I’m not sure how many people are like me, but New Year’s always seems to depress me a bit. I know most people view it as a fresh start, but I often spend the first few days looking back and wondering what I could have done more of. For many, New Year’s shows up like an invitation to become a new version of themselves, offer a clean slate, and serves as familiar pump-up to finally make change. But for me, it’s a reminder of what I really wanted to achieve but haven’t yet done so. Creating the all-too-common list of “resolutions” has never been the hard part. I can write goals, a lot of goals. I can set targets, build plans, and execute. The real challenge comes in contentment… Enough is never enough.
That is why this year I am not aiming for a “New Year’s Resolution.” I am aiming for a “New Year’s Restoration.” Not a dramatic, burn-it-all-down kind of revolution, but a quiet one that rewires the way I measure success and the way I show up for others. It is a restoration that trades restlessness for contentment and heroics for empowerment. It is a renewal that shifts the center of gravity away from me and toward the people I am responsible for building up.
As mentioned, contentment is not my default setting. I can deliver meaningful outcomes and still feel the low of dissatisfaction, like there was always one more thing to do, one more accomplishment to check off the list, one more area to further innovate, or one more “thing” to chase before I’m allowed to feel at peace. That restlessness can produce results, but it can also steal joy away from the things that were accomplished and the people who helped get me there. It turns improvement into a lifestyle and rest into a reward I never quite earn, and it convinces me that peace lives somewhere in the future instead of where I am standing right now.
So, the first part of my restoration is that I want to focus on being satisfied in the present. For me, that’ll be a huge challenge. I want to learn how to be satisfied without waiting for everything to be solved first. I want to practice being present in the middle of progress, not only at the finish line. I want to stop living like “done” is the only place I’m allowed to breathe, because as we all know, “done” is a myth in our line of work. There is always another demand, another project, another meeting, another moment where someone needs support, and I do not want my inner life to be held hostage by an endless queue of next things.
The second part of my restoration is how I lead, because I’ve realized that my leadership habits and my lack of contentment feed each other. When I’m not content, I’m more likely to insert myself. I’m more likely to prove value through action. I’m more likely to grab the wheel because it’s faster, even if it isn’t better. So this year I want to lead from behind in a way that builds other people up so well that the work no longer requires my constant presence. I want a culture where my team is the headline, not me as the leader. I want to be less of a hero and more of a builder, less of the answer and more of the person who helps others develop answers themselves.
I know exactly how the old pattern starts because it’s familiar and it’s effective in the short term. Something goes sideways, pressure rises, and someone asks for help. I can jump in fast. I can fix it. I can smooth the path and keep things moving. I am first to take control of the meeting, answer the questions, and drop the hammer. It feels like service. It feels like responsibility. It feels like leadership. But the truth is, that’s sometimes the exact opposite of leadership, because it perpetuates the cycle that the makes the system depend on me. The immediate win becomes a long-term weakness. Team get the message that I will absorb the pressure, and the organization learns to look upward instead of outward, stepping back rather than stepping up.
I do not want that for them, and I do not want that for myself. I want a team that knows they can handle it. I want people who trust their own judgment, who feel ownership, who take initiative because they are empowered and trusted to do so. That kind of culture is not created by a leader who is everywhere. It is created by a leader who is intentional about when to step in and when to step back.
Leading from behind requires restraint, and that restraint is not weakness, it’s discipline. It means I do not rush to be the solution. It means I let someone else take the first swing, even when I could do it faster. It means I ask questions before I give answers, and not to test people’s ability to handle the situation, but to draw out the capability that is already there. It means I coach in real time, then step back and let ownership take root. It means I celebrate the win even when my name is nowhere near it, because that is the point.
This is also where contentment becomes more than a personal goal. It becomes a leadership practice. When I lead from behind, I have to learn a different kind of satisfaction. It is not the satisfaction of being needed. It is the satisfaction of seeing others grow. It is not “I handled it,” but “they handled it.” It is not “I saved the day,” but “the day did not need saving.” It is not “I stayed indispensable,” but “I built something stronger than my presence.” That is the kind of contentment that feels quieter, but it is also the kind that lasts.
So this restoration has to be practical, because good intentions without habits are just inspirational sentences. I want to invest in clarity, because clarity creates confidence. I want to invest in training, because training reduces panic and turns uncertainty into competence. I want to invest in standards and repeatable systems, because systems protect people from chaos and reduce the need for heroics. I want to invest in mentorship, because I do not just want a team that can execute tasks. I want a team that can lead, solve, and innovate, even when I am not in the room.
I also want to be more deliberate about how I show up in meetings and moments that matter. I want to listen longer before I speak. I want to create space for others to contribute and then actually let their ideas land. I want to ask, “What do you think?” and mean it, even when the pressure would tempt me to move straight to my own answer. I want to let emerging leaders take the lead, even when I could make it quicker, because speed is not the goal. Strength is the goal, and strength takes time.
None of this is lowering the bar. It is shifting where the weight rests. It is moving from collecting responsibility to building capacity. It is choosing a leadership posture that is quieter, and more durable. It’s a leadership that holds up under stress because it is distributed and supported rather than centralized and dependent. It is also choosing a life posture that allows peace to exist before everything is finished, because, as I have already learned all-too-well, if my inner peace requires completion, then “peace” will never actually come.
At the end of 2026, I do not want to look back and only see outputs. I want to look back and see growth in the people around me. I want to see a team that is more confident, more resilient, and more empowered. I want to see fewer moments that require a rescue and more moments that reflect readiness. And in the middle of that progress, I want to feel a deeper sense of peace than I’ve allowed myself to feel before. My team deserves that version of me. HETMA deserves that version of me. My family deserves that version of me.
