Somewhere around the 27th of December, between the leftover cheese and the third glass of something opened because it was there, the fantasy begins.
By January, we will be different. The version who panics at 11pm about an email sent at 3pm, who agrees to drinks she does not want, who apologises when someone else steps on her foot: upgraded. Gone. Replaced by someone who sleeps soundly and does not check her phone in bed and somehow has the energy for morning exercise. We have been waiting for this woman since approximately 2007. She has not shown up. And look, at this point, she is probably not coming.
The reason is not willpower.
Every January, we try to fix the wrong problem. We treat ourselves like software needing an update when what we actually need is an audit of where our energy is currently employed. Most of us have never looked at that ledger. When you do, you find your energy has been working jobs you never consciously approved, often three or four of them running in the background like browser tabs you forgot to close. But you know, the jobs themselves are less interesting than how they got hired in the first place.
Why We Want To Be Someone Else
Here is the thing about resets. They need a villain. And the villain is always last year’s version of yourself, the one who could not get it together, who kept saying yes when she meant no, who still has not started the project or left the job or had the conversation. Old you is the problem. New you is the solution.
This is an exhausting story to keep telling yourself. It is also wrong.
You are not broken. You are over-committed. Your energy has not vanished. It is just working somewhere else.
Where Your Energy Actually Goes
Maintaining guilt is a full-time position. Nobody talks about this.
We do not mean dramatic guilt, the kind that keeps you awake confessing sins. We mean the ambient, low-grade, always-running kind. Not calling your mother this week. Leaving work on time and feeling like you got away with something. Wanting, occasionally, to sit in the car for ten minutes before going inside because the idea of being immediately needed by another human feels like too much. We have all done the car thing, right? Just sitting there, engine off, not ready yet.
And this runs constantly in the background, draining battery we did not know we were losing.
Then there is the resentment we are not allowed to feel, towards the colleague who takes credit, the friend who only calls when she needs something. There is the code-switching between work emails (professional, warm but not too warm) and family texts (patient, never the one who starts conflict) and the group chat that requires yet another emotional register. There is the mental load everyone discusses now but nobody actually redistributes. Funny how that works.
Your energy has not faded. It has been employed in departments you forgot existed. Scanning for signs your partner is annoyed with you. Spoiler: they are not, but the scanning runs anyway. Rehearsing defences for criticisms nobody has made. Maintaining a friendship that, honestly, became pure obligation about two years ago but ending it would require a confrontation and who has the bandwidth.
Each one running constantly. None of them on your actual to-do list.
Which brings us to the only December exercise worth doing. A ten-minute ledger that changes what you carry into January. But here is the thing: it will not work until you see why these jobs got hired in the first place.
Old Rules You Never Questioned
Most of the invisible work your energy does was not chosen. It was inherited. And this is the part that stings a bit, so stay with us.
The guilt about rest came from somewhere. Probably a household where being idle meant being vulnerable to criticism, or where your value was tied directly to being useful. If you were helpful, you were safe. If you were not, you were noticed in the wrong way. The fear of being “too much” or “difficult” was learned too, likely from watching what happened to women who were. The over-commitment, the saying yes when you mean no, was once a survival strategy in a situation where you had less power than you do now.
These contracts made sense when you signed them. You were a child, or very young, or in circumstances where agreeing was safer than refusing.
The problem is not that you made them.
The problem is that you never reviewed them. And now they auto-renew every year, quietly, without your consent, while you keep wondering why you are so tired and what is wrong with you and why you cannot seem to change.
“You do not need a new you. You need fewer invisible obligations.”
This is what December is actually for. Not transformation. Renegotiation.
A Ten-Minute Honest List
Not a spreadsheet. Not a habit tracker. God, no. Just honesty on the back of an envelope or in the notes app you use for everything else.
Column one: where is your energy currently working without permission?
Be specific here. Not “stress” or “overwhelm” but the actual tasks. Replaying a conversation from last Tuesday that cannot be changed. Anticipating your mother’s disappointment about Christmas plans. Performing fine at work when you are not fine. Monitoring your partner’s mood for early warning signs of conflict. You know the ones. Write them down.
Column two: where do you actually want it?
Not the virtuous answer. Not where you should want it or where a better person would want it. The real answer. Maybe you want it for doing absolutely nothing on Saturday mornings. Maybe you want it for leaving the party when you are tired instead of when it is acceptable to leave. Maybe you want it for the project that keeps not getting started because there is never any energy left after everything else takes its cut.
No scoring. No optimisation. Just seeing the current arrangement clearly. Which is, honestly, the first requirement for changing it.
What To Add, What To Drop
Rather than overhauling everything (we both know that does not work and you will not do it), try this. Two additions. One subtraction.
Add a protected hour.
One hour weekly of undistracted thinking. Not productive thinking, not planning, not a podcast while you do something else. Just unreachable, unconsumptive time. No phone. No input. The difficulty of this will surprise you. So will how much you miss it once you have it.
Turns out we are not tired of thinking. We are tired of never finishing a thought.
Add a threshold object.
Something physical that signals “off duty.” A blanket that only appears when work is finished. A candle that means the kitchen is closed for the night. A specific lamp for evenings. It sounds small. It is not. The nervous system responds to physical cues faster than verbal intentions or willpower or promises you make to yourself. The object does the work so you do not have to remember to become the resting version of yourself. You just see it, and something in you shifts.
Release one guilt-maintenance task.
A tradition that serves no one but costs you real energy to maintain. A relationship ritual you perform entirely to avoid a confrontation you do not want to have. A task nobody asked for and nobody would notice if you stopped.
We all have at least one. Probably more.
The discomfort that comes up when you consider stopping is not proof you should continue. It is proof of how long you have been carrying it.
Why Objects Work Better Than Resolutions
Physical things mark transitions between selves without requiring you to think about it. The coat on the hook by the door. The specific mug for the first coffee of the morning. The tray that signals evening, even if evening just means watching something with a bowl of crisps.
We underestimate this constantly.
These objects are not decorations. They are infrastructure. They tell your nervous system what mode to be in so you do not have to use willpower to get there. One object that signals permission can do more than five resolutions about work-life balance. The resolution requires daily effort. The object just requires placing it where you will see it.
How You Will Know It Is Working
Sunday at 4pm feels slightly less like impending doom.
The catastrophising spirals still happen, but they are shorter. You catch yourself rehearsing an argument and you can, sometimes, actually stop. You have moments when nothing is urgently demanding your attention and you do not immediately reach for your phone to fill the space. This feels uncomfortable at first. It is good news.
You rest without the running tally of what you have done to deserve it.
There Is No New You
There is no upgraded version of yourself arriving in January.
Just you. Same history, same patterns, same complicated relationship with rest and productivity and the question of what you are allowed to want for yourself. But with a slightly clearer view of which contracts still serve you and which ones have been draining your energy for years while you wondered what was wrong with you.
Some of those contracts do not serve you anymore. You are allowed to stop renewing them. You do not need to become someone else to have a different year. You just need to renegotiate the terms.
January is not a fresh start. It is a continuation.
The only question worth asking is what you are willing to stop carrying.
Pull quote for sharing:
“You do not need a new you. You need fewer invisible obligations.”