Hello and welcome back to Clover. If you're listening to this between Christmas and New Year's, you're probably in that strange, floaty week that doesn't fully belong to any calendar. The email slow down, the meetings disappear. Days blur together in a way that makes you check your phone just to remember what day it is. The week doesn't really have a name, but we all know it when we're in it, right? So there's less structure, there's fewer expectations, and it's kind of like a quiet sense that time is moving differently. And for a lot of people, especially those in leadership, that can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. So today I want to talk about this week not as a gap to power through or productivity problem to solve, but as something else entirely. I want to reframe it as intentional limbo, a pause. It's almost like a portal between what was and what hasn't started yet, because this week isn't asking you to do more. It's really kind of like like asking you to notice, right? So like, one reason this week feels so strange is that the usual rules don't apply. There's no clear expectations. There's no strong signals of what you should be doing. Some people are working. Some aren't. Some are half checked out. Some are already sprinting toward their January goals. There's not really like a shared rhythm going on. So time feels like distorted. Days stretch and compress at the same time, Tuesday feels like Saturday like literally, the other day, I was like, wait, I know it's Saturday or Sunday. I'm not sure which one. Friday feels like nothing. You might feel oddly calm one minute and and restless the next, like I had anxiety this morning, and now I'm fine. So for many of us, this is the first time all year that our nervous system finally exhales, not because everything is done, but because the external pressure eases that exhale can feel disorienting when you're used to being on quiet can feel loud strangely so for leaders, especially that stillness can be hard. So much of our identity gets gets tied to productivity, to that momentum, to being needed, to solving, building, deciding, carrying, when that stops, even briefly, it can feel like something's missing, but the silence has a way of bringing clarity. So clarity often brings truth. And the truth isn't always convenient, is it? It might show you what drained you more than you admitted, it might reveal what you stayed in too long. It might surface a quiet knowing that you've been avoiding. That's why we rush to fill the space. We scroll and we plan. We jump into goal setting too early. We convince ourselves we need a vision board or a word of the year immediately, not because we're behind or because we're not ready to sit with what's real yet. So what if this week wasn't for planning at all? What if you let it be like a noticing phase instead, like pay attention to what's surfing surfacing internally without forcing it notice what your mind keeps returning to and it finally has room to wander. Ask yourself, what actually feels complete this year? Not what looks complete on paper, but what feels emotionally finished. And also notice what feels unfinished but somehow unimportant, not everything that's incomplete needs to be carried forward. So some things are allowed to end quietly. You don't need to act on any of this. Yet. It's not about decisions. It's about aware, just awareness, being aware of what's going on. So I'm going to offer you three simple prompts. There's no journaling requirement, there's no worksheets, just questions you can hold gently, maybe on a walk or while doing the dishes. The first one is what drained me this year, not what challenged you in a good way, but what consistently took more than it gave. The second one is what surprised me about yourself, about others, about what mattered more or less than you expected. And third, what do I want? Less of, not what you want to do. More of, not what you want. More of, less less pressure, less noise, less obligation, less self abandonment. You don't need answers right away. You can kind of sit with the questions, and here's what I want you to remember as the year winds down, you don't need a plan yet. You don't need to optimize this week or turn it into a reset ritual, or squeeze meeting out of every quiet moment. Let the year end before starting again. This is. Between spaces, doing something important, even if you can't name it yet, trust that. Thank you for being here. And as always, I'm grateful to have you here with me within clover, and I will see you next week, and at that point, we'll be in the new year. So Happy New Year. Happy 2026 let's go bye.