Personal Year 1: the Year of Beginnings

A 1 Personal Year is the first year of a new nine-year cycle. Whatever you start this year carries unusually far, because it is not resting on last cycle's leftovers. It is seed soil. The question the year keeps asking is simple: what are you beginning, and is it yours?

When to push, when to rest

Push in the first half of the year. January to June favors launches, first drafts, first moves, the phone call you have been circling. A 1 year rewards initiative more than any other year in the cycle, and it rewards it early.

Rest is not the point of a 1 year, and that is fine, but do schedule it. The classic 1-year injury is burnout in October, when the body realizes it has been sprinting since January.

The trap

The trap is starting three things instead of finishing the one that matters. New cycles feel like clean slates, and the temptation is to burn everything down to prove it. Choose one beginning and give it your discipline. The other seeds keep until year two.

One practice for the year

One practice: write down the one thing you would start if you knew you could not fail. Then, in this year of all years, take the first real step before December.