Notes on Easing Into The New Year And Unpacking Your Brilliance

For the ones listening to winter's annual call for rest, reflection, and coming into agreement with who you are.

Maya Angelou writing in a hotel room in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1982 as part of her specific, long-standing writing ritual.

Happy New Year, yall!

I don’t know about you, but I was intent on easing my way into 2026.

I really tried my best not to let all the usual pressure hijack me. You know the one: have a list of goals ready to execute as soon as the clock strikes midnight or else you’re already behind. I didn’t want that energy touching what is supposed to be a season of deep rest and reflection.

It’s hard enough returning to work after the holidays. Why must we collectively decide this is also the moment to reinvent our entire lives? It’s the dead of winter. The sun clocks out at 4pm. And somehow this is when iiiiiii am expected to be my most productive? Please.

The older I get, the clearer it becomes how deeply misaligned that expectation is.

We are meant to move with the seasons, not with a random date a group of men landed on centuries ago while creating the calendar we all follow today. Trees don’t try to produce leaves or fruit in the winter. Animals don’t wake themselves from hibernation out of guilt. So why are we constantly trying to override nature?

We are all God’s creation, after all. It only makes sense that we, too, are designed to honor rhythms of rest and renewal.

“Winter is for rest, not reinvention.” – Devi Brown

Seeing so many women push back against the annual demand for immediate outward momentum has been deeply affirming. Devi Brown posted a timely guide to entering the new year grounded. One that reinforced the importance of recovery, and moving energy inward, and seeking clarity without expectation. Linking to it here.

I also love this reel from Dr. Shante Holly, where she framed the idea as “slow boarding” the year. She defines snowboarding as resisting the pressure to create goals, metrics, and other measurable outcomes right away:

• Focusing on who we’re becoming, instead of what we’re producing.

• Focusing on feeling better before doing more.

• Trusting the cadence of nature, not the urgency of capitalism.

We just experienced a lot in 2025. We need to catch our breath, reflect on the lessons, collect the data, and allow meaning to form. That information is what makes movement in 2026 sustainable.

I used to skip this step all the time. Burnout, and the bone-deep exhaustion that follows, has taught me better.

I would let things like restlessness, comparison, and anxiety convince me I was falling behind if I paused for longer than a week. But I’ve learned that intentional rest actually saves me time in the long run. Tending to my inner world strengthens my capacity to grow. I am more creative when rested. My execution is sharper. My vision is clearer. I’m not just doing more – I’m doing what actually matters.

These last couple of years also emphasized, for me, the importance of taking the time to reflect. Journaling in real time is one thing, I’ve always done that. But really taking the time to go and re-read your entries with the benefit of hindsight. Knowing how things turned out. Identifying patterns. Noticing how you grew and how you got there. ways you’ve grown and how you got there – it’s all vital to understanding yourself and your journey.

Understanding who you are becoming is essential to discerning what’s next. That’s what I’ve been tracking during my winter alone time. And it’s given me the space to notice what I’d been neglecting.

“Your next is about coming into agreement with who you are.”

A friend said this to me last month while I was trying to figure out my own next steps. He noted that I’d become good at examining my feelings and being honest about my vulnerabilities, but that the hard season I was going through had made me lose sight of my brilliance. Life was finding ways to remind me daily where I was lacking, and what was going wrong – but what was I doing to counteract those messages?

What was I doing to remind myself daily who TF I am regardless of my circumstances?

I hadn’t even considered how necessary that was.

Social media can fool us into thinking we’re constantly reminded of our accomplishments. They’re pinned, archived, and timestamped. But the truth is, like most things, the Instagram version doesn’t hit the same.

“What about all the magazine cover stories you’ve written?” he asked. “Are those displayed anywhere in your apartment?”

They weren’t.

I had planned to print and frame them when I moved into this place in 2024. But life came fast. Curveballs stacked up. And somehow, that intention got buried.

I knew I still had the actual issues—along with others featuring my byline and a collection of magazines I’d kept simply because I love print journalism (RIP). I used to display them proudly on my coffee table in my old apartment. But I’d never unpacked them here.

I searched the last two unopened boxes in my office. Nothing. Panic set in. What if the movers threw them out and I never noticed?

Then I remembered there was a box at the back of my coat closet that I’d never opened, and sure enough there they were. The biggest accomplishments of my career… sealed in a cardboard box, shoved in the back of a closet.

I’d shoved my brilliance in a closet.

I couldn’t help but laugh because the metaphor was painfully accurate.

When I spread out all the magazines from the box – issues featuring my work during my time as an editorial assistant at Essence, cover stories for various magazines I’d penned as a freelancer, and features written about me and my work – I saw a story I hadn’t seen before. Common threads. Evidence of purpose. Clarity around which parts of my work had the greatest impact. They weren’t just achievements. They were data points. Puzzle pieces, I needed to see the bigger picture

I don’t know what your version of this may be, but I urge you to sit with your past work however you can. Pull up old interviews. Campaigns. Designs. Photographs. Decks. Memos. All of it. Not only to see how much your skills have grown, but to understand who you are. This isn’t just evidence of your greatness, it’s information about what you’re building. About what you were put on this Earth to do. And if it’s not aligned? That’s information, too. What are you going to do differently?

This is the kind of unboxing I want to see more of in 2026 LOL. These are the fragments that form real resolutions – the kind that move you forward without burning you out.

Be your own vision board.

Your brilliance is one of the few resources that cannot be depleted by the economy or erased by any policy or law.

Don’t let hard years like 2025 make you forget who you are or what you’ve been able to accomplish against all odds.

Mirror your gifts back to yourself as you dream and prepare for what’s next.

This is the kind of work winter is for.

These are the kind of insights your becoming requires

Don’t let anyone else’s clock rush you.

— Sincerely, Sylvia