Start as you mean to go on
(Except in January)
If you’re like me and you hate being told what to do, or having your time dictated by other people’s schedules and routines, then you’re probably also exceptionally put-off by all the New-Year’s-Resolutions-Goal-Setting propaganda in the first two weeks of each year.
And yet already, a hair past mid-January, and the deluge of in-and-out-themed social media posts, diary and planner advertisements, and goals-centric conversations have completely dissipated—evaporating like puddles on the pavement, leaving only the impression that if you haven’t haven’t done your planning for 2025 by now then it’s simply too late. Better luck next year.
Fuck. That.
Who among us is ever ready and raring to go with a plan at the beginning of January? All of our arbitrary time-keeping has us striving for year-end like it’s the finish line of a marathon, even though December 31 and January 1 don’t actually exist except as numbers on a calendar, and the finishing prize is just another marathon. Coming down off the frenetic cortisol high of December only to land broke, exhausted and/or hungover on New Year’s Day has always been the most anticlimactic ‘fresh start’ ever.
You could opt out of all this completely and treat January like any other month—but I do think there’s value in harnessing all the energy of ‘newness’ (as artificially motivated as it may be, it is palpable) in the ether at this time of year. There is also value in periodically taking time to reflect on what’s working and what’s not in your life: checkpoints that define where you are and where you want to be.
My solution is to completely ignore all the standard resolution rhetoric and ease into the year gently, at your own pace, ignoring the daunting 12 month horizon for goal setting and instead choosing a more manageable timescale to work within.
I’m going to use the 90 Day Edit method as a template, which I learned about from leadership coach Haley Carr. Here’s how she outlined it in her newsletter, Postcard from a Long View:
Each and every 90 days, I take myself on a mini adventure of sorts. Sometimes it’s just down to the river by my house with a take-away coffee from my coffee machine. Sometimes it's to an off-grid cabin, or a bougie hotel in the city. Sometimes it’s to another country.
Conveniently, it works out that each and every 90 days is 1% of the next 25 years, and also, a new season begins.
It's a wonderful reminder to press pause, look back on what's happened, acknowledge the great things that worked out and all went well, close the chapter on things that didn't, find some lessons, make some new plans, and start fresh.
It's way better than New Years’ resolutions as far as I'm concerned! First of all, because you get to do it four times instead of just once. Second of all, because usually at new years there's a lot of other stuff going on and it's a bit distracting, and thirdly, because who doesn't love a moment to themselves to think and dream and plan, without the pressure of an entire year ahead.
90 days is a magical amount of time. It's long enough to really get something done, but short enough that it's not boring. There's enough time to start, get distracted or sick or have to fix an unexpected problem, worry there's not enough time left, quit a project, decide its not that bad, come back to it, and still make it happen. Its enough time to completely transform the trajectory of your life.
Every week, I look at the 90 days plans I made on that special retreat. Every week, I realise I forgot about en entire project I wanted to make come to life, and I set up some tasks for the upcoming week to make sure I'm giving myself to time to make things happen. It's amazing how quickly we forget our plans if we don't remind ourselves of them.
You can read more about her 90 Day Transformation approach here.
I’m adapting this and giving myself the whole month of January to reflect on 2024 and plan for 2025. Rather than using the seasons I’ll end my first ‘90 days’ at the end of March, dividing the rest of the year into quarters—but I won’t hold myself to that if I feel I need more time to complete a cycle.
I’d love to do this seasonally but A. I’m starting it in halfway through one, and B. I’m pretty sure I’ll be returning to the Northern Hemisphere in a few months in which case I’ll miss Winter (again), so it doesn’t make much sense for now. Maybe I’ll transition to that eventually.
At the beginning of the month I felt a strong desire to slow down, rest and hibernate, despite it being the height of summer here in Australia. Initially there was panic and resistance to this: why wasn’t I feeling motivated? Why wasn’t I feeling productive? It was a new year and there were so many things to do!
But as always, the body knows before the mind accepts. As soon as I stopped resisting and leaned into this feeling, the panic subsided. I recognised that I wouldn’t feel this way forever, but the longer I did resist it, the more the inertia would drag out.
By giving myself permission to take my time, and not rushing to meet an arbitrary deadline, gradually I began wanting to engage in future-planning without needing to force it. It gave me the space properly reflect on last year and allow goals, intentions and habits to surface naturally. Limiting my horizon to the next 90 days helped me feel optimistic about the year instead of overwhelmed by it.
(Side note for any fellow astrology dabblers: my Sun is in Taurus and nowhere is that more evident than in how much I hate being rushed!)
Maybe all this sounds great in theory but you’re just not in the headspace or don’t have the capacity to plan ahead right now, in which case just remember that you can ‘start fresh’ and set goals whenever you want to. Every day can be your January 1!
I hope this is helpful. I’d love to know what your approach/plan for goal setting is in the comments…
I’ll be outlining my complete 90 day edit, including the goals and habits I’m building to achieve them, in my next post.