Ep 152 Do Your Really Need to Finish the Year STRONG?

There's a message doing the rounds every September. Only so many weeks left of the year, so let's finish strong, make them count, don't waste the last stretch.

And there's something real in it. Autumn can bring genuine energy. But that message tends to be delivered as though it applies to everyone equally, and we are heading into autumn and then winter, not spring. 

In this episode, Carly offers a gentler alternative to cramming everything into the final months. Not fifteen things. One thing, chosen well, with enough room left over for the commitments, the socialising and the rest you're going to need. With practical examples, her own choice for this last stretch, and an honest word about why knowing which one thing is yours is the genuinely hard part.

If you'd like some help finding your one thing, that's exactly what the Embodied Strength Profile is for. 

Unhurried time together, one connected picture, and a next step you can trust rather than a list of everything you should be doing. 

In person at Still Space Hull or online, wherever you are Enquire HERE.

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📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
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Transcript

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0:47

Hello, and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm Carly, your curious midlife guide and founder of Still Space Hull, and here we are at episode 152. And here we are in September, and September does have a particular feeling to it, doesn't it? Even for those of us long past school age, and even for those of us without children in the house, there's something about that month that says, "Right, okay then, back to it." New term energy. That urge to buy stationery you don't need, or maybe that's just me. But that sense that the summer has loosened everything off, and and now it's time to gather it all back up again. And alongside all that, there's usually a bit of quiet stocktaking going on. Where have I actually got to this year? What happened to the things I said I'd do back in January? Plus, if you're anything like me, you've probably already seen the first mention of Christmas somewhere, which does tend to concentrate the mind. So today, I want to talk to you about this particular time of the year, and about a question I get asked a lot in one form or another, which is simply, "Where do I actually start?" Now there's a particular message doing the rounds at this time of year, you might be familiar, and you'll have seen it probably many times. It goes something like, "There are only so many weeks left in the year, so let's finish the year strong. Make them count. Don't waste the last stretch." And let's be fair to that message before we dive into it or completely deconstruct it, 'cause there is something real in that. You know, from where we're standing now, there's around 16 weeks left in the year, about a third of the year left, and that's, you know, realistically a decent stretch of time. Plenty can happen in 16 weeks. So there's nothing wrong with that impulse, and actually autumn can bring some real energy with it, that crispness in the air, that back to it feeling after it's cooled down after the long, hot summer. So it's a real thing, and for some of us, it's a season where focus actually does return, and we do want to get on with things. That's certainly true for me in some aspects. And if that's you right now, wonderful. Please don't let me talk you out of it. It's not one of those things. But I'd like to offer you a little nuance here because I think it's missing from most of what you'll hear this month. That finish strong message tends to be delivered as though it applies to everybody equally, as though we should all be revving up right now. But look at what's actually happening around us. The light is changing, it's diminishing, the mornings are darker, we're heading into autumn, and then we'll be heading into winter, not spring. So for some of us, that means the body is asking for something quite different from a final push. It might be asking you to slow down, to gather in, to do less, not more. And that's not laziness, and it's definitely not a failure. There's nothing wrong with you if you're feeling that. But it's being in step with the season you're actually in So neither way of feeling is right or wrong. Some of you will genuinely have a spurt of energy available right now, and it would be a shame not to use it. And some of you listening in are possibly exhausted whilst hearing the messages of being told to sprint, which is not a nice feeling. The only real question is which one is true for you right now, not which one do you think you should be feeling So there's another problem with the finish strong approach, and it's probably a practical one rather than the, uh, philosophical one. 'Cause in practice, finishing strong usually means cramming in. It can often mean looking at a list of everything you didn't get to this year and trying to do it all in the time that's left. So the sleep, and the eating, and the exercise, and the stress, and the thing you've been avoiding since March all at once and starting on Monday. And look at what season you'd be attempting to do that in. The last third of the year is when a lot of commitments can stack up, isn't it? It gets darker and colder. There's often more socializing. There's family logistics to navigate. There are school things, work things, festive things, whatever else the end of the year is. It's often not a quiet, spacious stretch with nothing else going on, like perhaps what our ancestors might have experienced. So a plan built on doing considerably more is almost perfectly designed to fail in exactly the season where you'll have the least room for it. And then come January, you might find yourself feeling like you failed again, which to me is a terrible way to start the year, and it's how a lot of people arrive through my door, unfortunately So what I'd like to offer you instead is, and it's quite simple actually, but simple doesn't always mean easy, we know that. Um, but rather than trying to cram everything into the last stretch of the year, what if you could just choose one thing? One thing to place your focus on. One focus, not 15 things. One thing that you can give enough space and attention to that it can actually take root and become part of how you live, rather than something you white-knuckle for three weeks and then have to abandon. Because there's something that one thing can give you that 15 things never can. It leaves space. Space for the commitments that are on the way, space for the socializing you actually want to do, and crucially, space for the rest you're going to need, especially if your body is actually asking for winter. So you get progress, you get rest in the same season, which is not a compromise. That's actually how sustainable change works. And if you've been listening for a while, you'll recognize this as the same thread that runs through so much of what I talk about. You can't renovate the whole house while you're still living in it, but you can do one room properly So let's make this a little clearer because I don't want to leave you with a lovely idea and no idea what to do with it. I have some examples of what a single well-chosen focus might actually look like. So it might be some very simple full body strength training twice a week. Not a complicated program, not five sessions, not a whole identity as a gym bunny. Two sessions a week that cover your whole body done consistently across 16 weeks. That's a really meaningful stretch of training. Your bones and muscles will notice. Or perhaps it might be something, uh, a little quieter, maybe just starting to give your breath some attention. Start to notice it. Not needing to change it, not practicing a certain technique every day, but just paying attention to what your breath is doing at different points in the day. Kind of use it like a bit of an audit. What's my breath like in that meeting? What does it do when I open my emails? What happens to it when the school run gets a bit fraught? That noticing alone starts to tell you an incredible amount a- about your own patterns, and awareness is really everything when it comes to creating change, and even realizing that maybe you're doing okay in some aspects. And perhaps you might have a focus around your eating, and noticing I'm not saying follow a meal plan through December because I think that's a fairly reliable way to make yourself miserable at exactly the wrong time of year. But you might choose to notice your eating patterns instead, to pay attention to what different foods actually feel like in your body. What leaves you steady, what leaves you feeling flat, what you reach for when you're tired. That in itself is a beautiful thing to practice across the festive season, precisely because there's so much variety around. It's information gathering, not restriction and it doesn't actually have to be a health behavior at all, which brings me over to mine So my one thing for this last stretch of the year is creating some more structure around my work boundaries, which on the face of it might not sound like a wellbeing goal at all, but let me tell you why I've chosen it, because for me, the reasoning is kind of the whole point of the episode So I know what's coming. I know I want to rest over the next few months because that's what the season asks of me in terms of my body, and I've learned the hard way what happens when I ignore that. But I also know that there will be things I want to go to. I will want to do some socializing. I want to actually enjoy the end of the year rather than grimly working through it, trying to get ahead for the next year. So if I want both of those things, the highest leverage thing I can do Is not in fact to work on my sleep or my training or anything else directly. They kind of hum along in the background at the moment, but it's to get clear about where my work actually begins and ends. Because when my work has proper edges, I know what I'm saying yes to, and just as importantly, what I need to say no to. It makes rest possible, it makes socializing possible, and it takes the decision out of every single invitation, rather than me weighing each one up in the moment when I'm tired. And that's one focus that protects several things at once for me. And that's what a well-chosen one thing can do maybe for you. It isn't necessarily the most obvious item on your list, But it's often the case that when you attend to it, it makes several other things a lot easier Which brings me to the slightly challenging bit and the thing I would really like to say before we finish. Choosing one thing does sound very simple, um, but knowing which one thing is yours can really be quite difficult, and I don't wanna pretend otherwise 'cause the obvious answer is very often quite not the, the one that's gonna be the most helpful. The thing that's shouting the loudest, the thing you feel most guilty about, the thing everyone says you should be doing is most often not the thing that would actually shift the most for you. Sometimes what looks like a sleep problem is actually a boundaries problem. Sometimes what looks like a motivation issue is actually something to do with your recovery. Sometimes what feels like needing to do more is actually focusing on considerably less, and that can be really hard to see from the inside of your own life. Not because you're not clever enough or not self-aware enough, but because you're standing right in the middle of it. It's the same reason we can all give our friends excellent advice, but sometimes we just can't apply it to ourselves. This is why I have a coach too, by the way. So as we move into the last stretch of the year, I'd love you to sit with a couple of questions. First, honestly, what is your body actually asking for right now? Is it a, a sprint, or maybe a slowing? Neither answer is wrong. And secondly, if you were to choose just one thing to give your attention to between now and the end of the year, one thing that would leave space for the rest of your life to happen around it, what might that be? And you don't have to answer straight away. It's worth taking a bit of time over, and you have time. And if you'd like some help finding your one thing, That is exactly what my embodied strength profile is for. We spend proper unhurried time together looking at how you move, how you breathe, and how your body responds to the demands of your actual life. Not as separate conversations, but as one connected picture. And out of that, you leave knowing what would actually make the biggest difference for you right now. A next step you can trust rather than a list of everything you should be doing Which at this time of year in particular might be the kindest thing you can do for the version of you that will arrive in January. We can do that in person at Still Space Hull or online wherever you are. So you can find the details at stillspacehull.com. I will pop those in the show notes. So until next time, may you meet yourself with compassion, walk with presence and remember, you already have everything you need