The Cycles Planning Protocol

There is a quiet arrogance in the way most of us plan. We pick a date — usually 1 January — draw a line, and declare that from this moment forward we will be different. More disciplined. More productive. More whatever the calendar told us to want. Then we drive ourselves at the same flat intensity for twelve months, wonder why we stall in the spring, burn out by the summer, and limp into December feeling like we failed. The problem is not your discipline. The problem is that you planned as though you were a machine running at a constant rate, when you are in fact a living thing that moves in cycles. Everything that is alive moves in cycles.…