I have recently been doing the impossible. I have been editing my previous stories. While to many this might seem like a simple exercise, to me it has been a long time struggle.
That being said I realized after editing about 10 of my shorts what my stories lack. They lack struggle and real challenge, and I am reminded of what my story professor told me at school.
To Paraphrase “This story (talking about a novel except) is more of an outline, it just has characters doing things, but they seem to know they are characters, and they don’t seem to have any trouble doing any of the things your having them do.”
The stories are just that stories, they lack the life of real fiction. The characters do not grow. I can’t believe I never noticed this before, and now I sit in preponderance looking to slowly rectify this mistake.
It will be done but it will have to be done slowly.
Max W Beaulieu 
Can relate. The moment I started inserting conflict in my stories, it all became more interesting. : )
I know right? It’s an odd thing to realize because I thought for sure I had conflict, and now I realize all the plots I had were too easy. I read enders game and hated it because the main character didn’t face any real challenges. Well, no challenges that I as the reader didn’t think he could overcome.