Starting the Year Without Burning it all Down

January has a weird energy.

On one hand, it’s supposed to be fresh. Clean slate. New year, new you, all that motivational poster bullshit. On the other hand, it can feel wildly depressing—like you just spent 12 months pushing a boulder uphill, hit December 31st, and suddenly you’re back at zero. Congrats, you’re a loser again. Start over.

I’ve always hated that framing.

If you’re a business owner, freelancer, or creative, you don’t actually reset to zero. You bring everything with you—what worked, what didn’t, what nearly broke you, and what quietly kept the lights on. The trick is learning how to use Q1 instead of letting it steamroll you.

First: there are two very real modes

Track one: You’re energized. You’re clear-headed. You’re excited about what’s next.

Track two: You’re exhausted, burned out, unmotivated, and the idea of “doing it all again” makes you want to disappear into your garage for unaccompanied hours of Call of Duty.

Both are normal. Neither means you’re failing.

The mistake people make is thinking there’s only one “right” way to start the year, and it usually looks like waking up at 4am, optimizing every second of your life, and pretending you’re not tired. If that works for you, congrats. I’m not talking to you. For the rest of us, January needs to be practical.

When motivation is gone, go smaller—not bigger

When I feel stuck, the last thing I want to do is think about big goals or five-year plans. That just makes it worse. What actually helps is getting into the weeds. Details. Nuance. Boring stuff. I look at how the company actually functioned:

• Where did the money come from?

• Which clients mattered?

• What work was profitable and what just kept us busy?

• What systems helped, and which ones quietly wasted time?

Movement creates momentum. Even if it’s not sexy.

Q1 is for backend work (whether you like it or not)

This is the best time of year to do the stuff no one sees:

• Raise your prices (yes, really)

• Refresh your website

• Look at SEO

• Clean up your project management

• Fix broken workflows

• Revisit your standard operating procedures

Inflation exists. Your experience has value. A small, annual rate increase is normal, and if a client can’t handle it, that tells you something important early.

I actually recommend raising prices every year. Be transparent. Be calm. Your long-term clients should still be getting a better rate than new ones. That’s not rude—it’s good business.

Do less. Do it better.

We live in a time where every day there’s a new tool, platform, AI feature, or software that promises to “change everything.” But if you try to use all of them, you’ll be bad at all of them.

I’m a big believer in doing fewer things and doing them extremely well. Our entire marketing strategy for ten years has been painfully simple: do good work. That’s it. That’s the strategy.

Referrals come from that. Growth comes from that. Everything else is just support. That said, slower years taught me a hard lesson: referrals aren’t guaranteed. Clients disappear. Companies go under. So Q1 is also about building backup plans and tightening the foundation.

Kill what didn’t work

At the end of the year I take inventory of everything we used:

• Software

• Subscriptions

• Processes

• Tools

• Experiments

If it wasn’t immediately useful and clearly productive? Gone. Cancel it. Delete it. Shut it down.

This is also when we do overhauls. If a system requires five workarounds and three third-party tools just to function, it’s broken. Fix it or replace it.

Right people, right seats

Q1 is also when I look at the team and myself.

Are people doing work they’re actually good at? One of my favorite questions to ask is:  “What do you hate doing—and how do we take that off your plate?” Believe it or not, someone insane person out there likes spreadsheets. Let them have them.

The same goes for clients. You’re not at the mercy of whoever hires you. You’re a business. You deserve clarity, respect, and a seat in the planning process. If you don’t ask for that, you won’t get it. Check in with your clients and ask what they have planned for you together in the next 6 months or year.

Rest is allowed. So is action.

Here’s the part no one likes to admit: sometimes the most productive thing you can do is shut everything off. Go hike a mountain. Get out of your routine. Let your brain breathe. Distance creates perspective. And sometimes rest isn’t an option, so you move anyway. You take small steps. You get your hands dirty. You tinker. You rebuild the van. You blow up the studio and see what sticks.

Both paths are valid.

The point

You can’t control the economy. Or pandemics. Or recessions. Or whatever fresh chaos shows up next. What you can control is how you structure your business around what actually motivates you.

For me, that’s movement. Change. Progress. Shifting things around until they work better.

January isn’t about starting from zero. It’s about deciding what’s worth carrying forward and what you’re finally ready to let go of.

Take yourself seriously. Ask for what you want. Then get after it.