So... How Is That Year You Planned Going?

I have a question.

And before you close this because you think I’m about to ask you to pull out your January goals and grade yourself like we’re back in school...
Relax. 😂
I’m not.

But seriously.
How is that year you planned going?
Because somehow, it’s August.

AUGUST.
Wasn’t I just taking down the Christmas tree?
Actually, knowing me, that might not be the best way to measure time because there’s a very good chance the Christmas tree stayed up longer than it should have.
But you get the point.
We are well into the second half of the year, and this is usually around the time when I start thinking:

Wait.
What happened to all the things I said I was going to do this year?

Remember Her? January You?

Oh, January.
January us is very ambitious.
She has plans.
She has goals.
She bought the notebook.
Maybe even new pens.
She has decided THIS IS THE YEAR.
She’s going to work out consistently.
Eat better.

Finally do the thing she’s been talking about doing for three years.
Get organized.
Read more.
Scroll less.
Take better care of herself.
Start the business.
Fix the finances.
Clean out the closet.
Drink more water.
Set boundaries.

Apparently January us also thinks we have 47 hours in a day.
I love her optimism. 😂

And then...

Life.
February happens.
Then March.
Someone needs something.
Something breaks.
Work gets busy.
You get tired.
There’s a birthday, a graduation, a vacation, a problem you weren’t expecting, a Tuesday that somehow takes you out for the entire week...

And suddenly you look at the calendar and—

August.

What the hell?

This Is NOT Where I Tell You That You Wasted Eight Months

Nope.
We are not doing that.
No guilt.
No “you wasted eight months.”

And definitely none of that ridiculous:
YOU HAVE 142 DAYS LEFT TO BECOME YOUR BEST SELF!!!
Jesus.
Can I finish my coffee first?

I don’t think we need another countdown reminding us that time is running out.
Most women I know already feel like they are running all damn day.
What we could use is a minute to stop and ask ourselves a better question.

Is the way I’m living actually taking me where I said I wanted to go?

Oof.
I know.
I asked myself too.

Because Busy and Moving Forward Are Not the Same Thing

This one gets me.
You can be busy every single day and still not move one inch toward something that matters to you.

And women are VERY good at busy.

We can answer emails, make appointments, buy groceries, work, clean something, move something, remember something for somebody who absolutely should have remembered it themselves, feed everyone, solve three problems nobody even knew existed... and go to bed thinking:

What the hell did I do all day?

A LOT.
You did a lot.

But here’s the question:
How much of it belonged to the life you said you wanted?
That’s different.
And that’s where autopilot gets sneaky.

Because autopilot doesn’t always look like lying on the couch doing nothing.
Sometimes autopilot looks extremely productive.
You’re doing everything.

Except questioning whether everything you’re doing is taking you somewhere you actually want to go.

Maybe January You Isn’t Even Right Anymore

And here’s something else I’ve been thinking about.
What if some of the things you wanted in January...
you don’t want anymore?

Are we allowed to say that?
Of course we are.

Maybe something mattered enormously eight months ago and now it doesn’t.
Maybe something you didn’t even think about in January matters a LOT now.
Maybe life happened.
Maybe you learned something.
Maybe you lost something.
Maybe you discovered something about yourself.
Maybe you simply changed your mind.

Thank God.

Imagine being required to want exactly the same things forever just because you once wrote them in a cute notebook.

No thank you.

So maybe the question isn’t:
How many of my January goals have I checked off?

Maybe it’s:

What do I want NOW?

It’s August. Tell the Truth.

I actually think August is a great time for this.
Because August is late enough in the year to see what’s really happening.

The January excitement is gone.
We have evidence now.
We can see our patterns.
What we keep saying we’re going to do.
What we actually do.
What keeps getting pushed to “next week.”
What we keep tolerating.
What is working.
What absolutely is not.
And what we’ve been pretending we’re totally fine with when we’re actually thinking...

Yeah. I’m not doing another year of this.

But here’s the good part.
August is also early enough to change it.

August is late enough to tell the truth about the year. And early enough to do something about it.

Not everything.
Something.

Please Don’t Try to Reinvent Your Entire Life on Monday

You know how this goes.
We have one moment of clarity and suddenly we’re like:

THAT’S IT.

Monday I wake up at 5.
Workout every day.
No sugar.
No scrolling.
Eight glasses of water.
Meditate.
Journal.
Read 30 pages.
Meal prep.
Start the business.
Fix my marriage.
Organize the garage.
Become fluent in Italian.

By Thursday we’re eating crackers over the kitchen sink wondering what happened.

This is exactly why I keep coming back to the ordinary decisions.
Maybe the rest of this year doesn’t need some massive transformation.
Maybe it needs one different decision that you keep making.
Maybe you start walking.
Maybe you finally make the appointment.
Maybe you stop saying yes automatically.
Maybe you start reading labels.
Maybe you go to bed earlier.
Maybe you send the email.
Maybe you stop waiting for someone to give you permission.
Maybe you start the thing you’ve been talking about.
Maybe you put yourself on your own damn calendar.

Small?
Sure.

But your life is mostly made out of small things.

December You Is Being Built on Random Tuesdays

We love imagining the big moment.
The breakthrough.
The before-and-after.
The day everything finally changes.

But most of our lives don’t change on dramatic days.
They change on Tuesdays.

When nobody is watching.
When there’s no motivational music playing in the background.

When you have the choice between doing what you’ve always done and doing something slightly different.

That’s where your life is being built.
In the grocery store.
In your kitchen.
In what time you go to bed.
In what you say yes to.
In what you say no to.
In what you do when you’re tired.
In what you do with the hour you suddenly have free.
In the conversation you’ve been avoiding.
In whether you keep the promise you made to yourself this morning.

The rest of your year will be built in ordinary Tuesdays.
And Wednesdays.
And yes, even those weird Thursdays when you swear it should already be Friday.

You Don’t Need to Rescue the Year

Maybe that’s what I really want to say today.

You don’t need to rescue 2026.
You don’t need to catch up.
You don’t need to punish yourself for what you haven’t done.

And please, for the love of God, you do not need another 142-day challenge.

You can simply look at your life as it is right now and ask:
Do I want to keep doing it this way?
Where am I happy?
What is working?
What doesn’t fit anymore?
What have I been putting off?
What do I keep saying I want while making decisions that take me in the opposite direction?

And maybe the biggest one:

When December comes, what would make me genuinely proud of how I lived the rest of this year?

Not what would look impressive.
Not what you should accomplish.
What would matter to you?

You Still Get to Choose the Rest

January is gone.
Fine.
We don’t need her.

She was a little overconfident anyway. 😂
We’re here now.

August.

With more information.
More experience.
Maybe a few things that didn’t go according to plan.
Maybe a few things we’re incredibly proud of.

And a whole lot of ordinary days still ahead of us.

You don’t have to wait for January 1st to decide something differently.
You don’t even have to wait for Monday.
You can interrupt the default setting today.

Because that’s really what Unbecoming AverageTM is about.

Not becoming some extraordinary superwoman who has every part of her life perfectly figured out.
God, that sounds exhausting.
It’s about noticing when you’re living by default...
and choosing again.

So maybe don’t ask yourself how much of the year you’ve lost.
Ask yourself something much more useful:

What do I want to do with the part that’s still mine?

And then start there.
One ordinary decision at a time.
Let’s do this together.

Always with so much love,

GABY