Something I didn’t expect to learn this year

I always find this stretch of the year strange. Everything slows just enough that you can’t distract yourself anymore, but not enough that you feel properly rested. The noise drops, and whatever you’ve been carrying all year quietly taps you on the shoulder.

This year, what surprised me most was realising that even after completely changing my life, I still didn’t quite feel like I’d earned rest.

When I moved into this work, it was a conscious choice. I wasn’t running away on a whim. I’d spent years inside intense, meaningful roles – work that mattered deeply, inside systems that expected everything and gave very little back. I’d moved countries, become a mum, held a lot together for a long time. Like many women I work with, I was capable, committed, and very good at carrying responsibility.

So I built a different life. More autonomy. Work I believe in. A slower place. Space to breathe. On paper, it looked like the answer.

What caught me out this year was noticing how hard it still was to slow down. How unfamiliar stopping felt. How quickly my body reached for “just one more thing”, even when no one was asking. Even here, doing work I care about, I found myself tired in a different way. Not burnt out in the dramatic sense, just still operating as if rest had to be justified.

Sitting with my year has shown me clearly that changing your circumstances doesn’t automatically undo the patterns you learned while surviving the old ones.

Those patterns are loyal. They come with you, htey just change shape.

I see this constantly in the women I work with. High-achieving, mission-driven women who want to do everything well. Who care deeply. Who want to change lives, improve systems, make the world better – and feel a constant pressure to do it in the right way. To be useful. To be reliable. To hold it all together.

If that’s you, I see you.

One of the biggest unlearning moments for me this year has been this: rest doesn’t arrive when you’ve finally proven yourself worthy of it. You don’t earn peace by exhausting yourself more gracefully. You choose it – and then you practise allowing it, again and again.

That’s been messy at times. Catching myself before I slip back into over-functioning. Noticing when I’m carrying things that were never really mine. Letting go of the belief that being capable means being endlessly available. Learning that asking for support earlier doesn’t make me less competent – it makes me more honest.

I’ve stopped believing clarity comes from pushing harder or forcing answers.

It comes from paying attention. From telling the truth about what no longer fits. From recognising when you’re standing at the edge of a new season, not a personal failure.

If you’re ending this year feeling unsettled – not in crisis, but in that quiet something isn’t right anymore way – you’re not behind. You’re not doing anything wrong. You might just be listening more closely than you ever have before.