“Transformation is a process, not an event.” —John P. Kotter
For some of us, the new year brings more stress than joy. It’s the time when our cultural script says: “This is when you evaluate yourself. This is when you fix what’s broken.”
For leaders especially, the New Year can become a pressure cooker. There’s this unspoken assumption that you must arrive with a fresh strategic vision, a renewed energy, and a perfectly calibrated mindset.
Could the expectations get any more ridiculous?
In my last email, I talked a little bit about how silly resolutions are. The idea that January 1st represents some magical portal into a “new you” is entirely made up…a collective belief we’ve absorbed over time.
Despite this, there is a little bit of truth buried in this cultural script: we like clean edges. Our brains crave beginnings and endings because they help us make sense of uncertainty. So when the calendar resets, it fits our own need for a ‘starting point.’
There are just two small problems…
- Identities don’t change overnight
- Internal ‘beginnings’ almost never align with the calendar
It’s time to challenge the cultural script…and see what’s possible when you take the lid off the pressure cooker.
The Pressure of Who I “Should Be”
Many years ago, I remember sitting at my desk at the beginning of January, surrounded by a half-filled planner, a stack of untouched books I had sworn I’d read, and a list of goals that felt more like accusations than intentions.
I remember looking at that list and thinking, “How did I get here again? How am I still struggling with the same things?”
The self-criticism arrived fast and uninvited. Words like not enough, behind, should, why can’t you just…they all took turns at the microphone.
Why did I feel that way? Because I had absorbed the belief that the New Year was a litmus test for my discipline, my progress, my identity. If I wasn’t suddenly transformed on January 1st, it meant something was wrong with me.
This self-criticism is where the pressure comes from.
Instead of a beginning, the turn of the year becomes a referendum on our worthiness. We look at what we didn’t accomplish, what we want to change, the habits we didn’t build—and we label ourselves accordingly.
Internally we tell ourselves “this is who we should be.” Then we look in the mirror…and notice that reality doesn’t quite match up.
A Checkpoint, Not a Self Reinvention
Eventually, after getting fed up with the same New Year’s experience over and over again, I did what I now teach: I challenged the thought instead of accepting it as truth.
I reminded myself that growth is not synced to the calendar. My timing is not January 1st. In fact, the turning points in my life have never arrived on schedule; they have arrived when I was ready, resourced, and aware enough to choose differently.
I still didn’t change overnight. (No Jan 1 miracle here.)
But it did plant the seed for how I now think about transformation as a practice, not a date.
With this mindset, January is no longer a demand, but a checkpoint. It’s a moment to:
- Look with curiosity, not judgment. Try asking yourself, what did the past year reveal about your strengths, your limits, and your values? Whereas judgment activates shame, curiosity activates learning.
- Acknowledge the truth of your nervous system. The holidays are often dysregulating. Our bandwidth isn’t magically restored because the date changed, and our brains don’t automatically ‘reset.’
- Decouple identity from output. January is not a verdict on your capability. You don’t become a better leader because the year turned over—you become one because you practice noticing, reflecting, recalibrating.
Let the year meet you where you are. You have permission to start slowly…because internal change isn’t instant. And it sure doesn’t follow a calendar.
