Preparing for the end-of-year crash

End-of-year Empaths! Graham here.

It is somehow December. You made it?

Just last week I was walking through my local supermarket in a daze. (Is there any other way to walk through a supermarket?) I half-noticed a pile of chocolate Santas and thought absently, oh it must be Easter soon?

It’s been one of those years. A year that has felt simultaneously epic in scale, yet also like it has been lived on fast forward.

This year I have felt, more than once, that I was drinking out of a firehose. 

Yum.

This particular year has had multiple acts for me and Honor.

Act 1: Get into a fancy, high-powered accelerator program, to help us try to change the world through feelings.

Act 2: Work far too hard in said program. Lose sense of time and space outside of working. Learn a bunch of amazing stuff but also set ourselves up for the inevitable. . . 

Act 3: Crashhhhhh.

Act 4 (Ongoing): Deal with the fallout of Act 3. Try to honor all the work we did in Act 2 while also recognising the realities of where we’re at personally.

The arc of a year

This particular narrative arc isn’t unfamiliar.

It may even be typical. Start with a bang, end with a crash, crawl your way to the new year.

Looking back, I can definitely see this same pattern playing out in years past. Although the crash seems to be getting earlier and earlier each year. Last year it was October. This year it was August.

And even though the pattern is familiar, for me this year feels like a special case. It’s as if it’s so typical, it’s such an extreme version of the usual boom and bust cycle, that I don’t want to do it again. At least not right away.

I want next year to be something new.

Seeing the story beats before they happen

Maybe the overall story will still look the same next year, from a distance. I’ll likely throw myself into some new project (like, say, writing the Big Feels book?). I’ll pour myself into it, then I’ll hit a wall and need to slow down.

But next year I’d like to approach it a little differently. 

For one, I’d like to see the beats of the story coming, ahead of time. 

If I know the crash will hit, maybe I can see the signs earlier. Maybe I can take my foot off the gas a month or two earlier, so I’m not stuck in that in-between, that limbo period around September / October where I know I’m burnt out, but I’m still doing all the things I said yes to three months earlier.

Planning your crash ahead of time

I’d also like to plan my crash a little more proactively. 

One of the most nourishing things I did for myself this year, once I realised how hard of a wall I’d just hit, was to go on a silent meditation retreat. I was lucky to get a spot in one that was happening within a month, but often the waitlist is much longer.

So this year I’m going to book one in well ahead of time, for just about that point next year when I think I’ll really need it.

You can’t have half a wave

This isn’t just about filling a spot on the calendar. It’s about reframing next year’s crash before it happens.

We often think of the crash or the burnout as a kind of failure. Even when we do see it coming, we think our job is to outrun it, to keep it at bay as long as possible.

Proactively planning for next year’s crash is a way of reminding myself that it’s built into the bigger picture. 

Like Alan Watts says, you can’t have half a wave -- you need both the crest and the trough.

(Plus, in the back of my mind, a little question. If I plan it, maybe it won’t feel like a crash at all? Maybe it’ll feel more like a gentle lying down? Hmmm, intriguing...)

Practical strategies for a gentler year

All of this is easy enough to say, harder to actually act on when the new year kicks back into full gear. 

So here are a couple of practical strategies I’m employing. They’re like an early Christmas gift from burnt-out, post-crash Graham to future, bright-eyed and convinced-he’ll-never-be-this-tired-again Graham.

Strategy 1: Calendar-protection

I’m putting this in my calendar right now, for July 1 next year. A reminder to treat my ‘yesses’ carefully from this part of the year onward.

I know by then I’ll already be starting to feel overwhelmed by all the things I ‘must get done’ before Christmas. My typical response to that feeling is to work harder, to add things to my calendar, to say yes to any possible offer and opportunity. 

To try to outrun the crash.

I’m sure having a reminder in my calendar won’t fundamentally change that impulse. I’m sure I’ll still say yes to things I’ll later regret. But it’s a gentle reminder.

‘Precious energy’ a friend of mine calls it.

Strategy 2: Book in some time out, way ahead of time

The particular retreat I want to go on next year isn’t open for bookings yet, so I’ve made a calendar reminder to check for it well ahead of time, to make sure I get a spot. 

If you have a good sense of when you tend to hit the wall each year, it might be as simple as marking out a few days in next year’s calendar where you can simply take some time off your usual routines.

And not just for a holiday -- because I don’t know about you, but I find holidays can be damn stressful. Instead, it’s making time for a break. 

And again, the real value of putting it in my calendar so far ahead of time is simply that I’m planning for the inevitability that I will need to slow down. I’m building it into my expectation of what next year will hold, and seeing if that changes how I experience it.

Got your own strategies? Send ‘em to me!

Do you have things you do to try to soften next year’s crash ahead of time? I’d love to hear them. Hit reply to this email and tell me what works for you.

Card-carrying members! Watch out for a special update. . . 

Something we’re v excited to share with you. 

Clue: Just when you thought we’d never make another one of these, here it finally is.

Oooooo.

You’ll get the usual email from Patreon to tell you it’s up. 

(Not a card-carrying member? Click here to read about how you too can get all the Big Feels goodness hot off the press.)

Next run of Kinder Mind (GASP!)

We’re starting to plan our next run of Kinder Mind -- our guided audio course to help calm your inner critic. 

This was the little feelings baby we spent much of this year gestating. The first run of the course sold out in 13 minutes (WHAT??). So we added a bunch more spots and they were gone within an an hour.

Feedback from those of you who did the first run was overwhelmingly positive. So we are definitely keen to do it again. 

This’ll likely be in the new year, though if there’s enough interest I may be able to put it up in time for people to do it over the holidays (when many of us could use a little help dealing with our brains AMIRITE).

Again we’ll have limited spots available. To make sure you’re the first to know when it’s open, click the big pink button below and add your name to the waitlist. 

(If you’re not sure if you’re already on the waitlist from last time, you can add your name again.)

This one will be the same content as the last run. For you early adopters who’ve done it already, there will likely be new content at some stage, but in the spirit of protecting future Graham’s precious energy, I’ll make no current claims about when exactly that will happen lol. (But we do have some cool ideas.)