🕯 FRIDAY | STILL POINT #6
A Different Way to Enter the New Year
A Different Way to Enter the New Year
Most New Year’s celebrations begin with a sense of resolve.
Goals. Intentions. Promises to do better.
They often carry the subtle message that who you are right now isn’t quite enough.
There is another way to enter a new year.
With steadiness.
Before you set direction, take a quiet inventory.
Not of outcomes, but of peace.
Which area of your Peace Index feels settled right now?
Where do you sense ease, gratitude, or quiet confidence?
And which area feels fragile?
Not broken, just thin.
The place where energy leaks a little faster than you’d like.
You don’t need to fix it tonight.
You don’t need a plan or a resolution.
You just need to acknowledge it honestly.
The work of Rare Leadership, developed by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder, reminds us that leaders lead best when they are secure, not striving.
Drawing on neuroscience and attachment theory, it demonstrates that a calm, relational connection is what enables wisdom to emerge under pressure.
Peace is not the reward for good leadership.
It’s the soil that leadership grows from.
Think of it like tuning an instrument before a concert.
You don’t play louder to fix what’s off.
You pause, listen, and make a small adjustment so the sound carries properly.
When peace is present, leaders hear more clearly.
They react less quickly.
They choose more carefully.
As the year turns, ask yourself one gentle question.
What do I need to carry less of into the next season?
Not what do I need to add.
Not what do I need to achieve.
Not what do I need to prove.
What do I need to release?
It might be an unspoken pressure.
A role you’ve been holding too tightly.
A conversation you’ve replayed too many times.
A responsibility that was never meant to be yours alone.
Sometimes peace returns when we stop dragging unfinished weight forward.
Sometimes joy returns when we choose not to carry everything again.
The new year doesn’t need a more driven version of you.
It doesn’t need a louder one either.
It needs a steadier one.
A leader who knows where their peace lives and protects it carefully.
Begin there.