Your Brain Says the Year Is Over. It's Lying.
I felt it happen today.
It started so innocently. Just a small, polite thought that wandered into my mind like it had every right to be there. I was staring at my to-do list, trying to figure out what needed my attention first, when my brain quietly asked:
Does this really have to be done before the holidays?
Then, softening its voice into something that sounded suspiciously like reasonableness, it added:
Does any of this truly need to get done before the end of the calendar year?
Thanksgiving is coming. Maybe take it easy?
And finally, the big guns:
Nobody’s getting anything done this week anyway, so you don’t really have to either.
This time of year is dangerous for those of us practicing watching our thoughts. So many of the thoughts our brains serve up, like spaghetti thrown at a wall to see if it’ll stick, feel deeply true. Maybe you’re more professional than I am. Maybe you’re sprinting into the holiday week with the diligence of someone who still believes they can “get ahead.” Maybe you’re completely professional and also just super tired. Maybe you spend your evenings charting, or your weekends doing call, and any glimmer of an excuse to let your foot off the gas feels not only tempting but… justified.
And when my brain can’t tempt me with rest, it tries urgency instead.
You have so much to figure out before Thanksgiving.
You should really finalize Christmas plans.
Black Friday deals have already started, and who knows what the tariffs will do to shipping times: you'd better get on those gifts now.
All of these thoughts seem mature and responsible. But they’re all just distractions from the things I told myself I’d finish before year’s end: getting to my goal weight, drafting a manuscript (with data that was gathered over two years ago now), and training our scheduling software to create a schedule that’s actually fair. None of those goals care about the holidays at all.
Here’s the thing: when your brain offers thoughts that feel true but quietly divert you from the goals you actually care about, nothing is wrong is happening. You are simply experiencing the motivational triad, our ancient wiring that nudges us to:
conserve energy
avoid pain
seek pleasure
We literally evolved for this. Ancestors who minimized effort, maximized comfort, and sidestepped discomfort are the ones whose genes got passed down. And here we are, generations later, indulging thoughts like, “Surely Christmas shopping is more urgent than getting those long-ago-determined goals achieved.”
But just because nothing wrong is happening doesn’t mean we have to let those thoughts determine the path.
Because if we’re honest, there are only a handful of actual holidays between now and the end of the year. If we’re strict about it:
Thanksgiving
Your faith or culture’s end-of-year holidays (Hanukkah, Christmas, Chrismaka, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Las Posadas, Omisoka, Festivus)
New Year’s Day
That’s three days. Maybe 10 if your celebrations span multiple days.
Which means (brace yourself) there are still 20 to 30 regular days left in the year.
Twenty to thirty days where your brain may insist it is basically a holiday… but it’s not actually one. Twenty to thirty days where you could chip away at the goals you care about most, the ones January-You will be so proud to have moved forward.
Look, I love a midweek day off. Shift work has trained me to treat Wednesdays like Saturdays from time to time. I fully endorse joy, rest, and the gym at 10 a.m. in the middle of the week simply because you can. But when I let the holidays seep into the peri-holiday days, that’s when I’m not living up to my potential. That’s when I’m no longer resting: I’m procrastinating in December and then disappointing myself in January.
Fortunately, we also evolved to have something else: a prefrontal cortex. The part of our brain that can answer those soft, reasonable-sounding thoughts (“Does this really need to be done this year?”) with a more spacious, wiser truth:
Maybe it doesn’t have to be done before December 31…
…but I’ll be so much further along if I use the time I actually have now.
And that is the conversation that moves goals forward. Not heroically, but sustainably. And sustainable is what we’re going for here. Small actions undertaken reliably and with as little drama as possible. That’s the way to make progress while still leaving room for all of the festivities. That’s the way to make progress so that we don’t have to feel guilty and constantly beat ourselves up for “taking time off” on the actual holidays (or worse, cutting time with family short in order to get work done).
A Mini-Challenge to Help You Finish 2025 Strong
On December 1st, choose one goal you almost talked yourself out of and give it 30 focused minutes. Just 30 minutes.
Not a full overhaul. Not a heroic sprint.
Just 30 minutes of intentionality (before your brain can convince you that the entire month is one long holiday).
Pick one:
The manuscript you keep avoiding
The calendar cleanup you’ve been meaning to do
The promotion packet you swear you’ll work on “next year”
The one financial task Future-You is begging you to start
The email backlog haunting your peripheral vision
Set a timer. Do thirty minutes. Stop when the timer does, even if you’re mid-flow. Ernest Hemingway would end his writing days mid-sentence so that he always knew exactly where to start the next morning, saying stopping when things were going well prevented “blank page paralysis” the next day.
You’ll end the week not with disappointment that 2025 is “basically over,” but with momentum, clarity, and the beginnings of a 2026 that feels shaped rather than surrendered.
January-You will be thrilled. December-You just needs to get started.