Happy (August) New Year

Leading up to December 31st, 2025, I was not excited for the turn of the new year.

Working in sales for the majority of my career, this is a time of year that I am typically enthralled in. The Super Bowl of my industry. And the only thing I enjoyed more than smashing sales records in December was the fresh slate of a new year. New goals, new plans, new ideas. Anything seemed possible once that first week of January hit. Budgeting, spreadsheets, goal planning? Don’t tempt me with a good time.

But this year, I was not in it. No part of me.

While on winter break, I was consumed by the discord in my professional life.  The environment was not conducive for imagining a hopeful future, and I realized just how much I had always been fueled by the people around me.

Carrying the torch alone is cold, especially through a bitter winter - both literally and figuratively.

I am fortunate enough to have had the same best friend since I was six. More than 30 years of friendship lockstep through just about every version of ourselves. At the time,  she was going through struggles of her own, and together we agreed that there would be no "New Year, New Me" for this duo when the ball dropped. Instead, we decided to take a page from nature.

Nature doesn’t follow the construct of the calendar. It doesn’t reset on January 1st simply because we decided that is when one year ends and another begins. January can still be dark. The ground can still be frozen. A tree doesn't look around at the first of the year, see everything else still dormant, and panic because it hasn't started producing leaves yet (like all of the other trees on social media.) A flower doesn't try to bloom through a snowstorm just because the calendar says it's time to start fresh. Yet, we do this to ourselves constantly.

We decide that January is when we will get healthy. Monday is when we will be disciplined. This quarter is when we will finally hit the number. By 30 we should have accomplished this. By 40 we should have become that. We build imaginary deadlines around our growth and then convince ourselves we are falling behind when life doesn’t clock in on time.

What if it just isn't time to bloom yet?

So, my best friend and I decided we would realign on our "new year" on March 1st.

Apparently, life did not receive the calendar invite.

A lot happened in those first two months of 2026. I spent weeks dealing with a severe back injury, including time in the hospital. Instead of returning to work, I was laid off.  This beach-grown girl was snowed in four times - in a city we had moved to for a job I no longer had. I had setback after setback trying to heal my body while simultaneously trying to figure out what came next for my family.

Similarly, my best friend was dealing with turmoil of her own.

There would be no "New Year, New Me" for us on March 1st either.

Then, almost without noticing, the snow began to clear. So did the fog.

My husband and I made the conscious decision to evaluate our options based on where we actually wanted to live, rather than moving to the next city because of a job. We looked at our family and talked about what we wanted our days - not just our careers - to look like. We aligned on our goals and, for the first time, intentionally placed the personal before the professional.

In April, we relocated to Atlanta. A city we left years ago, but one that still felt like "home." A place that allowed us to lay the foundation to support our long-term goals.

For the first time, the question wasn't, "what job comes next?" Instead it was, "What do we want to build from here?"

That distinction has changed a lot for me and my mindset.

There are some exciting things in the works that I look forward to sharing in the future, but perhaps more importantly, I am excited again. Not because everything is figured out - it isn't. And the hard things haven't all magically disappeared. I am excited because I can see possibility again.

My best friend found her own version of that too. She was thrust into a journey of personal growth that had a profound impact on the way she sees herself. Professionally, through determination, courage, and late-night study sessions, she turned a passion into her next career move. I am incredibly proud of her and excited to support her as she walks this new path.

Neither of us started our new year on January 1st.

Or March 1st.

I have started and scrapped this blog multiple times this year. Every version felt forced. I was trying to write something hopeful before I actually felt hopefully. I wanted to package the hard parts into a leadership lesson before I fully understood what they were teaching me.

I shelved the "new year" blog, and stopped trying to manufacture some impactful lesson.

Somewhere along the way, without a calendar date or grand declaration, something shifted.

Ideas started coming back. Goals started feeling exciting instead of overwhelming. Conversations became less about what had happened and more about what could happen next. I found myself wanting to create, build, and dream again.

It is the back half of the year, and for the first time, that doesn't make me feel behind.

This is a leadership blog after all, so let's bring it all together:

As leaders, we are conditioned to measure progress against a timeline. Quarters. Fiscal years. Annual reviews. Promotions. Five year plans. We set the goal, establish the deadline, build the action plan, and measure success against whether we hit the metrics on time.

There is value in that. Businesses need deadlines, teams need goals, and accountability matters.

But people aren't spreadsheets.

Not every season of our lives is meant for acceleration. Sometimes the work is rebuilding. Sometimes it's changing direction. Sometimes it's simply figuring out where you want to go before you start running again. The same is true for the people we lead.

Someone can be moving slower without losing their ambition. Someone can change direction without failing. Someone can take longer than expected to find their footing and still become one of the strongest people on your team. The same grace we extend to them, we have to learn to extend to ourselves.

The first months of this year weren't lost time. They gave me something another perfectly executed January goal setting session couldn't - the space to reconsider where I was going, rather than racing toward whatever came next.

Maybe you're sprinting. Maybe you're rebuilding. Maybe you're changing directions entirely. Maybe you're still figuring it out. Your timeline is your timeline. No ball drop required. No January 1st deadline. No permission slip needed to decide that today can be the beginning of something different.

My new year didn't start in January. It didn't start in March either. Turns out, I didn't need a date.

To growth,

Natalie