Dear Friend,
It is that old familiar season of reinvention, where our highest intentions get chiropractically adjusted back into place. Historically, this has been a ritual I’ve actually enjoyed. Sit with my journal. Look back over the year. Acknowledge the twists and turns. Then start fresh with a clean page and a well-meaning list.
Yoga three times a week. Running twice. Launch our new business, Halen, in London. Become vaguely competent with my personal finances. Graduate from interfaith seminary. Redecorate my flat. Breathwork before getting out of bed. Gratitude practice before turning out the light.
New Year’s has always been the moment I reconstruct my moral high ground and recommit to becoming the very best version of myself.
This year, though, the very thought makes my chest tighten.
Looking back, there is no version of my 2024 self who could have predicted most of what 2025 held. And that makes the usual resolution ritual feel less inspiring and even… de-moralizing. The idea of setting goals still stimulates me intellectually, but emotionally it just feels draining. Maybe you feel this too?
Something about writing down a beautiful list in January, knowing it is mostly aspirational thinking that will be quietly disproven by February 1, just makes me sad.
Still, this is not a surrender piece. I am not giving up before I have started.
Because there is one ritual that has actually held me steady over time. And this year, it is the only one I am keeping. It has just enough fuel to not burn out by February but to actually make it through to the end of the year, and it functions more like a compass than a resolution.
