Why You Struggled to Keep Up with Your Goals in January
Well, we've officially made it through the 736 days of January, and let me tell you, this year's first-month-a-thon has probably been one of the best to date. Not because I absolutely smashed all my goals, but because I committed to saying a fond farewell to any unrealistic winter expectations and decided for the second year running that I was just going to embrace simplicity.
I don't know about anyone else, but I find it hard to avoid that bit of dread that lingers around when the end of December creeps up. All of a sudden, you get the unnatural urge to set some kind of goal that you think means you’ll be a better person if you achieve it. Yet, many times you’ve tried to set resolutions only to realize that you just don’t have the steam to follow through with them, and come the end of January, you’re questioning all your life choices and wondering why you’re such a useless twat.
Well, first of all, you’re not a useless twat by any means, and the good news is, you aren’t failing either. Despite popular opinion, January is just not the time to be going all out. Winter hits different, and if you’re finding yourself exhausted, your body (no matter how much you try to ignore its sleepy signals) is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do. Let's explore the myth of the “new year” and discuss the benefits of “wintering.”
New Year / Why Me:
Picture this: it's January, you’ve filled up on mince pies, and you’re telling yourself that you’re ready to start the year off with a bang. You’ve got high hopes for the year ahead and even higher expectations of yourself. You battle through, getting up stupidly early and going to the gym or for a run, you go all-in on your business goals for the year, working long hours to plan ahead, then you swap the Pringles for bags of spinach and hope that it’ll all propel you headfirst into the best year of your life so far, but instead you’re cream crackered.
Meanwhile, the bears are hibernating, finishing off the last of their food stores, and scratching their heads, wondering why the humans are being so goddamn weird again! Okay, maybe the bears aren’t paying much attention to your upside-down habits, but that’s because they're too busy being part of nature, instead of part of a society that’s hell-bent on productivity and achieving more than most humans are supposed to be capable of. They're wintering, So Why aren’t we?
What is Wintering?
I hear you say - It’s what humans need to do to get the most out of the rest of the year. We think that January should start with highly strung self-development, but if you were to look at the year ahead as a graph that shows you your energy availability, it would look something like this.
You’re not unaware of the fact that our year has seasons. Nature is completely seasonal. There are natural ebbs and flows that signal to us what it is we need to do for our best chance to thrive. Despite what the structures in our society would lead you to believe, you are part of nature. You have a deep inner need to follow those seasonal signals.
Not many flowers bloom in January in the north, so why do you expect yourself to? We’re supposed to gradually rebuild our energy over the end of winter and into spring. Realistically, the “new year” (if you want to call it that) starts around the spring equinox because that’s when the plants and animals surface from their slumber.
During the colder months, they’ve been chilling, having a good ol’ nap, making the most of rest time, and then when spring comes around, they emerge, have a big stretch, and get ready to start off the slow and steady climb into summer.
When is the best time to set goals then?
I’m not here to say you can’t set goals in winter, but trying to attempt them all at once isn’t going to pay off in the long run. There's a high chance that doing it that way might mean by the time the busy seasons roll around you’re already on your arse because you tried to go all guns blazing in a time when your body wanted you to be in the slow lane.
From my own experience, setting goals can be great in January and February, but only with the awareness that they'll be a slow burn until brighter months come back to join us. Winter is a good time to take stock, reflect, and adjust. If you have big plans for the year ahead, go ahead and make them. Be strategic about the whole thing and learn from the shortcomings of the previous year. Reflecting on what worked and what didn’t is always a wonderful exercise to journal in winter. As is setting yourself up to achieve goals in a sustainable way.
Go Easy On Yourself:
If you’re reading this thinking “oh shit” I went too hard too fast, it’s okay. There’s no right or wrong way to start a year as long as you feel like it’s right for you, then you’ll naturally balance out your pace as you go along. We spend our whole year adjusting and pivoting.
I'm sure that most of the time if things don’t go to plan it’s probably because the over-achiever in us had way higher expectations than what was feasible. I was working with a life coaching client in December who was being really hard on herself for not doing this one big thing she set out to do last year. It was overwhelming her, but when we sat down and went through all the things she did achieve and how much time and effort she put into them, she realised that she had nothing to be hard on herself about. Most of her high energy productive moments actually happened between May and October, and what she actually did achieve was way more energy spenny in comparison to the big goal she hadn’t yet got round to.
We looked at this big plan of hers and broke it down into steps that made it seem much more sustainable, and then she could see exactly how she needed to manage her time and conserve her energy though the 2024 season. Her instinct was to try to rush through it all now and get on with it but she didn’t feel like she had the energy.
So after a little lesson in wintering, she took a step back and allowed herself to get intentional about the year ahead. Now she has a really solid plan going forward (which by the way included time, space, and a strategy for any plot twists that might occur) Not only does she have this plan, but it’s set out in a way that allows her to make the most of natural ebbs and flows of the seasons.
Wintering doesn’t mean you have to stop:
I spent years doing the whole January, new year new me thing and come April/May I’d be absolutely shattered and then the heat of summer would just sap all of my energy all over again. Last year was my first proper attempt at consciously wintering, and what I learned from it is that there’s absolutely no need to come to a complete halt. We all have a lot going on and there are a lot of demands in our lives, so it’s near impossible to simply go into hibernation.
In winter I like to make time for slow and sustainable activities like hiking, journaling and researching all my trips and plans for the high season and making sure I support my body and mind without overdoing it.
How to make the most of the year if you’re looking to include wintering in your life:
I’d say the key is to know how to match up the stage of the goal with the seasonal energy. Do your less taxing stuff in winter. Think days spent curled up by the fire with a nice cuppa, putting your energy into the foundational planning stages. In spring we become more active so it’s time to start making moves, this is the time I’d naturally want to add more activity into my routine. Almost as though I’m in training for summer. When summer greets us is when we can really enjoy taking part in the adventures we’ve been planning. And autumn is the time to start winding down, it’s like the cool down of a workout, it’s just as important as the warm-up and the workout itself.
So as we come towards the end of winter and head towards what I call “the real new year” as spring arrives, I invite you to take the time to map out your spring/summer/autumn in a way that feels exciting and sustainable. My new coaching course and membership offers will land in spring 2024 so remember to sign up to the newsletter to be the first to learn all about it. In the meantime, you can book on to one of my Plan Your Adventure sessions where we’ll get together to start mapping out one of your adventures for this year.
