End-of-Year Practices That Don't Require You to Lie to Yourself

December rolls around and suddenly everyone's got opinions about what you should be doing with yourself. Set your intentions. Map out your goals. Become your best self in the new year.

Here's what nobody's saying: most of that shit requires you to pretend you're someone you're not.

I spent twenty years in IT before burning out so completely I couldn't even look at a computer without my nervous system staging a revolt. Then I became a massage therapist. Then a teacher. Now I'm a therapist and coach. You know what I learned? That the problem was never that I needed a better plan or clearer goals or more willpower.

The problem was that I kept abandoning myself to chase some imaginary version of who I was supposed to be.

The Lie We Keep Telling

Every December, we're sold the same story: you're not enough as you are, but don't worry—January 1st is your chance to fix that. Just commit to the right practices, develop the right discipline, follow the right system, hustle hard enough, and you'll finally become the person you're meant to be.

Except you're already the person you're meant to be. You're just exhausted from pretending otherwise.

I work with people who've done years of therapy. They've read the books, learned the coping strategies, understand their patterns. And they're still stuck. Not because they need more self-improvement. Because they need permission to stop performing and start actually living.

What Really Helps

So what do you do at the end of the year if you're not spending it crafting vision boards and promising yourself you'll finally become disciplined?

You get honest about what actually happened.

Not the Instagram version. Not the story where everything was a learning experience and you're grateful for the journey. The real version, where some things sucked and you're still figuring out what to do with that.

I'm not talking about beating yourself up. I'm talking about telling the truth without some bullshit “learning experience” to make it palatable.

What patterns showed up this year that you'd rather not repeat? Not because you're broken, but because they're exhausting and you deserve better.

You acknowledge what you survived.

This year asked a lot of you. Maybe you showed up anyway. Maybe you didn't, and you're still here. Either way, you made it through. That counts.

You don't need to be grateful for suffering. You don't need to find the silver lining. You can just notice: I'm still here. That took effort. That matters.

You listen to what your body's been trying to tell you.

Your body's been keeping score all year. The tension in your shoulders, the exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix, the way certain situations make your chest tight—that's information, not weakness.

What's your body been saying that you've been too busy to hear? What does it need that you keep promising "later"?

Rest isn't a reward for productivity. It's a requirement for existence.

You identify what you want to protect going forward.

Not what you want to achieve. Not what you want to become. What you want to protect.

Your energy. Your relationships. Your peace. The small things that make your life feel like yours.

What are you willing to say no to in order to protect those things? What boundaries did you learn you need this year, even if you haven't figured out how to hold them yet?

What This Actually Looks Like

Here's what I'm doing this December instead of planning my transformation:

I'm noticing which projects drained me and which ones felt aligned. I'm acknowledging that I spent most of the year rebuilding after burnout, and that was the work—not a detour from the work.

I'm listening to the fact that my body needs more rest than capitalism says is reasonable. I'm protecting my weekend mornings because that's when I actually feel like myself.

I'm not setting goals for who I should become. I'm identifying what I need to stop tolerating.

That's it. No vision board. No word of the year. No elaborate tracking system that I'll abandon by January 15th.

Just honesty about what is, and clarity about what I want to protect.

You Don't Need Permission, But I'll Give It Anyway

You don't have to do December the way everyone else does it. You don't have to reflect productively or grow intentionally or set goals that demonstrate your commitment to self-improvement.

You can just be honest. You can just rest. You can just exist without turning it into a project.

The year didn't happen to teach you lessons. It happened because time moves forward.

You don't owe anyone a transformation story.

You already have what you need. You always did.

The work isn't becoming someone new. It's remembering who you are when you stop abandoning yourself to meet everyone else's expectations.

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If you're exhausted from trying to fix yourself and ready for support that doesn't require you to become someone else, Sail Through Chaos might be what you need. It's coaching for people who've done the therapy work and are still stuck—because you don't need fixing just support.

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