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Hey there. You're listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi, and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.
Today is episode 398.
5 things to remember before January begins.
We are right in the middle of this sometimes blissful, sometimes annoying, sometimes deeply ordinary week between Christmas and New Year's.
For folks able to take off work, it's full of travel, or space, or kids, or cleaning out rooms, or playing with new gifts, or reflecting on what you want the next year to look like.
My birthday is December 27th, And even though I'm recording this episode before then, I know that this week is extra, extra heightened for me.
The new year and a birthday, are you kidding me?
So much I could think about and reflect on and make plans for, it's a beautiful weird little week.
So since 2025 starts the day after tomorrow, let's spend a short time together remembering a few things.
I do sometimes share things you can do to help make your life a little easier, here a little more grounded, but so often the things that help create that life are not the things you do, but the way you see.
Perspective is everything.
Expectations are everything.
Awareness is everything.
Those are the things that keep us grounded in our humanity, especially during a week where a lot of the messaging around us might make us feel like inspired robots.
thoughts, so here are five things to remember before January begins.
Number one, you don't have to start yourself over.
Who you are today matters.
In many ways, culture has moved slightly past the New Year, New you messaging.
I see it less than I used to, but in advertising on TV and streamers and definitely still on a lot of social media content, we're very likely currently bombarded with products and programs and books and courses that are telling us that we can make our future selves proud.
We can commit now and be a different person in just a few months.
I follow a dietitian on Instagram who usually is all about feeding your body in kind, thoughtful ways.
She's helping people get more protein into their diets, because that's a part -time job for us now, but I've never felt an ounce of guilt or body shaming or anything from her.
In fact, nothing she has ever said is about the shape or size of anyone's body.
And just the other day, I saw a reel of hers that said something like, what would happen if you started making different decisions today?
What if these decisions helped you lose one to two pounds a week?
And by March you've reached your weight loss goals and you feel amazing.
I'll show you how. And I was so disappointed.
Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight.
It's a personal choice and people are allowed to make it just like people are also allowed to not.
But it was that new year new you messaging, even from a place in a person that has never offered that to me before.
There's this idea that just sneaks into so many places telling us that who we are today is just not quite there yet.
We need to keep pushing and trying and changing, not necessarily in ways that make us more whole and grounded and mentally healthy.
It's always about bodies or accomplishments or what other people might say about you when you're gone.
there's the motherhood guilt too, of like what kind of parent do you want to be in 2025?
Alright, I can feel myself getting a little hot and I need to pull back.
The reason I get a hot about this is because you don't have to start yourself over.
Who you are today matters.
I'm tired of women being told that who they are is not quite there yet, because that is coming from a perspective of greatness.
That's the lens of being the best, even if it takes you a lot longer to get there.
At least you're moving in a positive direction, right?
Who you are today is perfectly lovely.
Can you make choices that create change in your life?
Of course you can. But I'm saying that the first, first, I want us all to have the foundational perspective that who you are today is perfectly lovely.
You don't have to change who you are under this new year, new you mindset in order to matter.
That's a false promise and you don't have to keep chasing it.
So the first thing to remember before January begins, you don't have to start yourself over, who you are today matters, end of story.
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This episode is sponsored by Earthbreeze.
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Number two, the cultural machinery that surrounds you is strategic.
So notice it. Everyone who is making something that goes in front of your eyeballs is a marketer, advertising, social media content, product placement in stores.
All of it is telling you story leading you on a journey of thinking that this thing might just be the right call for you.
Some of it is meant to capitalize on your worst fears and your greatest felt needs.
Now, a foundational message we hear all year long, not just right now, is that greatness and mastery and optimization and making the most of everything is the goal, right?
That is all over the marketing messages you encounter every day.
We learned from the plan, however, that greatness does not actually have to be our end game at all times.
We can make a different choice.
You can instead view your life through a lens where making the most of every single thing, at every single turn, is not the engine that drives your days.
It's too exhausting for most of us to sustain anyway.
But that message is always around us in some form.
But this time of year, the marketing becomes more specific more strategic.
There will be language about setting goals and starting habits and don't you want to be this kind of person?
Even in sneaky ways there is and will continue to be a lot of before and after energy.
The dieticians who normally don't talk about body shape and size might start.
The vitamin commercials that pick up speed in January will tell you that this supplement will keep you from feeling harried and overwhelmed because people who live like that obviously aren't taking care of themselves.
Side note, being harried and overwhelmed, especially depending on your season of life, is part of life.
You can do things to make it feel less so, to feel a little easier, but this false promise that the right supplement or vitamin will somehow give you sustaining energy to tackle your day is absurd. Vitamins don't care that your kid got sick, or threw a pillow in a rage and broke a lamp, or broke their finger playing basketball.
Vitamins don't care!
My point with all of this is to notice the cultural machinery around you.
Notice the messaging.
Notice the lens. It's not always bad or wrong.
We can keep this very neutral, but the point is that by noticing you can more clearly see your place in that messaging.
You can see the man behind the curtain.
You can see that the emperor has no clothes, or at the very least, this emperor is not the one you choose to follow.
You don't have to be overly suspicious or negative about advertising.
Just be aware that the point of it is to make you feel like your current life is a before, and you should do something to make it an after.
You can choose that yourself.
You don't have to let a commercial or an influencer or anyone make you believe something is true when it's not.
Number three, You don't have to have everything figured out and decided right now.
A lot of people absolutely love choosing a word of the year or making a short list of things to do or setting a particular goal or learning a new skill for the upcoming year.
The new year brings out a lot of that and many folks and that's beautiful.
But sometimes you might feel pressure to decide that thing right now.
You hear an idea about how someone takes a certain photo every day or every Monday.
and by the end of the year, they have this like beautiful photo project, but you didn't see the idea until last April and you don't wanna start then, but then you forget to start right away now and you get all spinny about missing the chance.
That's like a deeply specific example.
But what I want you to remember before January begins is that you don't have to have everything figured out and decided right now.
You can have ideas deep into January, into July even, the start of the year can be the beginning of something specific.
But just because you don't start on January 1, doesn't mean it still isn't worthwhile.
If you really want a word of the year, but you don't feel good about one until the spring, that's okay.
Release the expectation of everything about your goals, and dreams, and markers figured out by January 1.
Number four, a perspective shift might really help you right now.
Hopefully, this podcast and even this episode is a short version of that, but if you have a book you reread every year, pick it up.
I know so many of you reread the Lazy Genius Way in December and January, and I love that.
I think that will happen a lot more with the plan, too.
Having a compassionate take on time as you enter the new year could be an excellent idea for you.
Use books or podcast episodes or a particular friend who always makes you see things clearly as your refresher as January begins.
Intentionally take a teeny bit of time to reclaim your perspective, to name what matters in the season of life you're in, and to keep your life choices in line with those priorities.
Sometimes all it takes is a quick reminder from a book, an article, a song, or a conversation.
Number five, you can dream big but you can live small.
Let me be specific about the smallness.
women have historically been told to be small, to not take up too much space in the room with their bodies or their opinions.
This is not the kind of smallness I mean.
I want everyone to feel deeply themselves wherever they are.
Sometimes we lean back to give someone else a spotlight.
Sometimes we recognize that this work is not ours to do.
Sometimes it's someone else's party and we're not going to make it about us.
Making yourself small for the sake of someone else is sometimes part of life, but that's not the smallness I mean.
When I say you can dream big, but you can live small, what I mean is that your life is more easily and authentically managed, and lived.
When you live small, focus on small problems so you can come up with small solutions.
Make your season of life smaller, so you can more accurately name what matters while you're there.
When you're confronted with a big project, remember that starting small is always a good idea, even if it seems like those small steps won't get you anywhere.
It's possible to be a big dreamer and have big goals going into January while also keeping your life right now in mind.
You can live small.
In fact, the smaller you live, the more present you are, the more aware of your needs you are, the more easily you can solve your problems, and the more actual progress you make.
Living small is a beautiful thing.
So remember, you don't have to start yourself over.
Who you are today matters.
The cultural machinery around you is strategic, so notice it.
You don't have to have everything figured out and decided right now.
A perspective shift or a reminder of a previous shift might be just the thing for you, and you can dream big, but you can still live small.
And those are the five things to remember before January begins.
If you're a person who collects books like I do and you bought the plan sometime in the last two months but you haven't read it yet, now really is an amazing time to do it.
When I tell you it'll help you feel good about yourself and your life, while also giving you tools to live it in a way that matters, I am telling the truth.
And it's not just my truth.
So many people have experienced immediate lightness when they read it.
That is not something we normally get from Time Management Productivity books and it's also something we could all use a little more of right now.
So if you already have it, grab it, start reading, start skimming.
If you haven't gotten it, maybe you have a little holiday gift money you can give to a favorite bookstore in exchange for the plan.
So thank you for reading it.
All right. Before we go, let's celebrate the lazy genius of the week.
This week, it's Christina from Las Vegas.
Christina writes, the holidays and the new year are both important seasons for me for For a lot of reasons, I've always struggled with a good closing ceremony that allows me to move wholeheartedly into the new year without letting my judgy inner critic take over.
Last year, I tried something new.
I lit all the Advent candles and just let them burn as I took down Christmas decorations.
It felt special and cathartic.
Since the candles weren't burned all the way down by bedtime, I lit them again every day until they burned all the way down.
It was my liminal space.
My month of transition from one year to the next.
This is so beautiful.
This might be added to things to do before January begins.
Light your December candles every day and let them burn until they're gone, marking the end of the season.
For some of you, this might be just the ticket for an intentional, peaceful, seasonal transition.
Thank you for sharing, Kristina, and congratulations on being the lazy genius of the week.
This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey.
The Lazy Genius podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office Ladies Network.
Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production.
Thanks you all for listening and until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.
I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week.
I'm Jordan Robinson, host of the new podcast, the Women's Hoop Show.
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