Why You Should Take it Easy In January

Why I Keep Updating This Post Every January

I wrote the first version of this post at a time when the collective pressure to "hit the ground running" felt louder than ever. And earlier this year, my dear business coach and mentor George Kao suggested that I make a ritual of updating it every January.

It made total sense.

The core premise continues to align with my lived experience this past year.

So here I am.

The Myth of the "Clean Slate"

Before I go further, I’d like to address the presumption beneath New Year anxiety: the idea that January 1st represents a natural beginning.

The Gregorian calendar was proclaimed in 1582 as a reform of the Julian calendar—an administrative and ecclesiastical tool designed to coordinate Easter, not to track human energy (Britannica).

So these numbers we have outsourced what is essentially our entire life to in one way or the other, are not grounded in biology, neuroscience, or even the rhythms of the planet with the kind of flawlessness they tend to imply.

In reality, the Earth’s movement is a continuous, elliptical loop. Which is probably why older cultures oriented time around solstices and lunar cycles, aligning with our physiological shifts.

Modern timekeeping, on the other hand, prioritizes coordination over lived experience.

Research confirms that humans possess "seasonal sensitivity". Our internal clocks do not reset neatly just because the calendar flipped (University of Michigan).

So if this time of year doesn’t feel like a fresh start to you, you’re not ‘imagining it’.

You might simply be experiencing a gap between a 16th-century administrative tool and your own biological reality.

The 2025 Realization: Regulation Over Routine

2025 was a pretty intense year for me.

High highs. Scary lows. My first major tour with three back-to-back artist-residencies amidst continents, some serious recording projects, navigating health scares in close family, juggling bases across continents, graduating from an intensive Mastermind with Peter Crone that is not for the faint of heart, and collaborating with creatives in multiple capacities.

Folks with an extraordinarily diverse background based not just on culture, but factors like age, genre, industry, mindsets, location, and career goals. This was also the year I finally opened up my coaching to vocation-agnostic modalities. So now, my clients don’t include artists and musicians exclusively.

The one insight through it all that rose above the rest was this:

Nothing has had a greater impact on my creative life than learning to regulate my nervous system.

Not productivity, not discipline, not ‘better systems’ (though all of these can help).

This realization is not abstract for me anymore. It has revealed itself as the foundation of everything I value in my work: consistency, confidence, sincerity, quality, and meaning.

The Counterintuitive Case for Slowing Down

For creatives, planning tours, launches, workflow, and releases, "taking it easy" in January can feel like a risk.

But stepping away from the noise, in my opinion, is not a retreat.

It’s calibration.

Alignment.

January offers a rare window to assess not just what we are doing, but the internal state we are doing it from.

Here are my thoughts on why:

Creativity requires bandwidth: Chronic activation narrows your perception. A dysregulated system cannot access divergent thinking (Physiology Journals). Neuroscience confirms what artists have always sensed: breakthroughs often happen in the quiet.
Burnout is a failure of regulation, not ambition: For musicians, the constant exposure to algorithmic pressure and "opportunity-driven urgency" keeps the system in a state of prolonged vigilance. This erodes trust in your own perception (University of Westminster).
Strategy requires safety: When you are overloaded, planning is reactive. The most effective decisions come when your system feels safe enough to think clearly (HBR).

Five Anchors for a Regulated Year

Distinguish Goals from Feelings: Most goals are just symbolic attempts to feel safe, free, or legitimate. Identify the feeling you're chasing. When the "felt experience" becomes the priority, external circumstances often reorganize themselves to match.
Track Capacity, Not Just Output: Notice which activities expand your energy and which quietly drain it. Sustainable creativity comes from what your system can metabolize, not just what you can endure.
Design Explicit Stopping Points: Regulation is reinforced not by how you start, but by how you end. Clear endings protect your attention and build long-term self-trust.
Reduce Noise Before Increasing Effort: A flooded system cannot distinguish signal from suggestion. Fewer inputs sharpen your intuition more reliably than new techniques.
Restore Agency Over Attention: Prioritize "analog" restoration—walking, breathing, unstructured time. These aren't breaks from work; they are the recalibration of your decision-making engine.

A Special Note for Fellow Musicians

I realize that many of you have been programmed to think that growth is found solely in sharpening your technical skills, learning new repertoire, or maintaining a disciplined practice schedule.

And to be clear: you are absolutely right: the artistic practice is the foundation without which everything else falls apart.

But I invite you to consider that maintaining that practice is only one step.

In fact, doing the technical work without aligned intentionality can not just fail to result in the growth we were hoping for, but also backfire badly.

To clarify: I am not just referring to tour plans, admin work, and PR strategies here. The importance of regulating our nervous system is just as pertinent in the manner in which we approach our artistic practice.

It dictates how we practice our instrument, how we stay sharp, how we compose, write.

How we nurture our creativity.

If we are practicing from a state of ‘survival’, we will end up teaching our bodies to associate art with a sense of danger at some level or the other.

Closing

The temptation to sprint into January is understandable, but choosing a slower entry is groundwork, not avoidance.

I will continue to update this reflection every year. Not because the calendar demands it, but because the truth of it remains.

Key References

Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. W. W. Norton.
McEwen, B. S. (2007). Physiology and neurobiology of stress and adaptation. Physiological Reviews.
Albulescu, P., et al. (2022). Efficacy of micro-breaks for well-being. PLOS ONE.
Musgrave, G., et al. (2025). Determinants of anxiety and wellbeing among musicians. University of Westminster.