Our planet has seasons, and our lives have seasons too.
But when it comes to reflecting on our own lives, most of us reserve the effort for a single day: New Year's. We write the list, feel inspired for a few weeks, and then life takes over. By spring, the list is somewhere in a drawer.
I stopped doing it that way. These days I check in with myself every three to four months, and it has changed how I live the other months in between.
What the Research Says About Resolutions
Studies of New Year's resolvers show that explicitly committing to a goal helps, but also that many people lapse as the weeks and months go on (Norcross, Mrykalo, & Blagys, 2002). That makes sense. A once-a-year reset has no built-in way to catch you when you drift, because the next checkpoint is eleven months away.
Fresh Starts Are Not Just for January
Researchers Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman, and Jason Riis describe what they call the fresh start effect: people are more likely to pursue their goals right after temporal landmarks such as the start of a new week, month, or season, or after a birthday, because those moments feel like a break from past failures (Dai, Milkman, & Riis, 2014). The effect is not unique to January 1st.
That is good news. It means the first days of a new season can work as natural reset points, four times a year instead of one.
Checking In Changes the Outcome
A large meta-analysis of experimental studies found that monitoring progress toward a goal promotes goal attainment, and the effect was stronger when progress was written down or shared with someone else (Harkin et al., 2016). In plain terms, looking at where you are makes it more likely you will get where you meant to go.
The Three Questions I Use
Every few months I sit down with a notebook and ask myself three things:
What did I choose to create? Not my to-do list, but the end result I actually wanted.
Did I trust my intuition to show me the most obvious next action?
Did I take it?
That is the whole check-in. Notice that it is not a performance review. The most obvious action is usually small: a call, an email, a boundary, a first draft.
If the answer to the third question is no, I try not to treat it as a verdict. I ask what got in the way. Was it a belief? A pattern? An environment that pulls me back? That curiosity does more for me than self-criticism ever did.
One more tip. Research on implementation intentions shows that deciding in advance when and where you will act makes follow-through much more likely (Gollwitzer, 1999). So after question three, write down the one action and the day you will do it.
Try Your Own Seasonal Check-In
Pick a landmark: the first week of a new season or quarter.
Set aside thirty quiet minutes and a notebook.
Answer the three questions honestly.
Choose one action and put it on your calendar.
Not Every Season Is for Planting
Some seasons are for building. Some are for resting. Some are for clearing out what no longer fits. A rhythm of regular check-ins lets you notice which season you are actually in, and live it on purpose.
You do not need to wait for January to begin again. You can begin at the next season, or this afternoon.
References
Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.
Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., & Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229.
Norcross, J. C., Mrykalo, M. S., & Blagys, M. D. (2002). Auld Lang Syne: Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year's resolvers and nonresolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(4), 397–405.
