Circling Back, Apparently

Because ‘new year, new me’ has never worked for me.

Circling back—it’s 2026.

Every December since joining the workforce, I’ve loved “let’s circle back in the new year” season. I love that, collectively, we agree the work is not going to happen. Or at least not in a way that outweighs the need to rest and reset. It’s an unspoken pact: we’ll pause now, and deal with it later.

This year felt different.

The “let’s circle back” conversations started later—or never happened at all. It felt like everyone just… kept grinding. Smizing their way through holiday cheer while white-knuckling their calendars. Like society collectively decided the world is too fucked to circle back, so instead we’d just grit our teeth and bear it.

I’m fortunate. For the last handful of winters, my company has closed for a full week during the holidays—Global Week Off (GWO). No PTO requests. No Slack. No email. No Zoom. We all step away at the same time and re-engage with friends, family, rest—whatever that season looks like for us. It removes the weird competitiveness of who got their OOO approved and who didn’t. No resentment. No rotating box of hatred. We all get it. We’re all paid for it. It’s a genuinely good perk.

In years past, that pause naturally pushed “circling back” into late November or early December. Work slowed. Expectations softened. Everyone collectively exhaled.

This year? I was desperate to circle back after the new year.

I wanted extra snuggle time with my nephew who arrived in December. I wanted space to prepare for the holidays with my family and friends. And because of that anxiety—even the joyful kind—every new deadline or meeting added before GWO felt like a personal affront to my deeply buried, carefully concealed burnout.

My brain had already checked out. It had already labeled projects as “stalled until January.” I was mentally baking cookies between calls, even if I wasn’t physically doing it yet.

I remember the before times—before GWO was a given. The collective understanding that the week between Christmas and New Year’s wasn’t real work. You checked email once or twice a day. Maybe onboarded a few early-January students. Took internal Zooms while doing dishes or baking. Talked about momentum and “new year, new me” energy with enough self-awareness to know it was mostly aspirational.

That phrase—new year, new me—has always been sarcastic in my brain. Like… who says that with a straight face and means it? (Not I.)

Because here’s the thing: January has never felt like a beginning to me.

September does.

Back-to-school season. Fresh notebooks. New routines. That’s when my brain resets. I don’t think in calendar years—I think in school years. My most meaningful “I’m going to change my life” moments rarely come in January.

They show up quietly, months later.

Going to the gym regularly? A random April day when my sister invited me to Zumba.
Getting back into reading? A June decision on a bachelorette trip.
Real shifts don’t arrive with confetti. They arrive when a chapter actually ends.

And yet—here I am—drowning in “Happy New Year! Circling back on…” messages while my personal new year is still months away.

So instead of pretending January is my grand reset, I’m trying something else. I’m naming a few intentions for 2026—not as promises, but as permissions—and seeing whether they stick… or crumble like so many resolutions do once we realize the concept was easier than the execution.

(As my partner loves to remind me: Cadillac thinking, Pinto execution.)

Here’s what I’m circling back to—on my own timeline:

• I’ll keep reading, intentionally introducing new authors while unapologetically rereading my favorites. (Yes, I’m currently rereading Throne of Glass.)

  • I might blog or Bookstagram my 2026 reading journey. No pressure. Just curiosity.

• I’ll take advantage of professional development at work, because lifelong learning actually matters to me.

• I’ll pick up my physical camera again. I really did love photography once.

• I’ll write more—but not publish all of it. Some words are just for me. (Though if you ask, I’ll probably still share.)

• And I’ll define success by my own metrics and timelines. My body. My life. My choice.
  

So maybe these aren’t resolutions.

Maybe they’re returns.

Returns to the things that already make me feel grounded, curious, and like myself when everything else feels loud and urgent. I don’t need 2026 to be a “new me.” I just need it to be a year where I circle back intentionally—to joy, to learning, to creating without monetizing every thought, to moving my body because it feels good, not because January told me to.

The emails will keep coming. The pressure to perform optimism and productivity on command won’t disappear.

But this year, I’m letting myself operate on my own calendar.

Cadillac intentions. Pinto execution.
Still progress. Still mine.

As always, caffeinated, chaotic, & curious

- Mads