Rituals and fresh starts

Nothing magic happens at midnight on January 1st. You’re the same person you were at 11:59.

So why does it feel different?

We need markers—beginnings and endings—to orient ourselves in the flow of time. Rituals matter. In No Point B, I wrote that “rituals give us permission to pause, reflect, and make meaning in the midst of chaos.” They’re not just habits or traditions; New Year’s resolutions are a collective ritual, a moment where we say, “Change is possible.”

The tradition of New Year’s resolutions isn’t just a cultural quirk; it’s a way of saying, “This matters. I matter. Change is possible.”

But here’s where it gets tricky: we expect too much of the ritual and not enough of ourselves. Mentally, we think the resolution is the change—not the starting point.

Real change is messy, nonlinear, and unromantic. It’s the 5:00 a.m. workout in February when the excitement is gone. It’s the hard conversation with your team about what’s not working. It’s showing up again and again when no one’s cheering. It’s unsexy.

The power of the new year isn’t in the resolution itself but in the ritual of declaring it—of naming what’s next. It’s the pause that helps us reflect and recalibrate, like the turning of a page.

This year, what if we approached resolutions with a little more grace? Instead of a laundry list of goals, what if we picked one thing that aligns with who we want to become and committed to practicing it, imperfectly but persistently?

There’s this moment, right here, to begin again. And that’s where the magic of ritual comes in—not in the perfection of our plans but in the simple, profound act of starting.