Changeology
The Changeology podcast explores the art, science, psychology, and philosophy behind making big, bold, badass life changes.
Inspiring. Empowering. A little weird.
Changeology
Expansion Was the Intention, Resilience Was the Lesson--A Year-End Fireside Chat with Meg
This episode is my honest look at a year that didn’t go the way I planned. I’m talking about the kind of year that forces you to sit still, drink something warm, and admit that the only silver lining you walked away with was resilience--aka, what you earn by getting dragged through situations you never signed up for. Add to that the human negativity bias, working hard to convince me the whole year was a wash.
I walk you through the moments that shaped 2025 for me: a long-awaited family trip derailed by illness and rain, the emotional gymnastics of parenting toddlers through airport chaos, and the strange comfort of realizing I can’t control most of what hits my life...only how I interpret it. I didn’t find a bright side in any of it--because sometimes, that's the honest truth--but I did manage to find a way to see these events as neutral instead of catastrophic. That’s where resilience started to take shape.
If your year felt heavy, or if you ended December convinced you failed more than you grew, this episode is for you. I break down how our minds naturally overemphasize the hard moments and undervalue the wins, and how you can overcome negativity bias so you see a more accurate version of your life. Not a positive spin--a genuine one. Because resilience becomes real once you stop letting negativity bias run the narrative.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
• How negativity bias exaggerates what went wrong and hides what went right
• Why resilience sucks to build, and often shows up disguised as disappointment
• The role of neutral interpretation when positivity feels dishonest
• What we can actually can control when life refuses to follow the damn script
• How to see the year you actually lived instead of the version your brain fixates on
The REAL Change Kickstart is a 45-day 1:1 coaching intensive designed to help you:
- Identify the behaviors keeping you stuck
- Unlearn what is no longer serving you
- Create new patterns that align with what you truly want
Interested in longer-term support for making a significant change? Send me a message at meg@megtrucano.com to get started.
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Connect with Meg:
Today, I’m recording this episode from a comfortable spot in my home with a hot beverage, and some wisdom to share. I hope you will do the same.
At the time of this recording, it’s mid-December. And this time of year always feels very reflective to me.
In the past, that really meant tallying up the goals I didn’t hit, the projects I didn’t finish, and essentially the times I failed.
Maybe you’ve experienced something similar.
For example, if your company does performance reviews at the end of a calendar year and you get a ton of excellent feedback but one tiny piece of negative–or even neutral–feedback, you will feel the impact of that negative feedback much more strongly than the overwhelmingly positive–and more global–positive feedback.
I think this pattern is pretty common, and we come by it honestly.
In psychology, we call it the negativity bias.
Negativity bias is the mind’s tendency to give more weight, attention, and emotional resonance to what went wrong than to what went right, even when the positives were just as significant.
So, as I was reflecting back on this year–2025–I didn’t even need the help of negativity bias. Shit did not go to plan in 2025.
As an example, take our long-awaited 2-week family Arizona trip.
My husband trained for over a year for the Ironman–we are talking 4 am training times, 6 hour training sessions over the weekend, all while I picked up the solo-parenting with twins gig. We planned a 2-week family vacation around this hugely important race, and… when we got there, my husband was too sick to race and had to withdraw. Then it rained the entire time we were in Sedona. Stargazing in an international dark sky location? Nope. Canyon train ride? Cancelled. The famous red rocks? Couldn’t see a damn thing through the clouds. Traveling with toddlers and 20394823094823098 bags through two of the busiest airports in the nation? Correct: Miserable.
Lest I sound tone-deaf, I know that all of this was MINOR AT MOST compared to the life-changing things going on around me and in my circle–job losses, family tragedies, etc.
This year forced me to reevaluate how I interpret my year because nothing went according to plan. Not even close. And AZ was just one minor example of that.
This year was rough. And it was rough for a LOT of people.
Between the horrible news headlines and personal struggles–it was a HARD year.
But. 2025 taught me about something very important:
Resilience.
Psychologists know that resilience is extremely important to overall mental wellbeing, but here's the real truth of it: Building your resilience muscle really sucks.
We talk a lot about resilience like it’s this noble psychological virtue, but the unglamorous truth is that building resilience is uncomfortable because it requires contact with things you cannot control.
THings like:
• Other people: their feelings, choices, reactions. (Even that b---- who had the audacity to comment on bringing toddlers on a flight)
• Weather, timing, external circumstances, getting sick.
Compare that to what I can control:
• My interpretation of what’s happening. And here, i’ve found that it’s much more helpful to interpret events as being neutral instead of trying to force into a positive when it really isn’t. Trying to make my husband’s withdrawal from a race he’s trained for and spent a lot of time and effort planning into a positive thing is not accurate. But it can be neutral.
It can be a thing that just happens sometimes.
• My reaction–Whether I spiral or breathe.
• How I respond after the meltdown (mine or my toddler’s). Am I able to repair the rift by apologizing?
• Whether I turn one bad moment into a sweeping indictment of myself, my progress, my parenting ability, or even my worth as a human being.
I had moments on that trip where I absolutely lost my parental sh*t.
And afterward, once everyone’s nervous systems returned to normal, I could see what didn’t work, and make the conscious decision to forgive myself for being human, and move on.
I didn’t make the trip mean something about my husband or his ability. I didn’t catastrophize the whole season. It just sucked. And sometimes that’s the correct label.
Control what you can. Stop trying to puppeteer what you can’t.
That’s the heart of resilience.
Going back to the negativity bias, that predisposition we have to focus more on the negatives.
This bias explains why you underestimate your progress in a year unless you deliberately look for the wins. Your brain loves to quietly file away these small wins under the “not urgent” category, so you have to consciously try a bit harder to focus on those wins.
If you do this, focus on the wins–and begin practicing identifying those small wins more often–you will be able to see the year you actually lived, including what actually went right.
For the past five or so years, I begin each new year by selecting a word, or something that I want to focus on or draw in for that year. Whatever your perspective on setting resolutions–-I know they’ve fallen out of favor these days–I do think there’s still value in setting intentions, particularly in periods of significant change, like the change of a year.
2025’s word for me was Expansion.
When I set the intention for expansions, I was thinking expansion in terms of my coaching business, and in terms of starting this podcast.
And as I reflect back on 2025 and what I’ve accomplished, and learned, and–frankly–endured, I’d actually say that my 2025 word should have been Resilience.
And as I think about it more deeply, resilience is a kind of expansion.
You don’t go into a year hoping to build your resilience, but if you look back on your year and that’s how you’ve grown…
That’s, actually, huge.
Celebrate it for what is: Growth. And when you think about it, that’s why we’re all here.
And if your year hasn’t gone to plan either—professionally, personally, existentially—I hope you give yourself the same grace.
You can decide what to do with what you’ve lived. That part is yours.
I hope the end of the year brings you something—no matter how small—that reminds you you’re still here, still capable, and still in charge of your response.
Happy holidays, happy new year, and I’ll see you in the next one.