Progress, Minus the Panic

On how I'm planning to slow roll into 2026

I drive fast.

Some (my husband 🙄) might say a bit aggressively.

I never have extra time to get where I’m going. I’m typically two minutes late and determined to make up that time with my…errr…driving efficiency.

When the light is green, I go. If there’s a spot to slip in, I do. Turn right on red? Always.

Funnily enough, I’m quite the opposite when stopping. I hate being jerked forward like we’re doing a crash dummy test of the seatbelt. If the light is red, I know I have to stop. There’s no point in slamming on the brakes when stopping is inevitable.

I ease into it. I love tap the brakes so they know additional pressure is coming. I push down slowly, more, a little more, until we finally come to a gentle stop. I got to test the theory that fast driving doesn’t necessarily mean hard braking when we got a hybrid truck. The thing actually gives you a numerical score on your braking efficiency. Imagine my joy! Data to prove my hypothesis?!? Good Lord, it’s like they made the vehicle for me. I almost always get an 80 or higher, the threshold for “superior braking”, and if I notice my score slipping, I consciously adjust.

I wish Ford would come up with something similar for acceleration, but, of course, if they actually made the car just for me, it’s clear why they did not include that feature. I would HATE IT! I don’t need judgment on my need for speed, thank you very much. I have places to be and I’m already late getting there, so just get out of my way already!

That’s kinda how I’ve approached every January in recent memory. Like I still have the Mazda MX-6 with turbo engine my father thought would be an appropriate first car for a 16-year old. I am tapping my nails on the steering wheel itching for the light to turn green, anticipating the roar of the engine and that turbo boost kicking in. Come that first Monday in January, push the pedal to the floor. Let’s fucking go baby!

Diet - Exercise - Work - Sobriety - Dating - Money. You name it, and I’ve done a Grand Prix version of it in a far less desirable location than Monaco. All starting in January, because New Year, duh. I’m not a resolution gal, never have been, but I love a new challenge. I want to know that all of the sloth and gluttony of the past month has just been temporary, a skin I can shed by getting off the blocks quickly in January.

This isn’t an intentional strategy. It’s just my personality. I plow through January, and February flies with its fewer days, so before I know it, we’re at my birthday, March 1st. That date always feels like my first benchmark, except, it’s also when I hit a wall. Birthday cake with buttercream icing and red wine blows the diet and the sobriety. The weather warms up and my fabricated winter running speed evaporates. I get bored with work and start lining up more jobs or classes or stuff I can do to fill the void. Thank God I’m married, because when I wasn’t, I went from speed dating in January to near nun status by April. That shit is exhausting.

The wild acceleration works. I often get to the finish line a minute or two early, but I look like I drove through a hurricane - heart racing, hair blown, nervous system audibly blaring its “Warning…system failure” alert. It works…until it doesn’t.

And for once, I’m not feeling it anymore. I have zero compunction to race right now. I don’t want to idle, per se, but I’m wondering if my braking philosophy could also apply to accelerating. Ease into motion, give it a love tap, a gentle push, a little more, roll into a nice steady speed, picking up momentum here and there on the straightaways, and pulling back when the road gets crowded or the weather nasty.

That philosophy is hard to apply here in the Nation’s Capital, to driving or to life. Everything moves so fast, and it requires energy, intention, and straight up resistance to maintain something softer, slower, less psychotic. But that’s what I’m feeling this January. A casual lean on the more button, not a hand-slapping sound the alarm.

Part of this stems from rolling off a solid end to 2025. For once, I had a good year. I want to whisper that as it feels so counter to everyone else’s experience of 2025, but it’s true. What I was doing health wise, work wise, money wise, person wise in 2025 was finally working and instead of abandoning it all for some 30-day crash course, I’m curious what will happen if I…wait for it…just keep doing that (pause for dramatic effect).

Going a little deeper, asking more questions, taking more chances, bowing down to consistency instead of catastrophic change.

It’s a hard left for me, y’all, not gonna lie. Slow is not my speed. Steady is not my adjective. But balls to the wall hasn’t been working for awhile now. It got me into the race, but after about the seventy-ninth lap around the track, I began to wonder why I was voluntarily going round and round in circles. I want to drive toward something, preferably something spectacular that’s worthy of all this effort.

One thing that pisses me off is when creatives make some great metaphor like the one above that leaves you feeling all full of hope and inspiration until precisely 22 hours later when you start wondering…”Wait, but how the fuck do you actually DO that??” So, to add some practicality to the mix, here’s where my head is at in all of the categories I mentioned above.

DIET: Eat less, mostly plants, not too much. Make as much of my own food as possible. This is so ridiculously hard, and so my slow acceleration is to make one good choice that aligns with these tenets each day. Basically, don’t start the day with graham crackers…its down hill from there.

EXERCISE: I’ve been teetering on the edge of hurt off and on since I ran my first marathon last December. So, this year, I’m dialing down the intensity, and tacking on yoga and stretching every time I do an at-home workout. That looks like tackling one heavy lift per strength session and doing less than I know I can on the others. My brain literally screams at me when I do this, but my body gets that little side grin going 😏.

WORK: I’m shifting my energy here this year, not with more hours, but with more intention, more experimentation, more evaluation. I’m so close to that flow state where things are humming, so time to tinker until they start to sing.

SOBRIETY: Well, fuck, y’all. I’m just gonna be honest. I know I need to drink less. I don’t want to. Last year, I figured out the alcoholic choices that did not spike my blood sugar and that did not make me feel like death warmed over. I’m going to try to hold steady with that. Less mindless drinking, more asking, “Do I really want that?” Oh, and listening when the answer is “No.”

DATING/MARRIAGE: I will be working on my marriage until we both croak because there is always a way for me to be more understanding, more engaged, more committed to not killing him. But, this year, honestly, we just need to do some adulting. We need a will. We need a trust. We need a new oven. It’s boring, but if I do kill him, at least they’ll know where to send the money.

MONEY: Speaking of money, I took this fabulous Abundant Money Mindset course with Teri Leigh 💜 and Dr. Axel Meierhoefer 🏕️🔥 and what I learned is that we (the aforementioned husband and I, that is) are doing all the right things. We literally just need to trust ourselves and do even more of that. High yield savings accounts, an investment fund, identifying companies that aren’t run by a bunch of criminals and causes that we might want to actually invest in.

This feels like I’m leading up to some revelation about how joy can only be found when you slow down, but you should know me better by now. Joy is riding shotgun no matter how fast you’re going. She’ll grab the “Oh shit!” handle and shut her eyes if you’re off to the races or she’ll fiddle with the radio and find you some tunes if you’re on a more casual course. However you start this year, please know that joy is your ride-or-die.

I will say that I’m excited to see how much more of her I get to experience when I’m not white knuckling the steering wheel and cussing at the car in front of me. Who knows? I may hate her taste in music, but I bet I’ll never tire of her company.

To you and whatever journey you’re on this year…🥂.