A person deserves credit for the care they took, even when circumstances kept the result modest.

Results are public and effort is not, so judgment attaches to the outcome and stops there. Plenty of careful work happens inside conditions that guarantee a small result: too little time, too little money, a situation nobody could have rescued. Treating the modest outcome as the measure of the person erases everything that was actually done well.

When something someone attempted turns out small, say what you saw in the attempt. Extend the same reading to your own year, where a quiet result may have taken more from you than an impressive one would have.