Before You Change Everything: How to Begin January with Clarity

January often comes with pressure to start fresh, set goals, and transform overnight. But what if this moment isn’t about pushing forward… it’s about pausing first?

In this New Year’s Day episode of Rooted in Presence, Carly invites you into a gentler, more honest way of beginning the year. One that recognises we’re still in winter, still integrating, and still allowed time.

You’ll explore why many New Year’s resolutions fail not because of lack of willpower, but because they skip the vital stage of assessment and support. Carly shares how laying strong foundations, understanding your real life rhythms, and rooting into values can make change feel safer, more sustainable, and more aligned.

This episode is for you if you’re feeling the pull to change… but not the urge to rush.
 A grounded invitation to reflect, clarify, and begin again with presence.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

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Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

0:46

Hello and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. And if you're listening to this on New Year's Day 2026, well, happy New Year, and I am really glad that you are here. And I had originally thought about doing a more traditional New Year episode, intentions, resolutions, fresh starts. The more I've sat with this over the years, the more I realize it just doesn't feel right. Because yes, we have crossed over into the new calendar year, but we are very much still in winter. And yes, we are past the solstice. The light has technically begun to return, but if you are in the UK or the Northern Hemisphere and you look outside or perhaps even feel into your body, it probably doesn't feel like a time to burst forward just yet. I want to offer you something a little different today, something that gives you permission to slow down, to listen, and to trust in your own timing. In the UK especially January, has this very strong cultural energy around it, as if January is some kind of starting gun. New year, new you, fresh starts January, kickstarts, detoxes, reset plans, and for many people that external noise can be incredibly loud. You might notice that urge creeping in already, especially if your body feels a bit uncomfortable. After festive food, disrupted routines or a few days of indulgence, the discomfort can easily turn into urgency and you just start. Now. I must undo this. I need to get back on track. But the first, there's something here that I really want to name gently, but also honestly, that urge is not always true readiness. Often it's external motivation, borrowed energy, cultural pressure, and external motivation is very different from something that's actually rooted inside you. Winter is still at work here. From that seasonal perspective, nothing in nature is rushing right now. The solstice has marked a turning point, a crossing of a threshold, of course, but the earth doesn't respond instantly. The days don't suddenly feel warm. Plants don't immediately grow. There's a lag, a pause, an integration period. We're part of that rhythm too. January can be a term of possibility, absolutely, but it's not necessarily a term of execution. It's often a time for listening of sitting with those ideas, of noticing what's being stirred of, allowing clarity to emerge slowly rather than forcing decisions too quickly. So let's talk about something else that comes up a lot, especially with the women I work with. Perhaps you relate, and it's that post Christmas feeling or post holiday feeling, depending on whatever you might have celebrated at this time of year. But if it has. That change of routine and some overindulgence you might be familiar with that bloating, the feeling of sluggishness, the sense of, I don't quite feel my usual self, and that feeling can be really uncomfortable and it often gets interpreted as a sign that something needs fixing immediately. But discomfort doesn't always mean action is required right now. Sometimes discomfort is information. It's saying something wants to be different, not do everything differently. Starting today, there's a big difference between awareness and action, and January can be a beautiful time, so let that awareness expand because the other side of the coin that I also would like to untangle a little bit here. Because you've probably heard that statistic that most New Year's resolutions fail. By February, you'll be seeing a combination perhaps on your social media of people saying, yes, let's do the New Year, new me thing, and the other side of it, of all New Year's resolutions fail. So don't do them. And because of that. There is this backlash that don't bother the resolutions never work. January change is pointless, but I don't think either extreme tells the full story because there is value in choosing a moment. There is something powerful about saying, from here I'm paying attention and naming that time when you're ready to cross the threshold. So the problem isn't the date. The problem is what people are expected to do after they set it. And most of the research around failed New Year's resolutions. It's based on people who are unsupported. No assessment, no skill building, no nervous system awareness, no adapting when life inevitably happens. So of course they struggle. That doesn't mean they were wrong to want change. It means they were trying to carry it alone, And this is why I hold that middle ground, because when you combine reflection, assessment supports, and realistic pacing, setting a date for change can actually be really helpful. Not as a pressure, but as a container. As I said, a threshold that you are ready to walk through. I. So when people do come to work with me, they do often arrive with a big goal, more energy, weight loss, stronger boundaries, pain relief, a more peaceful relationship with food, feeling more like themselves again. And when I first started coaching, I'll be honest, I sometimes worried that my approach would frustrate people because instead of jumping into action, I always begin with assessment. We slow things down, we look at what's actually happening right now. We get curious about patterns, capacity about context, what your life really looks like, and yes, a few people over the years have felt impatient with that. Most, and especially the ones who stay, create lasting change, tell me it's the part they value the most because assessment isn't doing nothing. We are laying foundations. It's shining a light. It's understanding your baseline and routing down before you grow. So January in many ways, is a collective assessment phase. If you try to rush ahead, if you try to skip the rooting phase, everything that comes after becomes much harder to sustain because you're trying to grow on shaky ground. So rather than asking yourself, what do I need to start doing, you might ask yourself something different. You might ask What's actually going on for me right now? So some gentle reflections you might want to sit with this month is what felt nourishing last year and what's quietly drained me? Where did I override myself? Where did I feel most like me? And what do I think I should want to change and what do I actually want to change? There's no rush to answer these. Perhaps you can scribble them down to sit with later. It's just about noticing and not deciding on this next action straight away. So we might see January as a trialing and testing period, not a commitment or making a contract with yourself, but an experiment. What happens if you go to bed 20 minutes earlier, a few nights per week? What happens if you eat breakfast more consistently? What happens if you don't? What happens if you take a walk without tracking it? What happens if you pause before saying yes, and there's no pressure to keep it up here? No label of success or failure. It's just information. What, what lands, what doesn't, what feels good? What what grates on you? Because this approach respects the fact that real life is complex, that you're not starting from a blank slate, that you have responsibilities, relationships, hormones, and history. Really, one of the biggest shifts I see, especially in midlife is learning to recognize the difference between, I should want this, and this actually feels right for me because external validation is loud, it's flashy. It can be right up in your face, especially this time of year, but internal motivation is quieter. It tends to emerge after reflection, not before it. This is your intuition speaking here, and if you don't feel that internal pull yet, that doesn't mean you're behind. It often just means your system is still integrating so. An offering of a simple practice for you to help you return over the next few weeks. Nothing too complicated, but perhaps a question, and that is what wants my attention right now without me needing to fix it. You might notice some sensations in your body as you ask this. There might be emotions that arise. You might notice some resistance to this idea. See if you can meet that with curiosity rather than urgency.'cause this is really allowing your body to root in here. So if you are listening today and feeling like you should be more motivated, more organized, more ready, I want you to know this. January doesn't demand action. It simply invites honesty, and you have time to root. Roots grow quietly, underground, long before anything is visible. And these changes are rarely born from pressure. They're born from presence. So if as you are listening, you are feeling that pull, that sense that something does want to shift this year. You don't want to rush or force it like you might have in the past. This is why I've developed my 90 minute assessment, the Embodied Strength Profile. It's a spacious, supportive assessment where we look at what is happening inside your body in nervous system. Why are certain patterns showing up, what a safe, realistic next step could look like for you. These can be done online or in person, and there's no pressure to commit to anything after some people take what they learn and carry on independently. Others choose to continue with coaching or breathworks support. Either way, you'll leave with clarity, not confusion, and you'll find those details on my website, carlykillen.com stillspacehull.com or you can simply get in touch with me via email, carlykillenpt@gmail.com. So as you move through these early January days, remember you are not behind. You're just rooting. So that is it for today, and until next time, may you meet yourself with Compassion, walk with Presence. And remember, you already carry everything you need.