Why your new year should start in March (My spring reset guide)

0:11What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shape guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing, because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

0:25What is up and welcome back to Working hard. I hope you are all good and feeling vaguely more alive now that there is finally a bit of light in the evenings. It's not dark at like 2pm. I'm not being dramatic when I say that that alone has shifted my entire personality and if you are not a UK listener, just FYI, it has rained for 40 days non-stop here to start the year which has been pretty dreary to say the least, not to mention the fact that you can't get to midday without it already feeling like the sun is setting. But today's solo episode has been brewing for a few weeks because I have quietly made the executive

0:51Grace Beverley: decision to restart new year. I've kind of come to the conclusion that January was just a rehearsal And the more I've been thinking about this, the more I've been thinking that this is actually a really good way to think. Because you test anything that you're going to really commit to for a long time. Like anything else that you thought I'm going to commit to for 12 months, you'd probably test for a little bit first. You don't just throw yourself immediately into it. Whereas the new year, we just think, oh, I'm going to start on this one day. And then the whole year is just going to go exactly how I planned.

1:16Realistically, we need a little trial period. We've had our little trial period. And so we are going to push forward from here.

1:29And I say this all as someone who usually loves New Year. I love goals. I love a vision board. I love sitting down with a planner. We literally did an entire series of the podcast around resetting for the new year. And none of that is irrelevant. But I think that it's true to say that January is not always the most intelligent time to rebuild your whole life from scratch.

1:47Grace Beverley: And don't get me wrong. Every single December, I will still be vision boarding. I will still be thinking about what I want from my life. And I encourage you to do the same. but that doesn't mean your life needs to change on January 1st. At that point, you've just come out of December, which is usually emotionally intense, socially intense, financially intense, or all three. Your routine has dissolved, your sleep is questionable, and then suddenly you're expected to be operating at like peak performance. There's no runway or ramp up. And then if your work or personal life starts playing up too, your window of tolerance becomes increasingly slim, which is setting yourself up for failure.

2:18Grace Beverley: And what I've noticed in my own life is that no matter how hard I try, and no matter how many podcasts I make, The goals I set in January come from a slightly reactive place. Like they're ambitious, which I love and I think is very relevant and very important, but they're not always grounded in how my life actually functions once the year properly gets going. And that is something that happens no matter how hard I try, no matter how much I plan ahead. I think it's just the reality. Like you have to have a little bit of a trial. You have to be able to go back to routine before you start adding things into routine.

2:46Grace Beverley: That's like one of the number one rules of habit theory is you can't just suddenly change everything all at once from an unstable place. So I often feel like by mid-February when the emails are relentless and the diary is full and real life has kicked back in, it's easy to feel like you're renegotiating half of your goals and wondering whether you're the problem when actually maybe the timing was. So one of the reasons I really wanted to do this episode was that back in 2024 I did a full reset in September and it was one of the best decisions I made that year. It came after a particularly tough period where I felt super stretched and instead of waiting for January because that's what you're meant to do.

3:21I aligned my reset with the old trusty academic calendar. I love a little academic calendar year. I probably have a mini reset every September anyway, just with the big push in Q4 and really making sure you've reached your goals for the year. It's just a good place to reset after summer.

3:34Grace Beverley: And at that time, I rewrote how my weeks looked. I changed how I trained. I adjusted what I was willing to say yes to. And I found that it stabilized me in a way that January resets haven't before. So this year, I'm going to do the same. and early springtime is feeling like the perfect time for me right now. So I've done some research into this because I feel like I'm going to try and bring this approach into next year too. So as I said, December is still going to see me vision boarding, planning for the year, setting goals, all of that. But being able to have this kind of trial period approach for January and February, we still go into things like with a lot of oomph, but you understand that it might not be what the whole rest of your year looks like, I think is a really valid way of looking at it.

4:12And I actually read the other day, or it was obviously a TikTok, it said that trees don't bloom in January. Nothing in nature decides to reinvent itself in the middle of the darkest, coldest stretch of the year. Don't put pressure on yourself to do the same. And I just felt like that really summed up the reason why so many cultures celebrate New Year in early spring rather than in the depths of winter. Lunar New Year, for example, which is celebrated across many Asian countries in different iterations, follows the lunar calendar and usually falls between late January and mid-February. Then there's the fact that this year in the Chinese zodiac is the year of the fire horse which even though I am not claiming to be versed on the zodiac feels quite fitting for a season that is

4:48Grace Beverley: all about energy and forward motion and as I was down this rabbit hole I read a quote in the independent from Ada Wei forgive me if I butchered that pronunciation I did some research on it but there were various different suggestions as to the pronunciation she's an integrative Chinese medicine clinician and she said that a fire horse year heightens the horse's natural dynamism fire brings intensity urgency and passion which can feel motivating but also demanding this combination often creates a faster pace of life and a stronger drive to achieve, making it especially important to stay attuned to the body's limits and energy reserves.

5:19And I felt like this really spoke to the idea of resetting without trying to do much and like burning ourselves out. And actually on a very practical level, having more light genuinely affects your circadian rhythm and

5:30Grace Beverley: your energy levels and you're no longer operating in full like winter survival mode. At this time of the year, we've also had a few months of the year to gather actual data about our lives. So we're starting to know what our workload realistically looks like, which January habits have genuinely stuck versus which ones lasted nine days, and what your actual capacity is when the year gets going, which means you're building from evidence at this time rather than an imagined idea of what your life might look like. So here is what I'm doing over the next few weeks for my spring reset or my kind of re-attempt at the new year.

5:59Although I don't like the concept of re-attempting because that feels like I failed. I didn't fail, we didn't fail, we've talked about why many people look at spring as the new year instead. So we are just taking a different approach this year and we have prepared by trying in January and February. Right, so step one, I am going to do a renewed life audit. The first rule of my new year is that I have to do a genuinely honest audit of my life. So I'm going to carve out an hour without my phone and go through a few key questions. These questions I've been thinking about for a little bit to make sure I'm going to get the most out of this reset.

6:30I'm going to share them with you. You can obviously add on ones that work for you, but this is what I feel like I really need to address. So firstly, what did I introduce in January?

6:39Grace Beverley: New habits, new routines, new commitments, new standards I decided I was going to live by. I'm going to get it out of my head and onto paper so that I could actually see the volume of what I attempted to carry. Then the next stage is going to be to ask myself very calmly, what is actually working? So maybe you started strength training and you feel stronger and more confident and it's become a non-negotiable in the best way. Maybe you started waking up at 5am because you thought that's what high performers do. And if you're very honest with yourself, you hate it and you are tired by 3 p.m. and you can't have any evening plans.

7:10Grace Beverley: I'm planning on circling the things that feel maintainable and aligned with my real life, not my imagined one. So that's gonna give me a really clear setup for which of these things actually worked out, which of these things are, yes, aligned with my long-term plans, but also aligned with how I actually live my life and being able to actually carry those into the next part of my year. Because this is not about taking your goals down a notch. It's about being able to do what's maintainable, being able to do what's sustainable and therefore actually reaching goals rather than talking about goals and doing them for two months.

7:36So the next thing I'm asking myself is what was too ambitious? January very much has a way of convincing ourselves that we need to compress a year's worth of growth into 30 days. And if a goal requires a completely different version of you to execute it,

7:49Grace Beverley: then it doesn't need shame, it needs scaffolding, it needs structure, time and perhaps a more realistic starting point. So by that I mean that you don't need to get rid of all of your ambitious goals. You just need to make sure that they are in a state that fits within your calendar. So for example, if you do want to stick to the 5am thing, maybe you don't do it every day of the week. Or maybe you don't have any evening plans on weekdays anymore. It has to be broken down because all things cannot exist at once in a way that is going to keep you reaching your goals. You don't need to get rid of ambitious goals at any time, but they have to fit within your actual life.

8:23Grace Beverley: And finally, what has changed? so none of us can control everything in our lives and external factors will always play a part in how our goals and habits look I think for years I wasn't necessarily honest about that and I would just push through which can get you very fast to burnout which I think to a lot of people and I think to me back then maybe just felt like a bit of a badge of honor and a bit of like oh well I don't really burn out and if I do burn out it's for like a day and then I'm back but actually having proper burnout is fucking awful and will take so many goals out of your life and out of your ability to do because you just cannot work to that capacity anymore.

8:59So you do not want to push yourself there. So all of that leads to the fact that the next step is to edit your goals rather than to abandon them, as I've already talked about. So most of us treat our goals in a very black and white way. We either double down aggressively when they're not working, or we abandon them completely and decide that we are incapable of follow through. And neither of those things are very useful to us at all.

9:19Grace Beverley: So there's a much more mature middle ground, which is editing. If in January, for example, you decided you were going to work out six times a week, despite the fact that we talked about realistic goals and we talked about what actually fits within your calendar and maybe starting with one thing and adding a stage two when you really get the hang of that, you may well still have got too ambitious with certain things and that's fine. That's nice. It's very noble of you. But maybe the consistent reality is that you are going to the gym three times a week, which might still be a vast improvement from where you were before, or it's still making you feel great.

9:49Grace Beverley: That is not some kind of big failure. It is just information, and it's really easy to get yourself into a cycle of failure where you think that actually, well, I said six and I'm reaching three, so I'm not going to do any. Where is that getting you? That's not helpful at all. So maybe three is the maintainable number at this time in your life, and three is so much better than zero. Maybe you can work up to four by halfway through the year if you're consistently sticking at three, but you cannot be setting yourself up for failure like this over and over again. Also, if you said you were going to completely overhaul your diet and cook from scratch every night, but your workload has doubled, maybe the reset version of you is focusing on one or two high impact habits rather than perfection.

10:25Grace Beverley: So you could focus, for example, on having a meal prep day on Sundays or meal prepping for half of your meals and knowing that half of them are going to be meal deals or whatever it might be. All of this is to say that instead of giving up, go into your yearly goals and just amend them and make sure you feel no guilt in that. When I was doing my planning for 2026 episode at the beginning of December, I was talking through how I was doing all that process. And what you will have seen is that I put all of those in my digital planner. I see them every day. I look at them every day. It's really clear to see my goals.

10:53Grace Beverley: That also means it can just be super easily edited. And I like to tweak tiny little bits on my vision board at this time of year as well. There is nothing more demotivating than having something in front of your face that was an original goal. And you just know that you are not going to reach that goal. And it's staring at you every single day. And you're basically telling yourself to your face that you are a failure every single day, which is not necessarily the reality. And that brings us into the final step, which is going to be to focus on my weekly calendar. So one thing I've had to learn the hard way is that I love the theatre of reinvention.

11:23Like, I love the new planner.

11:25Grace Beverley: I am a classic ADHD girly. I love the new things and I love going a million miles per hour into the new things. But the resets that have actually changed my life the most have almost been the most boring on the surface and have mostly revolved around my calendar. So when I did my big September reset in 2024, it was about protecting my mornings, buffering time for exercise that couldn't be bulldozed out the way as the first thing that went, restructuring my week so I wasn't constantly reactive, and being far more intentional about what I agreed to. But those small structural changes, which weren't very fun and didn't require a whole new vision board, although obviously I made one anyway just for fun, those changes were what really rippled into everything else and what really made it manageable and maintainable.

12:09Grace Beverley: So if you're restarting now, I would really encourage you to resist the urge to overhaul and instead go into your calendar, see if the structure of your week matches your goals and work out why it doesn't, if it doesn't and go about changing that. There's a quote I always go back to, which is, if someone followed you around for a week, would they believe you're serious about your goals? So essentially, if you've said you're going to work out three times, are those times blocked in your calendar? If you want to cook from scratch, have you meal planned? Have you decided when you're doing your weekly shot or do you just automatically assume that you're going to have all the ingredients you need and you don't have any recipes planned?

12:44Grace Beverley: Do you actually have too many commitments to be reading for an hour a day, for example? It is absolutely fine to realise these things and to amend your goals. That is actually the best outcome. The problems arise when we lie to ourselves about what is actually feasible. Like there is no point having the most stunningly perfectly organised calendar if you're not actually going to do what it says and if what it says isn't lined up with your actual long-term goals and I really want to say this clearly before the end because I know how easy it is to internalize January as the final verdict on your discipline if the first few months of this year have felt slow unproductive or slightly underwhelming in any way that does not mean you failed the year you were testing habits you were gathering data you were figuring out what actually fits and if you don't believe that about yourself then you can't believe that about me and I will back myself, like I am a productive person and I reach my goals, it's just not always the right time to do so.

13:38Grace Beverley: And sometimes you set the wrong goals, sometimes your personal life gets in the way, sometimes all of these things fly at you that you weren't expecting. But now you get to actually respond to that information and that is the most mature and effective approach to this. There is no universal starting gun. You are allowed to choose your reset point. And some of the most powerful shifts in my life have happened on completely random dates, not because the calendar told me to change or because everyone's Instagram posts were around rebranding, but because I decided that I was no longer willing to drift and I just decided it was time for a change.

14:07Grace Beverley: So if you've been waiting for permission, this is your permission. Sit down this week and ask yourself what's working, what isn't, and what actually matters for the next couple of months. Edit your goals, choose fewer things, focus on steady growth. That is what success looks like. Success doesn't look like what your goals look like in January if you're never going to get close to them. If you're going to get 60 % of the way there, that's so much better than getting 0 % of the way there and just telling yourself you failed in the first few months. So I hope that has sunk in because it's important.

14:35And this year is going to be great for you, but this year is only going to be great for you if you are really real with yourself and you adjust based on what you actually need.

14:43Grace Beverley: So thank you so much for listening. If this resonated with you, please make sure you are subscribed to the podcast so that you don't miss every single Monday. I will also be sending all my reading recommendations on this topic out in my newsletter. I've been sending it out almost every Tuesday for pretty much a year now. And the idea is that it's a quick read full of my favourite things that I've been reading, watching, doing over the past week. It's all about expanding your horizons and being able to read about and learn about more interesting things that won't necessarily be pushed on your newsfeed.

15:10Grace Beverley: So I will put the link to subscribe in the description. Have the best week and I will see you very soon.

15:25Thank you.