Saturday mornings have a different texture.

The urgency is gone. The inbox can wait. The calendar is not dictating what happens next. There is space, and with space comes the opportunity to think about things that do not fit neatly into the productivity framework of a regular weekday. Things that are too big, too uncertain, too personal to squeeze between meetings and deadlines. Things that need room to breathe.

This is where I process. Not solve, not fix, not optimize. Just process. Let ideas sit. Let questions marinate. Let uncomfortable thoughts have their moment without immediately trying to resolve them. Not every thought needs to become an action item. Some thoughts just need to be thought. Some questions are better left open than answered prematurely.

The coffee is warm. The house is quiet. And my mind is wandering through the terrain of another week, looking for meaning in the ordinary, pattern in the chaos, signal in the noise.

Here are the three things I am thinking about this week.

Thing 1: The Illusion of the Fresh Start

It is January. New Year, New You. Fresh start energy everywhere you look. Every advertisement, every social media post, every conversation seems to be about transformation, change, becoming someone different than who you were last year.

And I find myself with mixed feelings about it.

On one hand, I get it. There is something psychologically powerful about a clean break. A line in the sand that separates before from after. The calendar turning over gives us permission to try again, to believe that this time will be different. There is hope in the fresh start. There is possibility. There is the intoxicating belief that everything can change if we just approach it with the right attitude.

After a year of whatever we went through, January offers the illusion that we can leave it all behind and begin again. Last year's failures? Behind us. Last year's patterns? Broken. Last year's version of ourselves? Gone. We can be whoever we want to be now because the calendar says so.

On the other hand, I wonder if the fresh start narrative sets us up for failure.

Here is what I mean. When we frame January 1st as a fresh start, we are implicitly saying that what came before does not count. That we are hitting reset. That the slate is wiped clean. All those lessons we learned, all those struggles we survived, all that growth we went through, it somehow does not carry over to the new year. We are starting from zero.

But is that true? Do our patterns actually reset just because the calendar changed? Do our habits forget everything they learned about us? Does our brain chemistry restructure itself because the year now ends in a 6 instead of a 5? Does the person we have become suddenly transform into someone else because we stayed up until midnight and watched a ball drop?

Of course not. We carry everything forward. The patterns that shaped our behavior in December are the same patterns that will shape our behavior in January. The same triggers. The same defaults. The same tendencies. The only thing that changed is our story about what is possible. The internal reality is unchanged. Only the narrative shifted.

I am not trying to be cynical. Stories matter. The story we tell ourselves about what is possible actually shapes what becomes possible. In that sense, the fresh start narrative has real power. If believing in a clean slate helps you try again, then the belief has value even if the underlying premise is fictional. The placebo effect is still an effect.

But I think there is a more honest way to approach it.

Instead of fresh start, maybe continuation with intention. Instead of new year new me, maybe same me with clearer direction. Instead of wiping the slate clean, maybe building on what actually worked and deliberately changing what did not. That framing acknowledges the truth: we are not starting over. We are continuing. The question is whether we continue consciously or unconsciously.

The fresh start illusion can become an escape hatch. If I failed at something last year, no problem, this is a new year, I am starting fresh. But that framing avoids the harder question: why did I fail? What pattern was I repeating? What will actually be different this time? The fresh start lets us skip the uncomfortable examination and jump straight to optimistic planning. And then we are surprised when the same things happen again.

Maybe the most powerful thing we can do at the start of a new year is not imagine ourselves as new people, but honestly assess who we actually are and make realistic plans based on that reality. Not who we wish we were. Not who we think we should be. Who we actually are, with all our strengths and limitations and patterns and tendencies. That kind of honesty is uncomfortable. It is also the foundation of actual change.

That is less exciting than the fresh start narrative. But it might be more likely to work.

Thing 2: The Difference Between Goals and Directions

Goals are specific. Hit this number. Reach this milestone. Achieve this outcome by this date. They are measurable, concrete, binary. You either hit them or you do not. There is no ambiguity. No gray area. Just success or failure, achieved or not achieved.

Directions are general. Move toward health. Become more financially stable. Build deeper relationships. They are continuous, flexible, ongoing. There is no finish line. You are always moving in the direction, or not. You cannot complete a direction. You can only stay on it or wander off it.

I have been thinking about which framework serves me better.

Goals have obvious advantages. They are measurable. You know if you hit them or not. There is clarity in that. They create accountability. They give you something specific to aim at. When you are planning your week, a goal tells you exactly what to prioritize. When you are evaluating your progress, a goal gives you a clear benchmark. Goals force decisions. They demand commitment. They create urgency.

But goals also have hidden costs.

When you set a specific goal, you are making a prediction about the future. You are saying: this outcome, achieved by this date, is what success looks like. But the future is uncertain. Circumstances change. What seemed like the right goal when you set it might not be the right goal now. The world shifted. Your priorities shifted. New information emerged. But you are still chasing the goal you set three months ago because you committed to it.

Goals also narrow your focus. When you are aiming at a specific target, you might miss opportunities that were not on your radar. You might ignore information that does not fit the goal you already committed to. You might pass up something better because it was not the thing you planned. The goal creates tunnel vision, which is useful for execution but potentially costly for adaptation.

There is also the emotional cost of goals. When you set a specific goal and do not hit it, you feel like you failed. Even if you made significant progress. Even if you learned valuable lessons. Even if circumstances were completely outside your control. The goal was the benchmark, and you did not meet it. That feeling of failure can be demotivating, especially if it happens repeatedly. Goal after goal, missed. At some point you stop setting them because missing them hurts too much.

Directions, on the other hand, are more forgiving. If your direction is toward health, you have flexibility in how you get there. Walking, running, yoga, weightlifting, dancing, whatever serves that direction at this moment in your life. If circumstances change, your approach can change without abandoning the direction. You are still moving the right way, just via a different path.

Directions also accommodate the unexpected. If you are moving in a general direction and something better shows up, you can pursue it without feeling like you failed at your goal. You did not fail. You are still moving in the right direction. You just found a better path than the one you originally planned.

And directions are sustainable in ways that goals sometimes are not. You can maintain a direction indefinitely. You cannot maintain goal-pursuit intensity indefinitely. Goals imply urgency. Directions imply persistence. Both have their place, but one is more suited to a life than the other.

I think the sweet spot might be directions with optional milestones. Set a direction. Move toward it. Use goals as checkpoints along the way if that helps, but hold them loosely. If a goal stops serving the direction, change the goal. The direction is what matters. The goals are just tools for making progress.

This is what I am experimenting with this year. Less I will achieve X by March. More I am moving toward X, and here is what the next step looks like.

It feels less ambitious. It probably sounds less impressive when you describe it to other people. But it might be more sustainable. And sustainability is what I am optimizing for these days.

Thing 3: The Weight of What You Carry Into a New Year

I woke up on January 1st feeling heavy.

Not physically heavy. Mentally. Emotionally. Like I was carrying things that I had not put down, even though the calendar had supposedly given me permission to.

Unfinished conversations. Unresolved disappointments. Projects that did not turn out the way I hoped. Relationships that shifted in ways I am still processing. Decisions I made that I am not sure were right. Things I said that I wish I could take back. Things I did not say that I wish I had.

The accumulated weight of a year lived, not all of it tied up neatly with a bow. Not all of it making sense. Not all of it resolved.

I think there is a tendency to treat the new year like a magic eraser. If I just focus forward, all that stuff behind me will fade. Out of sight, out of mind, clean slate. The past is last year. This is a new year. Different rules apply.

But that is not how it works. At least not for me.

The stuff you do not deal with does not disappear. It just goes underground. It shows up in your mood, your energy, your reactions to things that do not seem related. You think you have moved on, but you have just buried it. It is still there, taking up space, demanding resources, quietly shaping your experience even when you are not consciously aware of it. The unprocessed past leaks into the present whether you want it to or not.

So I have been thinking about what I am carrying that I need to put down.

Some of it is practical. Projects I said I would do that I am not going to do. Commitments I made that no longer make sense. Things on my list that have been there for months, that I keep transferring from one week to the next without ever actually doing them. The open loops that are taking up mental bandwidth without providing any value.

Some of it is emotional. Disappointment about things that did not work out. Frustration with myself for patterns I repeated even though I knew better. Grief about changes that I did not choose but had to accept. Regret about opportunities I did not take, words I did not say, connections I did not nurture.

Some of it is relational. People I need to reconnect with but have been avoiding. Conversations I need to have but have been putting off. Apologies I owe. Gratitude I have not expressed. The maintenance work of relationships that I have neglected because I was too busy with everything else.

I do not think there is a quick fix for any of this. You cannot just decide to put something down and have it be gone. Processing takes time. Healing takes time. Resolution takes time. The calendar does not accelerate these processes just because the year changed.

But you can acknowledge what you are carrying. You can stop pretending it is not there. You can give yourself permission to feel the weight instead of forcing yourself to perform lightness.

Maybe that is the first step. Not putting it down, but noticing you are holding it. Being honest about the weight. Giving yourself permission to feel it instead of pushing through.

The fresh start narrative says leave the past behind. But maybe the wiser approach is to bring the past with you consciously, process what needs to be processed, and gradually let go as you are ready. Not on a timeline. Not according to a calendar. According to what you actually need.

That is slower. That is messier. But it might be truer.

What I Am Sitting With

No conclusions this week. Just questions.

What would it look like to approach this year not as a fresh start but as a continuation? To build on what came before rather than pretending it did not happen?

What directions am I moving toward, and do the goals I have set actually serve those directions? Or am I chasing goals that made sense once but no longer do?

What am I carrying that I have not acknowledged? What would it feel like to notice the weight without immediately trying to fix it?

These are the things rattling around in my head this Saturday morning. They are not resolved. They probably will not be resolved by next Saturday either. But sitting with them feels more honest than pretending I have the answers.

What are you thinking about this week?

See you tomorrow for lessons learned.

One step, one day. Grace over guilt.