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I used to be the queen of making New Year’s resolutions.

There were few things I loved more than sitting down throughout that week between Christmas and January 1 to map out an entire vision for my life, set expectations for the 12 months ahead (some realistic, some not so much), and find new, innovative ways to overhaul my entire existence with a planner and vision board in tow.

But I’ll also be the first to raise my hand and say that the arrival of the new year has changed for me in the last few years.

I don’t feel like subscribing to that same old hustle mentality.

I don’t feel the need to unearth the better version of myself.

I don’t feel my spirit leaping out of my chest to run towards a fresh calendar year.

Something in my heart has paused. It has slowed down. It made me rethink the resolutions I was so good at setting and swap those bigger goals for something different, something that means more to me and feels more manageable as a mom and business owner. It has proudly become the banner over my New Year’s to come:

Rhythms.

Rhythms over resolutions.

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Here’s what I’ve noticed about my resolutions over the last decade.

• They’re often abstract.
• They’re often built from a place of “not good enough” in this area.
• They often are held up by a foundation of “I need to get it together,” and I don’t think shame is ever really a sturdy foundation.

Each new year, I would often find myself setting a slew of goals but never really checking back in on them.  I reserved results for January and February and then basically counted my losses after that.

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Over the past decade, I’ve been dedicated to gradually building discipline into my daily life. Creating new habits. Shifting lifestyles. Making progress in areas that matter to me. And I’ve learned that you cannot approach life with a series of abstract goals and expect anything to change about you.

Goals need to be tangible.

They need to be measurable.

And goals that seem like serious lifestyle overhauls have to be taken one day at a time, and one baby step at a time. If you don’t figure out how to rejoice in the small, finite progress, then you won’t even get past the first mile.

This doesn’t mean I didn’t walk into the New Year with some of the same feelings: I would love to make healthier meals for my family. I wish I didn’t get so easily exhausted by my phone. Yikes, I am so bad at managing a Google calendar.

Those feelings still remain, but how I choose to approach these feelings in the New Year is completely different than how I’ve ever done it before.

Enter rhythms.

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I’ve learned that resolutions hold little to no power unless we address the root of what really needs to change: our daily habits and rhythms, as well as how we show up for ourselves.

It’s one thing to say, “I want to lose weight in 2025,” and another to create healthy rhythms, track the workouts, and see how your self-discipline is progressing.

A rhythm is a thing you do on repeat.

It’s specific.

Another word for them? Routines.

P.S. If building consistent routines feels overwhelming or out of reach, I’d love to help. My routine-building course is designed to guide you in creating simple, life-giving systems that bring more peace, order, and calm to your everyday life—especially during the upcoming season. Check it out here.

Here’s a look at the rhythms I’ve started and stuck with over the last few years:

DAILY

• Pomodoro + Power Hours: This is essentially how I manage my workdays – in time blocks. As a working mom, I don’t get an 8-hour day to tackle my work. I must be strategic, focused, and efficient with my time. For years, I’ve worked in 25-minute increments. I write more about the Pomodoro Method here. Since I started unplugging, I’ve learned the value of a single hour and it has become my daily currency. When I am overwhelmed, I look to the hour ahead. When I have a project I don’t feel like doing, I throw one hour at it. My office closet is currently taunting me and I have no desire to clean it out but, after I finish writing this, I’ll set a time for one hour and do what I can. The key to both of these methods – power hours and pomodoros – is staying focused in the flow. No distractions. No podcasts. No outside noise. It’s truly monotasking in all its glory, and it has helped me get more done, stay focused, but also feel less overwhelmed by all the things I’m juggling.
  

• Morning Meeting: In 2024, I started reframing my quiet time. I would often feel that if the day was busy or if things got off to a bad start, then I would push the quiet time to the side. But, at the same time, I don’t think my life or my business can really run smoothly without God in all the grooves. So, I changed the name and “rebranded” my quiet time to what I now call My Morning Meeting. I write about it extensively here but, in a nutshell, it’s a chance to quiet my spirit, get away from the noise, read my Scriptures for the day, and pray and plan for the day ahead. When I was just doing quiet time, I didn’t really bother to plan out my day or business tasks. But why wouldn’t I invite God into those things? Why wouldn’t I want his strength, power, and wisdom for emails and writing projects, and business plans? Reframing my quiet time into my Morning Meeting makes me feel like I’m having a meeting with God each morning before the chaos of the day begins. I wouldn’t miss a meeting with someone that was on my calendar, so why would I miss this one?

• Turndown Service: At the start of 2025, I added this rhythm to my habit tracker and made it official. ​​Essentially, the Turndown Service is a 60-minute block of time during which I visit each room, tidying, lightly cleaning, and prepping the space for the evening. We are big fans of anything cozy, so the actual rhythm of preparing for nighttime gives me so much peace. I clear away clutter, I light candles, I draw the blinds, and make the space one of peace after a long day. One of the unexpected benefits of Turndown Service is that I no longer feel constantly overwhelmed by my home or spend hours of the day trying to keep up with cleaning. This one daily rhythm that I genuinely enjoy helps my brain recognize that there is a designated time and space in the day where things are put away and put back in order. Something about that allows my spirit to exhale and move through my day, no longer worried about all the clutter and mess.

WEEKLY

• Week Mapping: Every Sunday evening, before the weeks begin, you’ll find me in my office with a candle lit, a cup of peppermint tea, and my holds-my-entire-life notebook by my side as I map out the week ahead. I’ve been mapping my week for nearly a decade now, and I swear by the results. It helps me create a manageable plan that takes into consideration the people I love, the tasks I have to do, and the things I really care about – instead of one, never-ending to-do list that will only get longer as the week goes on. If you’re curious about week-mapping, I teach my entire method in this mini-course, so you can step into your own intentionally designed weeks ahead.

• Practicing Sabbath: This rhythm goes hand in hand with another rhythm I love: unplugging. If you’re unfamiliar with the rhythm, the Sabbath is a day of rest traditionally observed at the end of the week. It is one whole day—twenty-four hours within a 168-hour week—reserved for restoration, delight, and learning to cease. For me, practicing this rhythm – from Friday night to Saturday night – is a challenge to myself to put down the work, step away from emails, and take a genuine break from screens and productivity. This simple rhythm also helps me reset my system week after week, so I can start Monday feeling recharged and ready to have a productive and intentional week.

• Finance Friday: Typically reserved for the first Friday of each month, I carve out time to review my QuickBooks, identify any money pits (such as unused subscriptions I didn’t even realize I was paying for), and plan my tithe for the month ahead. I used to save the balancing of my QuickBooks for the end of the year, but going month-to-month has been a much-welcomed rhythm. This year, I’ve taken the idea of giving 10% of my profits to churches, organizations, and missions I really care about very seriously. So I genuinely look forward to seeing what I made the month before and then spreading my money outward in the world. The more I earn, the more I can give – but it starts with having a rhythm of knowing where my money is going month after month and tightening up the business budget for the days ahead.

As you can see from the rhythms I’ve steadily cultivated:

• The rhythms are relatively simple and don’t take up too much time.
• They’re all created out of a need in my life– the need to be more present, the need to be more organized, etc.
• They are simple enough that if I miss a day or a week, then I can just pick up where I left off.
• The rhythms are specific. They are clear. There is no possible way I can miss the point of them. No abstract ideas here.

I Always Want to Hear From You!

I’d love to know in the comments section if this idea of rhythms over resolutions resonates with you. Do you have any new rhythms for your new year? And, if this information is helpful to you, would a follow-up on how I am doing with the rhythms at the 6-month mark matter to you? I can’t wait to read + respond to your thoughts!