Nice Work: Getting "back to it"

Hey there,

I took down my Christmas tree last night—if you can still call that dried-out, needle-dropping husk a “tree.” Now the living room seems strangely off: a little too bare, a little too dark. But it’s January. The vacation days are over (my inbox has made that very clear). I guess we should all get back to it, right?

Today I decided: actually, no. I’m not getting “back to it” this week. Because in the last two months of 2023, we did a lot. We threw our first remote retreat, and more than 300 of you signed up. We taught sold-out sessions of our coaching skills workshop. We closed out the first season of the podcast we launched last year, Per My Last Email. We planned 2024 programming for some of our favorite corporate clients. And we opened registration for the completely redesigned and massively expanded version of our leadership program, now called Power Shift—which also meant scripting and recording hours of new video content, developing a new workbook, and coordinating with our guest facilitators. All in the last six weeks of the year.

It was a lot for a tiny company. It was a lot for me.

I don’t regret all that work. It allowed us to bring people together to find hope and community at the end of a rough year. It got our new program off to a great start. It gave us a lot to be excited about this year.

But what I know is that if I’m not careful, I can easily normalize that kind of crunch time—turning it from a short-term solution into business as usual, without even realizing it.

That’s why I’m actually loving this first week of post-holiday work. Because, with the twinkle lights put away and the darkness of winter settling in, I have a little more space to think. I have room to ask myself: what do I want to leave back in 2023? And what will serve me in 2024?

Here’s my answer: I’m holding tight to all the energy and connection we got from our community last year. But that frantic feeling of juggling so many balls? I’m chucking it in the woodchipper with my dried-out tree.

And in its place, I’m inviting in more ease. I’m simplifying. I’m asking my team to make our processes more lightweight, less cumbersome. To babysit stuff less. To stop pressuring ourselves to constantly build new things—and to instead get more mileage out of all the content and curricula we’ve already created. Because we don’t always need to be “adding value.”

We just need to trust that the work we’ve already done is enough. And maybe that we’re enough, too.

So...how about you?

What are you leaving behind in 2023, and what are you saying hello to this year? We asked everyone this question at the end of our retreat last month. So if you need a little inspiration, here are some of my favorite answers from our community:

I’m saying goodbye to…

• “Strength” through armor

• External validation

• Second-guessing myself

• Trying to solve every problem 

I’m saying hello to…

• Owning my expertise 

• Using my voice for good 

• Being true to myself 

• Trusting my intuition 

I’d love to hear yours. Hit reply and share them if you have a moment.

— Sara 

PS: Thank you to everyone who’s already signed up for Power Shift! Early-bird registration is over, but you still have plenty of time to sign up before we get started on February 8. Which means…yeah, we’re going to be sending a couple more emails about it this month. Look for our series highlighting wisdom from our guest facilitators over the next few weeks!

Send us your work dilemmas

A new season of Per My Last Email is coming, and we need your help! Got a work situation you’re not sure how to handle? Whether you’re struggling with a coworker or trying to figure out the next step in your career, we’d love to coach you through it.

Watch the talks from our retreat

If you missed Reclaim Your Power in December, I have great news: we’re making two of the most moving talks I’ve seen in a long time available to everyone. Don’t miss these.

It all means nothing in the end

Amy Hupe

What do you do when you’ve attached your sense of self to work, and work suddenly feels meaningless? In this talk, Amy explores burnout, purpose, and making meaning in an increasingly confusing and calamitous world.

Leading with radical softness

Jess Dale

What does leadership look like when it’s not just recreating the status quo? Jess is here to show us. They share how they uncovered their “radically soft” leadership style—and what changed for them when they embraced it.