There’s a special kind of shame that arrives just after Father Christmas has snuggled back down in Lapland and everything goes back to ‘normal’.
Not the sicky (literally), end-of-year ‘I ate a whole tub of Celebrations and washed it down with a gallon of Chocolate Orange Baileys’ shame.
I mean the quiet, snarky one that whispers: ‘You said you’d start. And you didn’t. Again.’
You had the plan.
The fresh notebook.
The ‘this is the year’ energy.
‘New You’ was meant to emerge on January 1st.
But she called in sick ‘cos, well, hangover.
Plus, it’s still officially Christmas, might as well make the most of a few more duvet days before the real new year starts.
Then the real new year happened.
You went back to work.
You had to get up.
Take your PJs off and put on actual clothes.
Brush your hair.
You didn’t like any of that much.
You got tired.
A bit fcked off with adulting.
Your brain went, ‘Absolutely not, babes.’
And suddenly it’s… not New Year New Me anymore.
Not ‘First Monday at Work’ anymore.
Not the ‘right moment to introduce New Me’ anymore.
And your Inner Bitch is already standing there with a clipboard, like:
‘Well. That’s that then, isn’t it? I knew you’d fail already. It’s not even Quitters’ Day yet.
Might as well not bother.’
Well, I have something to tell your Inner Bitch:
The ‘one thing’ you need to fix isn’t motivation or discipline – it’s whether your nervous system feels safe enough to begin.
And, incidentally, if you haven’t met your Inner Bitch yet, she’s the one who says things like:
‘You’re not good enough.’
‘You can’t stick to anything.’
‘You’ll never change, so no point trying.’
But this isn’t a ‘you’ problem.
It’s a nervous system problem.
It’s like when you stumble and your hands shoot out before you’ve even thought about it – not because you’re dramatic, but because your body moves faster than your logic.
That’s what’s happening when you try to start something new.
Errr… remind me what the nervous system actually is?
We’re hearing it everywhere right now. We kind of know what it is… but not really. So here’s what I’m on about:
Your nervous system is your body’s built-in safety system.
It’s a real, physical network made up of your brain, spinal cord, and nerves, constantly sending messages between your body and your brain.
Its only job is to scan for danger and keep you alive – not to help you hit goals, build habits, or become your ‘best self’.
When something feels risky – pressure, change, expectations, new routines – it hits the panic button.
And once you understand that, you can work with it rather than fight it.
No wonder you don’t start – let alone stick to – New Year’s resolutions.
Not because you’re lazy.
Not because you lack willpower.
But because your nervous system just wants to keep you safe.
From a nervous system perspective, change feels risky.
Especially after a manic December full of disrupted routines, late nights, sugar, alcohol, and emotional overload.
And the crushing pressure of 5 million IG posts claiming ‘this is going to be your year’ (without actually explaining how).
Apparently, it’s the year of the cow.
Slow. Steady. Abundant. Sacred, even.
Which is all very well, but no one mentions that cows don’t thrive when they’re chased, shouted at, or told they need to transform by Monday.
Your nervous system hears ‘this year must be different’ and thinks:
Cool. More pressure. More risk. Hard pass, thanks very much.
Your nervous system looks at your shiny new goals and goes:
‘Oh, absolutely not. We are barely holding it together as it is.’
But here’s the crucial bit:
You didn’t fail because you can’t follow through.
You paused because your nervous system didn’t feel safe enough to start.
That’s a very different story.
One that frees you from the shame of failing before you’ve even started.
One that doesn’t slap you with guilt because New You hasn’t even bothered to enter the building.
One that leads to understanding – and a much better plan.
Because instead of asking:
‘Why can’t I just start?’
You start asking:
‘What does my system need so it feels safe enough to begin?’
Restarting on a random Tuesday isn’t a failure – it’s the skill you’re actually meant to be building.
The missing piece nobody puts on a vision board
Most goal-setting advice assumes one thing:
that you have the internal capacity to follow through.
But your nervous system doesn’t care about your new ridiculously expensive journal, complete with habit trackers and motivational stickers.
And if it reads ‘new routine’ as ‘more pressure’, ‘more demand’, or ‘more chance of failure’, it will pull the emergency brake like you’re driving into a foggy roundabout with no headlights.
Because you’re an actual living, breathing human being with a very reactive auto-safety mode designed to protect you.
What ‘protection mode’ looks like in real life:
‘I’ll start tomorrow’ (and tomorrow becomes the next available century).
Doom-scrolling ‘for a break’ that lasts far longer than planned.
Suddenly needing to reorganise the sock drawer instead of doing the thing.
A burst of motivation followed by a crash and a ‘can’t be arsed’ hangover.
Perfectionism pretending to be standards.
‘I can’t start unless I do it properly’ (which is basically procrastination in a crappy disguise).
If you recognise yourself here, welcome, my love.
We have strong coffee, chocolate biscuits, and tons of compassion.
Why the ‘perfect start date’ is a trap
Let’s talk about the biggest lie we collectively tell ourselves:
‘I’ll start on a Monday.’
Or the first.
Or the first Monday.
Or after the kids go back.
Or when life calms down.
Or when you magically become the kind of person who wakes up at 5am drinking celery.
Here’s what’s actually happening:
You’re using a ‘perfect start’ as a way to avoid the discomfort of an imperfect start.
Because an imperfect start asks you to show up without armour.
No hype.
No certainty.
No ‘this time will be different’ guarantee.
Sometimes that means starting when you’re already tired – and fearing that doing it without energy will prove you’re incapable of consistency.
Sometimes it means starting while carrying the memory of past attempts – and risking another quiet disappointment in yourself.
So your nervous system does the sensible thing: pause, delay, avoid.
Not because you don’t want change, but because change without safety feels risky.
So your nervous system chooses certainty.
And certainty looks like staying the same.
Which is why willpower doesn’t help here.
And why regulation has to come before resolution.
The truth that changes everything
You don’t need a new identity.
You need a regulated nervous system.
Because goals require capacity – and capacity depends on whether you feel safe enough to start, try, wobble, and keep going.
Once your nervous system feels safe, starting again on any random day actually sticks.
Read that again: Safe enough to start and keep going.
Not safe enough to do it perfectly.
Safe enough to continue when it’s boring, when you’re tired, when you miss a day, when your Inner Bitch starts narrating your life like a bleak documentary.
That’s the real win.
A tiny nervous system check-in (10 seconds, no incense required)
Right now, are you:
Revved up – restless, wired, snappy, scatterbrained, can’t settle
Shut down – foggy, avoidant, heavy, numb, ‘what’s the point’
Steady – present-ish, capable of one small action
If you’re revved up or shut down, your brain is not in ‘goal mode’. It’s in ‘survive’ mode.
So, trying to force a big fresh start in that state is like running a marathon in wet jeans.
Could you? Maybe.
Would you? Abso-fcking-lutely no chance.
What works instead – the Restart Ritual
Instead of ‘start bigger’, we start safer.
Instead of a grand Monday rebirth, we do a gentle Tuesday (Wednesday, Thursday – whatever day) re-entry.
Instead of motivation, we use regulation.
You don’t need to feel ready.
You need to feel regulated enough to do one tiny thing.
That’s it.
That’s what starting looks like.
And it’s also what restarting looks like.
One tiny thing, done repeatedly, is how your nervous system learns:
‘Oh. We do this now. We survive this. We can keep going.’
That’s the rewiring.
That’s the magic.
Celebrate restarting like it’s the whole point (because it is)
Most people think consistency means ‘never missing a day’.
Nope.
Consistency is how quickly you return after missing a day.
Because you will miss a day. That’s being human.
Returning afterwards is the skill.
That is the power move – even though it might feel like failure.
That is the woman you’re becoming: not the one who never wobbles, but the one who knows how to come back without punishing herself.
So if you didn’t start on the first… congratulations.
You’re free.
You can start on a random Tuesday at 2:17pm with toast crumbs on your jumper and still change your life.
That’s iconic behaviour, frankly.
Because here’s the big juicy secret:
The habit you’re actually trying to build isn’t consistency.
It’s restarting without beating yourself up about it.
That’s the skill your nervous system needs to learn.
And once it does?
Everything else gets easier.
If you want support on the wobble days…
If this whole thing has you thinking, ‘Oh my god, that’s totally me’, you don’t need more motivation.
You need something that works with your brain on the days it’s tired, overwhelmed, or quietly resisting yet another ‘fresh start’.
That’s exactly why I created the Goal Restarter Starter Kit… for FREE!
It’s a short, practical reset you can use when:
- You’ve missed a day (or ten).
- You’re stuck in the ‘I’ll start again later’ loop.
- Your Inner Bitch is narrating your life like a bleak documentary.
- Or you just can’t seem to make yourself begin.
There’s no hype. No pressure. No ‘new you’ nonsense.
Just a nervous-system-safe way to pause, regulate, and restart – even if you haven’t really started yet.
You don’t have to do everything.
You don’t have to feel ready.
You don’t even have to start on a Monday.
Just pick one tiny step and begin again in a way that actually sticks.
And if you use it, come back and tell me which day you restarted.
I want a full-blown rebellion of random-Tuesday, toast-crumb-dropping comeback queens. 😄