Three push-backs UX Researchers face

I've been analysing open-ended responses from the State of User Research 2025 survey, and one theme is emerging from the data:

Researchers are exhausted from constantly proving their value to business leaders who don't get it.

If you've heard these push-backs, you're not alone:

• "We don't have time for research"

• "We don't have the budget"

• "We already know our users"

I've faced these challenges before.

Sometimes I thought I was the problem; maybe I wasn’t persuasive enough, not strategic enough, my work was not valuable enough.

But these three lessons changed everything.