 2025, let’s celebrate every step forward!

The Music Highlight

Elton John has said it all!