January doesn’t count (unless you want it to)

January. The beginning of a new year. An obvious point in time for new beginnings, starting over, fresh goals, resolutions, change.

Except there’s one problem.

Change almost always requires some level of preparation. Some planning, some prerequisites. Mental, emotional, or physical, there’s a “getting ready” step that may be required for successful change.

Every year I have the best of intentions to start all kinds of new or updated things in my life. Start a blog. Track in a journal. Form habits. And every year, I think January 1 is the time to start those. And every year, I’m setting myself up to fail.

There is no way I’m doing the necessary prep work in November/December. The depths of winter are not a good mental or emotional time for me. Between the gray cold days and the pressures of the holiday season, those months are survival time for me. Maintenance time. I’m doing good if I manage to keep consistent with the good habits I already have. This is not a time to pressure myself for extras.

I dive in to start January 1, and instantly feel like a failure. I try to skip the pre-work and dive right into the change, get frustrated, don’t feel prepared, miss a day, and it’s downhill from there.

This year, I decided: January doesn’t count¹. The new year doesn’t start January 1. It starts February 1. January is the neutral zone. The time to prepare for what the new year will bring, for what I will bring to the new year. The time to experiment with ways to enact change with the breathing room to find out that, well shoot, *that* way didn’t work. And then inspect and adapt. Try a different way.

This January I did several things to prepare for 2025:

• I took a free trial Irish dance class, loved it, and signed up for regular weekly classes
• I got an area in my house set up to take pictures and organize items to sell on Poshmark and eBay. I discovered I needed a few things to take pictures well, bought them (as cheap as possible!), and improved the pictures. I asked friends for tips on how to do listings on Poshmark well.
• I scheduled with my therapist to come in twice a week for a while to step up my mental health game
• I revised my resume a few times and worked up some content for a portfolio, so I can dive back into job hunting better prepared this year
• I’m watching, reading, and learning lessons to improve my communication and connection with the important people in my life

Today is February 1. And this time, I feel ready to change. Happy New Year!

1. Unless you want it to. If it works for you to “count” January, you do you! In that case, your January totally counts. But if you’re like me and felt like a January failure in past years, here’s a different perspective that might help. ↩︎