What If This Year Isn’t About Doing More But Trusting Yourself More
Every December, I take time to plan the year ahead. I map out goals, review my calendar, reflect, and sit with what I want to build. I meditate on direction, values, and growth. I even use tools like ChatGPT to help me think through which goals are worth pursuing and which ones may no longer fit.
This year, though, something felt different.
Instead of focusing primarily on what I wanted to accomplish, I found myself returning again and again to a simpler question: how do I want to feel this year? That shift changed the entire planning process. It moved me away from output and toward awareness. I started paying closer attention to my habits, especially how I begin and end my days, and how much rest my body and nervous system actually need to function well.
One small experiment emerged from that reflection: charging my phone in another room at night. The intention was to remove the urge to scroll before sleep or immediately upon waking. I am sixteen days into the year and have done it five days so far. Progress, not perfection. Give me some grace, I am a millennial!
Alongside that intention, something unexpected began to happen. Since late December, I have been consistently getting closer to seven or eight hours of sleep a night. That is almost unheard of for me. For years, running on less sleep felt normal, even necessary. Now my body seems to be catching up.
And yet, even with more sleep, more clarity, and feeling objectively better, a familiar thought still arises: am I falling behind?
That voice is subtle but persistent. It shows up even when you are doing something that is clearly supportive of your health. Even when rest is necessary. Even when your body is responding positively. I have had to remind myself that caring for my health, especially my sleep, is not a step backward in who I am becoming. It is a step forward.
Life moves in seasons and it took my awhile to truly understand this.
There are seasons of momentum, growth, and achievement, when energy is high and everything feels aligned. There are also seasons that call for slowness. More sleep. Fewer commitments. Less urgency. These quieter seasons are not signs of failure. They are part of the natural rhythm of life.
Somewhere along the way, many of us lost touch with that rhythm. We began treating constant intensity as the baseline and anything slower as a threat. But nature does not operate that way, and neither do human beings.
What if this year is not about doing more, but about trusting yourself more? Trusting your body when it asks for rest. Trusting that health is not a detour from success. Trusting that honoring the season you are in is how sustainable success is actually built.
Before setting new goals or adding more to your plate, it may be worth asking a different question: what season am I in right now, and am I willing to stop fighting it?
Want to go deeper?
I am offering the first chapter of my book Success Starts Within for free. It explores how inner alignment creates outer success, especially for high achievers navigating stress, burnout, and pressure: Click here to download the first chapter.
If you are a leader or organization navigating burnout or retention challenges, this is the work I teach through speaking and consulting.
Chazz Scott
Author of Success Starts Within
Creator of the Rise & Reclaim Blueprint™
