Last week I wrote about how unique this New Year transition has been. Taking a back seat on all of the New Year’s hype was a bit different for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about dressing up and going to the biggest party in town. That’s never been my style. I’m talking about the party that’s going on in my head– the planning and excitement for a new year and a chance to take inventory.

As I watched the New Year happen all around me, it gave me a new set of eyes. It helped me to see that while I usually love my personal reset after a new year, not every one does. Or if they do love a reset, the timing might not be right. After it happened to me, I realized not everyone gets into the hype. And that’s okay.

Luckily we get to choose what is best for us in each moment of our lives. Sometimes that means jumping in wholeheartedly, and other times it means allowing ourselves the space to do nothing. It’s easy to jump when we’re feeling great, but when we don’t feel like it, we may just end up spinning our wheels. We’re probably better off doing nothing.

While it seems easy, doing nothing is actually hard. I know it is for me. I often judge myself and believe I need to be busy or productive in order to feel valuable.

Maybe there’s a sweet spot between running fast and hard and doing nothing.

Whether you’re going through a difficult time, feeling reflective instead of active, or trying to plan a significant transition, “doing” may not be what you need. Sometimes it’s better to watch from the sidelines.

Watching from the sidelines does not have to equal doing nothing. In the case of the New Year, maybe it means that instead of creating huge resolutions and goals, we create a more manageable plan.

Maybe instead of making an action plan, we make a reflection plan.

As I watched my recent circumstances prevent me from jumping into the New Year resolution hype, I knew I still wanted to do something. We can sit on the sidelines and also choose to live with intention. We can still get excited and hopeful, and gently lean into whatever we want.

Instead of choosing lofty goals, for now I can get excited to simply choose an intention or a theme to guide myself. It doesn’t mean I have to wait until next year to jump in and create massive action plans. Whether it leads to a super productive year or not, it offers exactly what I need right now.

What’s your reflection plan?

This year my theme or intention is “Connection.” As I search for my big epiphany from having cancer, the best thing I can come up with is how much I value connection. It affirms the importance of relationships and how grateful I am for mine.

Connection always has mattered most to me, and sometimes I’ve gotten caught up along the way and forgotten it.

It’s not just about choosing a word and then forgetting about it. We must be intentional about incorporating it in everything we do.

How am I doing this?

Since I’ve chosen to emphasize Connection in my life, I have incorporated a nightly ritual. As I get in bed and close my eyes at night, I ask myself how I connected throughout the day. It helps me remember and take notice. It helps me appreciate what I already have, and it helps me remember to create more of it.

I choose to nurture my personal relationships through a walk with a friend, a phone call, or dinner plans. I connect with people through my work, exchanging an email relating our similar experiences, a phone call helping to reassure someone they are not alone, or helping a client profoundly change the way they approach their livelihood. Now matter how it shows up, I reaffirm that this is what I want and have in my life.

I not only get to create more of what I want, but I also get to see that Connection is already abundant in my life.

Whether I am in a massive state of action or a seemingly more passive state of reflection, Connection is always there.

How can we give ourselves permission to take a back seat?

Life ebbs and flows. It never helps to resist what is. We are better off embracing it and finding the message in the ebb or the flow. When we feel like we’re not doing enough, maybe that is right where we need to be in that moment.

What do you need in this new year? Are you ready to embrace the excitement of a new year to lift you up, inspire you, and get you going? Or is it time for you to let it be, time to rest and restore?

If you’re not up to creating huge goals and resolutions, maybe you choose to start with your own theme. Creating a reflection plan instead of an action plan may just be the key to having exactly what we need.