One of the issues with New Year’s resolutions is that they rely on this idea of hard endings and crisp fresh starts. But in reality, our endings and beginnings tend to blur into each other, just like how the first year of a new decade still feels more like the one that came before it.

The good news is that this blending gives us room. Late December becomes a natural moment to pause, reflect on the year we’re still living in, and consider what we want to carry with us into the next one. And we get to continue that work in January too, without the pressure to leap into the new year already knowing exactly what we want from it or how we want to show up.

The period between two years also invites us to step out of our daily routine for a moment. For those of us who’ve been in survival mode in the run-up to Christmas, there’s an opportunity to take a step back and reset. This ‘reset’ doesn’t have to mean jumping straight into new commitments that encourage us to buckle down and be hard on ourselves. In this blog, I want to pull on the work of William Bridges, building on my previous blog about endings, to offer you an alternative way to navigate the next few months.

The Neutral Zone

William Bridges called the ‘in-between’ time during transitions the Neutral Zone in his excellent book Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes (2019). Reading his words about how normal it is to feel lost and a bit untethered in this phase reminded me of how I often feel between 27th December and early February each year.

Untethered is such a good word. Not knowing what to do with ourselves, feeling like we should do something, but only having the energy for nothing. Missing the security of structure but simultaneously rebelling against it.

“For many people, the experience of the neutral zone is essentially one of emptiness in which the old reality looks transparent and nothing feels solid any more.”

William Bridges

When I reflect on it, as someone who likes to feel in control and appear as if I have my shi* together, I strongly dislike feeling untethered. In fact, I think I’d rather tether myself to something that isn’t quite right than feel like I’m flailing around in a state of ‘untethered-ness’.  I suspect this is what leads so many of us to sign up for that marathon or go vegan “cold turkey” (pun fully intended). It’s as if tethering ourselves to a commitment brings some solidness to where we are right now.

There’s an interesting paradox here: our instinct is to struggle against the emptiness we feel, and yet, a bit like quicksand, the more we struggle, the deeper into discomfort we sink. Instead, to move effectively through this period of untethered-ness, we need to surrender to it and truly accept that this is where we are.  Truly accepting that it is totally natural, and a necessary part of any transition.

I know it’s hard with so many family commitments at this time of year, but alone time is fundamental in the Neutral Zone. It enables us to reconnect with our own voice, the one that so easily gets drowned out by all the noise and demands around us. How can we know how we really feel or what we really want when we can’t even hear ourselves?

During this period, I create little rituals that are just for me. I do jigsaw puzzles. I take crisp, cold walks while listening to The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I ‘escape’ to meditate (no one disturbs you when you say you’re meditating), and instead of scrolling on my phone, I sit quietly, meditate a little, write down whatever comes to mind, or simply lie on my bed with my eyes closed for ten minutes. Alone time doesn’t have to be long, it can be made of small, precious moments of you hanging out with you and slowly renewing.

Just like stepping outside our comfort zone helps build confidence, stopping and listening to ourselves is what makes renewal possible.

Just like how it is our steps out of our comfort zone that often support our growth in confidence, it is this process of stopping and really listening to ourselves that results in our renewal.

If structure helps you, here are three distinct steps to help you to find meaning in the neutral zone:

• Accept you need this time to reconnect with yourself in order to renew and ensure that you are on the right path. 
• Find time and space to be alone – choose spaces that connect most with you, go for a walk in a forest, head to the beach, sit in a cosy café, find the spaces where you feel most like you.
• Journal – give shape and form to your thoughts by putting them on a page.  There is no pressure to write anything profound, you can just use the questions below to check in with yourself and see what comes up.

“It is when the endings and the time of fallow neutrality are finished that we can launch ourselves anew, changed and renewed.”

William Bridges

Journalling questions

Take some time for yourself – go for a walk and find a quiet bench or coffee shop where you can do some thinking without distraction.  Switch off the notifications on your phone, put it out of sight, and pick out the questions which you feel you most need to answer.

• What small wins from this year do you want to capture and find a way to honour?
• What do you most need to let go of as you move into a new year?  
• Write about a moment when you intuitively knew what you needed or wanted.  How did it feel and what drew you to it?
• Tapping into the same energy, as you look at the next few months, what do you most need or want from this period?
• What choice do you want to consciously make more of as you move into a new year?
• If you were creating a list of daily and/or weekly practices/actions to help you to move through this period of transition into a new year with more ease, and more opportunity for renewal, what 5 essential items would you place on this list?
• What, if anything, feels clear about how you want 2026 to be?
• What values or energy do you actively want to bring into the next year?
• What could you start planning now that you know will bring you joy and meaning in the year ahead?