Time flies, but you’re the pilot. Recommit.

Whelp, here we are, pushing up against Q4, the Autumn Equinox just days away. Yowza. Anyone else feel like it went really freaking fast? 

Granted, most everyone I know spent the first part of 2025 in a fugue state, deeply troubled by how this country could have gone so sideways. That really gobbled up some energy. 

But, I’m hoping that despite all the terrors, you managed to still have a great summer, as I have. 

And now here we are. January seems like a distant memory, when we had (in theory) laid down our goals and intentions for 2025. I create a Guiding Document at the start of every year that I look at, ideally, every morning. This helps me determine if the actions I’m about to take are aligned with what I REALLY want to accomplish. 

For example, does spending two hours scrolling on Instagram get me closer to being able to climb very high mountains? (Interestingly, sometimes it does make me FEEL closer to that goal, in that I follow a LOT of outdoor gals who give me all sorts of helpful tips about dehydrating your own backpacking meals and WOW look at that freaking mountain lake, gosh it’s almost like I’m there myself, etc). But no, it does not get me any closer. It gets me farther away. 

Going outside and hiking the ridge outside of town to train, that would get me closer. 

And now, over to you. 

What the heck did YOU say you were going to do in the wee freezing months of 2025? What grand dreams did you identify for yourself? And where are you at with them now? 

Here is generally how it goes: You do pretty well in Q1. Oh! But then spring is coming and there are all kinds of things happening! But you’re still fairly committed and do make some progress. But, OH! Ok, now summer is here and you really gotta enjoy the summer - it’s so fleeting (it is). 

Ahhhh, k. Now it’s Autumn. And yeah, we can all settle back down as there is now the space and time to rededicate to what we had wanted to do back in January…. Oh but gosh, now it’s about to be the holidays. Which are so manic! And we’re so close to 2026… probably best to just ‘get through’ the rest of the year and recommit in January.  

Now here’s a little fortune telling for you. You do exactly that, January comes, and you DO recommit! Wonderful. You feel so ready, and so motivated. 

Except… then the exact same pattern follows. By Q3, the goals are out the window. And there you are in September of 2026, saying the exact same thing about 2027. Because, what would change the next year? Or the year after that? 

This is how five or ten years can go by, without much of anything happening at all.

I recently saw the quote: “The bad news is that time flies. The good news is that you’re the pilot”. 

So, how do you take control of the plane? 

Recommit NOW. 

YES, now! Yes, before the holidays! (It turns out ‘the holidays’ happen at exactly the same time every year - they can be planned for! The craziness…mitigated against! You can make different choices about how to spend your time! You’re the pilot, homeslice!) 

Truthfully, to move towards something big, you’re going to have to recommit  pretty much every damn day - what one of my mentors calls ‘Constant, Gentle, Realignment’. But, life ebbs and flows, and sometimes we do get a little sideways, and that’s fine - let’s all give ourselves a little grace because we aren’t gd automatons. 

But you don’t have to wait until the new year to recommit. You can make it an ongoing practice. 

This is why I initially created the sacred space around quarterly retreats for myself. Are they a pain in the ass in the lead up? Yes. Are they critical to helping me stay on track? Yup. 

The quarters that I convince myself that taking time to evaluate the previous quarter, to track the progress against the annual guiding document is, oh, just not that necessary… and instead I laze around, convincing myself that I need more rest, and it’s all a bit ‘extra’ anyway, a bit cringe, isn’t it? 

I feel it. 

I feel it in the inaction. In the inertia. 

This Autumn Equinox, recommit. Set aside some time and space for yourself (ideally a screen-free space, haha) and write out how things are going for you. Celebrations from the past year/ quarter. 

It doesn’t have to be complicated. Put down (on actual paper!) what it is that you want to accomplish this next quarter, and how exactly you are going to do it. Put that commitment on your calendar now through December 31. 

And then do it! Start 2026 with some momentum under your belt. Because trust me, it’s much easier to keep going than to start again. As you may know, because you may be starting again right now. 

This is how we take back control of the plane; how we recommit to being the pilots of our own lives.