Take a Step Backward This New Year

New Year’s Day is one of my favorite times of year. New Year’s Day cuts right to the point. There’s no confusion. There’s no grey area. There’s no messaging lost in the hubbub of big season. What do you want to do differently this year? How do you want to improve yourself? How do you have a more successful, a happier, and a more fulfilling life this year than you did last year?

Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck recently posted on social media “Quitting is only taboo because…priorities are screwed up.” He goes on to say that quitting something can be strategic and that often it is taking one step backwards that allows us to take many steps forward to be happier.

Certainly things like losing weight, reading more, or spending more time with family are great objectives. I invite you to take those a next step and add a metric to them so that you are actually able to measure your success. Getting healthier is easy – you have metrics for weight, lab results, etc that you can quantify success with. Taking a step back by quitting an unhealthy habit certainly gives you the opportunity to take many steps forward in the rest of your life.

For something like “spending more time with family”, how do you measure that? Is it a quantity issue or is it a quality issue? For my clients, my message is it’s all about quality. If you are going through a divorce with minor children, you are going to have some reduced quantity of time with your children, even if you get primary custody. But so often the focus starts and stops at the quantity of time with the children. Days-long trials are had over that very issue – the quantity of time with the children. But if your child spends that time with you head down in a device, what benefit is it to your relationship child? I argue that this is a resolution best measured by quality of time. That’s a tough one to measure, but I would start with your calendar. Your calendar is your best reflection of your priorities. Do you have time blocked off for time with your children during the week? Do you make plans for what to do during that time? If your focus is on prioritizing the time by calendaring it and by planning it, “more time with family” becomes a much easier objective to feel successful at. Take a step back by spending time planning these moments (no, you don’t have to script every moment out with your family) to invest in moving those relationships forward many, many steps.

The other component to New Year planning is a much deeper look at your overall happiness and your life trajectory. As adults we all grapple with the reality of our own age and mortality and the dawn of another year on this planet certainly provides an opportunity to reflect on this for many of us. Time marches forward and we know that our time is finite but we don’t know just how much we actually have. We often soldier on in some capacity that’s making us miserable because of someone else’s opinions or desires. In 20 years, will you be happy having soldiered on? Or will you regret not “quitting” and taking a step backwards along the way that would have possibly led you to a happier, more fulfilling life? Would a better version of you shown up all along those 20 years – at the gym, at home, at your workplace?

So as we enter 2026, I invite you to find some measurable things to improve your life with, whether it’s improving health, reading more, or spending more quality time with family. I also invite you to think about what a “step backward” in an area of your life might result in several steps forward in terms of your overall happiness. And if it’s a family law situation that checks that box, call us. We would love to be a part of that journey forward with you.