What does your liminal conduct say?

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is bizarre, isn’t it? Holiday celebration exhaustion is heavy. For some, there are random workdays in between holidays. Others wake up not having a clue what day it is. Add a general sense of anticipation for a new chapter, and a weeklong wait for the “new start.” Time feels slow and distorted in this liminal space.

A lot of advice floats around this time of year: Rest and recharge! Hustle and set your goals for the new year! Find time for both! Set your New Year’s resolutions!

I’m not one for prescriptive ways of doing things, nor do I believe you have to wait on the calendar to change your life. I don’t set New Year’s resolutions because 365 days is a LOT of time. You can set a goal at the beginning of the year and have to walk a different course because life happens and things change.

New Year’s resolutions just don’t work for me. But I want to share an approach I loosely followed last year to strengthen my habits and lean into my values, despite the year unfolding differently than expected.

Year-end typically presents days and obligations that differ from our usual — holiday celebrations, travel, commitments with loved ones, mornings without alarm clocks, disrupted children’s sleep schedules, late evenings, parties, etc. Some of these changes feel within our control (we happily agree to plans), and others feel thrust upon us (we feel obligated to attend).

For the sake of the exercise, we want to focus primarily on the activities we willingly agree to or feel excited about (however, forced plans can show you where you have value misalignment, too). We want to understand how we behave when our usual structure loosens. We want to find the patterns of behavior, care, and attention that emerge during this in-between time — that’s your liminal (in-between/transitional) conduct (behavior).