#181 Did your break whisper or shout?

Welcome into 2025

Did your break whisper or shout?

A reminder that life tends to whisper to us. When it shouts we tend to do something about it.

Assuming you were able to take some sort of break over the holiday season what did it teach you? What did the break shout at you? What did life scream at you once you stopped?

Did life say to you “I’m glad you’ve stopped because you need to hear this…” or “Don’t stop, keep going, push on through, it’ll all work out” or some version of either?

If you were paying attention to some weak signals what did you hear?

The need for …More connection? More balance? Less drama? Less Busy-ness? Better relationships? Better self-care? Different career path? Different life path forward?

Stopping for a break can allow us to pause, recover, re-calibrate, re-fresh and go again. What was whispering to you when you stopped?

What do you want more of?

What do you want less of?

What do you want to be better in 2025?

What needs to be different for that to happen?

If you haven’t already done so, here’s the link for the Extraordinary Me in 2025 reflection and planning document.

Click the image to download your free Extraordinary Me for 2025 Goal Planner.

I’ve definitely benefited from a fresh start.

Whether you set resolutions or goals or do neither there’s some evidence to point to the beneficial effect of using a new calendar year as a good starting point for a fresh start.

Researchers have coined the term ‘fresh start’ and conclude that people are better at goal achievement when they start on temporal landmarks (start of a new year, new week, first of the month, birthday, anniversary etc).

How often have we been guilty of saying “I’ll start on Monday” or “I’ll start when…”

In making a ‘fresh start’ one of the best ways to do it is to make the step small, easy and effortless to begin again if you fall off the horse.

Management Science: The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior

Psychology Today: The Unexpected Science of Fresh Starts and Failures

So, perhaps a fresh start with this question - What’s one thing I could do easily and without thinking or effort that would set me off on a different path?

Afterall, according to Martin Luther King Jr “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Every year I include the process Tim Ferriss goes through to to review the year and begin anew.

Tim Ferriss: Past Year Review

Here’s mine: Extraordinary Me for 2025

That's all for this week. If you’ve been enjoying the Weekly Whispers please feel free to forward it to friends and anyone you think would benefit.

As always, please share your feedback or thoughts with me at [email protected].

Cheers

Pete