School of Midlife

154. Reset Without Burning Out: How to Build a Life You Actually Want This Year

• Laurie Reynoldson • Episode 154

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Why "New Year, New Me" is total BS—and what to do instead.

Welcome to 2026, friend! In this first episode of the year, Laurie Reynoldson takes a refreshingly honest approach to what the New Year really means for high-achieving midlife women. Forget the pressure to overhaul your life overnight. Instead, Laurie shares why easing into the year with intention—not hustle—is the secret to making real, lasting change.

From dissecting the toxic “New Year, New Me” narrative to sharing her own personal story as a state-level sprinter (who, spoiler alert, always started slow and still won her races), Laurie makes the case for embracing a more sustainable—and dare we say, enjoyable—approach to the New Year.

She also walks you through why the real first step isn’t a new gym membership or a 4:30am alarm. It’s doing your damn year-end review. (Don’t worry—there’s a clickable link in the show notes to help you get that done.)

In this episode, you’ll hear:

  • Why fast starts fizzle—and what to do instead
  • How to reset your expectations without losing momentum
  • The power of planning one quarter at a time
  • What “getting back to zero” actually looks like
  • How to use lessons from 2025 to build a more intentional 2026
  • Why midlife women need a different kind of January energy

Whether you’re feeling fired up or totally wiped out, this episode gives you the permission slip (and game plan) to do things differently this year—and make midlife your best life, one realistic step at a time.

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Forget New year, new me. What if the real power move for 2026 was starting slow, staying grounded, and finally building a life you actually want to live? That's what we're talking about in this week's episode of the School of Midlife Podcast. Let's dive into it. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. This is the podcast for the midlife woman who starting to ask herself big life questions. Like, what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work. Each week we're answering these questions and more. At the School of Midlife, we're learning all of the life lessons they didn't teach us in school and we're figuring out finally what it is we want to be when we grow up. Let's make midlife your best life. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to 2026. I can barely believe it is a brand new year. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson, and this is the first episode of 2026. Amazing. Holy hell. What was 2025? It was a lot, wasn't it? If you. Uh, listen to last week's episode, or you follow me on social or you get my newsletter, you know that I created a year end workbook for you to put a bow on 2025. To help you figure out what went well in 2025, what you want more of in 2026. What you want less of in 2026. It is really one of the most impactful exercises I do every single year. I hope that you did yours. If you haven't done it yet, no problem. You are not behind. A lot of us did it last week during that kind of squishy week where no one knows what day it is, and maybe you never get outta your pajamas and you do a lot of binge watching on television to catch up on the shows that you needed to catch up on. There is a clickable link in the show notes for the year end guide, and I hope you pick it up and complete it. And if you've already picked it up, I hope you complete it right. Just downloading it, just having the information is not good enough. It's actually in the taking time to do the work that you are able to get the gold out of it. Which brings me to today. It is the beginning of a new year. I don't know about you, but there is something I absolutely love about a brand new year. It just feels like it's full of possibilities and excitement. And Yes, I, I understand it is one day different, right? We, we have New Year's Eve on December 31st, and then we have January 1st, which is literally a day later. But there is something about changing the calendar, opening up a brand new planner, just looking ahead to a brand new year. It's like this clean slate. It, it just feels like climbing into a bed with brand new sheets on it, doesn't it? I mean, there's just so much goodness ahead. And it doesn't really matter how you ended last year or what 2025 was like. There's something about turning the page on the calendar that just makes it feel like endless possibilities await in the coming year. I feel like every year is, there's just kind of this optimism that swirls there, this opportunity and excitement and enthusiasm that comes with the beginning of the year. Particularly after 2025. I mean, I can we just say the years since the pandemic, each of them has been interesting and challenging in their own right. We have lived through countless unprecedented events, right? I mean, the, the shit that we've been going through in the last several years, uh, I just, it's hard to wrap my head around it. And every year, it feels like this is gonna be the year. We're gonna finally turn the corner. Things are gonna be better. There's so much possibility, there's so much optimism. And I. I wouldn't say that I'm an eternal optimist. I wouldn't say that I walk around in rose colored glasses, but when I look at the energetics of the year, I'm just so optimistic about 2026, and I hope that you are too. In today's episode, I wanna talk a little bit about the New Year's and the opportunity it holds. But I also wanna be real with you because I believe that this whole idea of New Year, new me, I think it's complete bullshit. We don't magically become a brand new person just because the calendar changes. We're literally one day older. At the time this episode drops. We are six days into the new year. Six days. Obviously not everything has changed in our life in the past six days. So this whole idea of new year, new me, but that doesn't really work. As high performing midlife women, we have a lot of experience to build on, don't we? I mean, we've got decades of life behind us. Midlife is also that part of your life where you realize that, you know, you probably have fewer years ahead of you than you have already lived. I don't say that to bring the mood down, but it's, it's reality. I mean, it depends on how old you are. It's, it's reality. So this whole idea that, yeah, I've got five decades of life behind me. All of a sudden in 2026, I'm gonna be a brand new person. Probably not, right? I mean, can we agree that just because it's a brand new year, I'm not a completely different person, and I'm sure that you aren't that way either. In fact, I almost feel like it's a little dangerous to think about it that way. And here's what I mean by that. When we look at a new calendar with all of its endless opportunity, optimism, and we think New Year, new me. This is the year that I'm gonna write the book and run the marathon and get my eating in check and change jobs so that I no longer have to suffer through a case of the Sundays and I'm gonna fix my marriage. And whew. I mean, first of all, kudos to you if this is going to be a big year of action in your life. But also slow the hell down. There are no points, zero points, no gold stars, no A letter grades for starting fast to be the first one to start. You literally can't win anything because you started 2026 quickly. Think about that. This is a marathon. This is not a sprint. When I think about sprinting, I think about my running career. I was a runner. I was a sprinter in junior high and high school. I was actually a state sprinter, wasn't a state champion. I did qualify for state every year. I never actually placed in state, but I was a sprinter, and I, I wasn't half bad at it. As a sprinter, I ran the short distances, so the 100 meter, the 200 meter. Occasionally I would run the 400. That's an entire lap around the track, and that is one of the hardest races in track and field because you are sprinting the entire time. It's so hard to run. It is gut wrenching. It's, it is like balls to the wall. Go as fast as you can all the way around the track and then puke when you're done because it's that kind of, it's, it's that kind of energy. It's that kind of exertion. When I talk about sprints, I'm talking about short sprints. So the 100, the 200. Shorter, nothing that wants me to vomit at the end of it because I've tried so hard and I've ran so hard. Just short, short, little distances. When you sprint, you start in starting blocks with this idea that you can get some push and some momentum at the beginning of the race, which will help you get into your stride a little quicker to help you finish faster. And most people, their goal is to get out of the blocks as quickly as possible. I will say, even though I was a state sprinter, I was awful out of the blocks. Awful. I was probably the last person out of the blocks in every race I ran. I'm not telling you this to bag on my abilities in sprinting. I mean, I, I was a pretty damn good runner. I was pretty fast. Like I said, I made it to state every year. But I was awful out of the blocks. And it wasn't that I was intentionally sitting in the blocks. It was literally just the way it happened. I didn't, for some reason, I didn't have those quick reflexes that so many of my competitors did, which was the gun would go off and then they would immediately take off. N not me. I mean, the gun would go off and I would respond, but not as, as quickly as everyone around me. I was almost always the last one out of the starting blocks. Why am I sharing this? Because although I was the last out of the starting blocks, I almost always ended up winning the race. Because everyone who had started fast, everyone who had started faster than me, I had better closing speed than they did. Once I started running, I could actually turn my legs faster than the people on either side of me. My arms were pumping, my legs were pounding. I was running really fast, and that is what I think about when I look at people on the first week of the year saying New year, new me. This is the year that I'm gonna run the marathon and I'm gonna go to the gym seven days a week and I'm going to pack my lunch and and I'm going to create a meal plan on Sundays and have my groceries delivered and make sure that I'm getting eight hours of sleep a night. I'm going to start getting up at four 30 in the morning. Exhausting, right? They try to change everything too quickly and then what happens? Well. They, they fail. When you try and change all of the things at exactly the same time, it's not sustainable. Sure, you can do it for a month. Although the average resolution or quits gives up their resolutions, their beginning of the year, goals the second week in January. Yeah, that's, that's crazy, right? If you really stick to it, most of those people, they give up on their goals the second week in February, so maybe you make it six weeks. That's what happens when you start too quickly, when you try and change everything all at once. Which is why I hope to impress upon you that there are no points for starting fast. You will actually be better served if you take a little time to ease into the year. Even if this is going to be a quantum leap year for you. Even if this is 2026, is going to be my year. Yes. Great. I totally agree with that. I love that energy. But we don't have to expend it all at once. When it comes to the beginning of the year, my preference is actually to do a little bit of planning. Not because I want you to get stuck in planning paralysis, not because I want you to create great plans that you never actually execute on. But I want you to take a beat. Take a step back. Really look at the year ahead of you. Look at what your big goals are, understand your momentum behind them, and then create a plan to actually achieve them. Spolier alert. That plan does not include changing everything all at once because it is not sustainable. You cannot live 50 years of your life in exactly the same way, with all of the habits that you have formed, all of the conditioning you have lived by. You can't take 50 years and change it all in one week. It, you just, you abs you can't, right? You've got too many habits, you've got too much conditioning, you have too many skills that you have to learn or unlearn. For a lot of us, it's in the unlearning. We actually have to figure out how to do things a little differently. So how do I start each year? Well, I create a plan that's gonna get me through the year. And I do that by focusing on a quarter at a time. That's exactly why the Best Life planner, the undated planner that I created specifically for high achieving medlife women, that's exactly why they are quarterly planners. Because after 90 days, you have a pretty good idea of are you gaining momentum on something or are you not? How do you need to tweak something so that you can have better results? What have you learned, so that you can either continue going in the direction that you were going or pivot if you need to? 90 days is a good measuring stick. 365 days. I think that that is too long. You should not get to the end of the year. Look at it all as a whole, and then make decisions about what is gonna happen next year. It's too long of a container. Break it up into 90 days. Once I know what my quarterly goals are for say, Q1, then that's when I try to implement new and different activities and hobbies and habits depending on what I'm working on. And here's the kicker, I don't do that right out of the gate. I don't do anything different at the beginning of the year. And we're gonna dig into that a little bit more. Before we go there though, I want to talk about the 2025 YEAREND review. If you listened to last week's episode, you know that the entire episode was about how to complete an effective, probably the most effective yearend review. I created a 25 page workbook that guides you step by step through the exact same process I have used for the last, I don't know, six, eight, maybe 10 years. I would suggest getting that done this week or next week if you have not already done it. And I want you to do the year end review before you set any goals. Last week's episode, I talked about how I love to start working on 2026, even before 2025 is done because I just, all of that optimism and possibility and excitement that all starts bubbling up. Which is exactly why I created the 2026 parking lot. So all of those ideas that I'm jazzed about and I can't wait to get started, i've put those on the parking lot until I'm done with 2025, and I would suggest that you do the same. Regardless of if you use the parking lot or not, please, please, please complete the YEAREND review before you set 2026 goals, if you can. Why? The reason we complete a year-end review is exactly the same reason that we study history in school. Which is to learn lessons, to understand mistakes that were made so that we don't repeat them again. And as high performing midlife women, most of us has started each year, each new year in exactly the same way, which is the calendar page turns, and we are off like a shot. We try to change every aspect of our life, what we're eating, how we're working out, what our job looks like, what's going on in our marriage, what time are we getting up in the morning. We add a new morning routine. We, we do that to keep up with appearances. We do that because we think that that's what we're supposed to do. That's what we were taught to do. Start everything right now. New year, new me. It's imperative to start everything new on January one. And we keep up with our new schedule for the first couple of weeks, maybe the first month of the year if we're lucky because it's too much. We, we, we try and change too much. And just like this whole idea that you're not a brand new person just because it's a brand new year, you can't change everything in your life The first week of the year. Or the second week of the year. Because what's going to happen is real life is going to pull you back to where you were at the end of last year. It's going to remind you that just because you wanna do new and big things in your life, in the brand new year, you still only have 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Which means, yeah, absolutely you can certainly accomplish everything that you want to accomplish this year. You just can't do it all this week. You just can't do it all this month. And of course you might have some momentum going into the new year. It is a new year. There's all that excitement and optimism and opportunity ahead of you. But let's think about it this way. For most of us, we've either been on vacation or vacation adjacent, which is how we've been spending the last couple of weeks, right? Because we've had holidays in the middle of the last two weeks, whether it's Christmas or New Year's Day. A lot of us took days off in the middle of the week. Most of us haven't worked a normal week in at least the last two weeks at this point. Which means there's gonna be some catchup time at your office. There's going to be some email dig out. We've talked about how many emails one person can receive in just a day. Well, if you haven't been on top of your email box in the last couple of weeks, guaranteed there's going to be plenty of email for you to sift through. And you're outta practice. You're out of habit. Maybe you've been going to bed later, which means it's harder to get up earlier in the morning. So if your normal time to get up is six o'clock so you can go to the gym before work, you probably haven't done that in the last couple of weeks. Which begs a question, what, what makes you think that getting about four 30 this week? Because for some reason you think the only way to meet your goals this year is to be successful and get up early in the morning just like everyone on social media is telling you Should do. I'm, I'm telling, I'm here to tell you that that's a complete myth by the way. You can have a wildly successful life and get up whatever damn time you want to. Some of us, like me, I'm more productive later in the day. I like to get up when I wake up. I don't like to get up to an alarm, which usually means I wake up between six 30 and seven. Regardless, you've probably been on vacation, which means for the last couple of weeks you've been getting up when you wake up. And it's probably a little later than you are accustomed to. So practically speaking, there's no way you can go from sleeping in until six 30 or seven o'clock in the morning if you've been staying up until 11 or 1130 at night. You can't go from that and expect to set the alarm at 4, 4 30 in the morning and pop right outta bed. You need to give yourself some time this week to just get back into the groove. And Absolutely I understand that you might be wanting to change some of the habits that brought you, that you brought with you into the new year, but you still have to get back to zero. We gotta get back to zero before we start trying to make a lot of changes going forward. It's the same reason that when you are getting on the interstate, there is an acceleration lane. The interstate speed is 55 in some areas, 65 in other areas. I live in Idaho, It's actually 80 miles an hour in some places in Idaho. I can't in my car when I'm driving, I can't go from being stopped at a stoplight to 80 miles an hour. There has to be that acceleration lane so that I can get up to speed going a similar speed to the other cars that are already on the interstate. Same works for you and your life this week. If the last week or two you've been on vacation or living a a vacation adjacent schedule, that means you need to get yourself back to what was normal before. Before we start making those changes. So instead of setting your alarm so early this week, just set it for a normal wake up time. And then if you're feeling pretty good with that, then maybe you can take a bigger step next week. But just like getting out of the starting blocks, you don't have to win the race this week. You don't have to start on your to-do list, on your big goals, on your hairy dreams this week in order to accomplish them this year. You have 12 months to do it. You will be better served by taking tinier steps right now. By doing some planning. By getting yourself back to zero, getting yourself back to where you were last year, and then building from there. Which is why we talked about the 2025 year end review, and I hope you've done it. If you haven't, please do it this week or next week. We do the year end review so that we can be intentional about how we want to spend the coming year based on what we learned from the last year. That means there are things that we discovered that we were doing in our year end review that maybe we want more of in the coming year. There are moments that we have definitely forgotten about that brought us a lot of joy and a lot of happiness. You can easily see what experiences were your best experiences from the last year, and how you want to have similar experiences or more experiences like that in the coming year. On the other hand, you can also pretty quickly identify, wow, I, I was pretty stressed then. I was super anxious. I didn't like the way I felt, I didn't like myself when I was around those people, I certain people, certain circumstances made me stressed out and anxious. That information is gonna help us set some boundaries in the coming year. Maybe they're time boundaries, maybe they're physical boundaries, maybe they're space boundaries. But if you take the time to look back and see who and what caused you the most stress, what experiences you had that made you the most anxious, you can do less of that in the next year. One of my favorite quotes is by Albert Einstein. I know I've shared it here on this podcast before, but it's worth sharing again. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And for most of us, that's how we've lived our life up until now, because we've been successful, because we've had a lot of achievements. We've been able to meet the big goals that we've set for ourselves, and that works great when it comes to raising small humans and getting promotions at work. It doesn't work as well for building an intentional life that feels aligned with who you want to be. That brings you happiness and fulfillment and joy and satisfaction, and I think for most of us, we're finally realizing, you know what? We get one shot at this life. So at what point are you going to start living your life for yourself? Let's treat 2026 differently. Let's not do the same thing that we have done every year at the beginning of the year up until this point, which is to start immediately. Let's take a step back. Let's take a step back. Let's be a little bit more intentional about how we are approaching 2026. Let's wrap up 2025 with the bow it deserves. And then take some time to actually check in with ourselves about what it is we actually want in 2026. What does success mean to us in this season of life? What does living our best life look like in 2026 and beyond? And from that point, and only that point, should we then start making changes in our personal life to help us achieve the big personal goals that we're working on this year. We don't have to start fast right away. This is a marathon. It is not a sprint. It doesn't matter who gets out of the starting blocks first, just so long as you start and keep going. If there's one thing you take away from this episode, I hope it is this: you are not behind. You don't have to stress yourself out this week by starting a new eating plan and a new exercise routine and getting started on all of those big goals that you think you should be completing in 2026. You have time. Again, don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying spend 2026 planning and thinking about things and waiting until the right time. That's not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying take the first week, the first two weeks of January, use that as your reset, get back to zero, get back to where you were before the holidays. And then from there, start building the life you've always wanted to live. And if you're looking for some help, that's exactly what I do with my coaching clients. That's exactly what we work on. I'd say 80% of the, the one-on-one coaching clients I work with, they come to me because they are at a point usually in their career where they're trying to figure out what's next for me. We start there and we build a life that I would say they've only dreamed about, but for most of them, they've been so busy living and working and and raising small humans and doing life that they haven't allowed themselves the luxury of even dreaming about what their best life could look like. And with coaching, we change that. Most of my coaching clients say that they wish they would've done this sooner. So if that is any indication for you, if you've been waiting for a sign, if you've been looking for something that says, this is gonna be my year, reach out to me. Let's talk about how we can work together, whether that is in one-on-one coaching, whether that's in a group coaching setting, whether that is at one of the Best Lifr retreats. In fact, we just announced the dates for the very first Best Life retreat in Arizona in April. It's going to be incredible at the award-winning Civana Wellness Resort and Spa, one of my favorite. Vacation spots. I love it so much. It is the perfect spot for the first best life retreat of 2026. I will drop a clickable link in the show notes so you can learn more about that. But let 2026 be the year that maybe you don't start as fast as you have the other years, but that you live more intentionally and you get to the end of the year and think that has been a pretty fucking great year. That's my hope for you in 2026. Thank you so much for being here today. Make it a great week. Take some time. Finish your year end review, and I'll see you right back here next week when the School of Midlife is back in session. Talk to you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the School of Midlife podcast. It means so much to have you here each week. If you enjoyed this episode, could you do me the biggest favor and help us spread the word to other midlife women? There are a couple of easy ways for you to do that first. And most importantly, if you're not already following the show, would you please subscribe? That helps you because you'll never miss an episode. And it helps us because you'll never miss an episode. Second, if you'd be so kind to leave us a five-star rating, that would be absolutely incredible. And finally, I personally read each and every one of your reviews. So if you take a minute and say some nice things about the podcast, well, that's just good karma. Thanks again for listening. I'll see you right back here. Next week when the School of Midlife is back in session until then take good care.

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Laurie Reynoldson

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