By Just Ask Maxx
It happens every year around now. The leaves turn, the stores put out the Christmas stuff way too early, and a quiet voice starts in: You said this would be the year. Look at you.
If you’re feeling behind right now, you’re not alone, and you’re not lazy. Fall is when we start grading ourselves against the version of us we imagined in January. And she always seems to be winning.
Why fall makes us feel behind
Three things are working on you at once.
The calendar. There’s a deadline feeling to the end of the year, even though December 31st isn’t a real deadline for anything in your life.
The comparison. Everyone’s posting their engagements, promotions and “what I accomplished this year” lists. You’re seeing their highlight reel against your behind-the-scenes.
The fatigue. By October, you’re tired. Tired people tell themselves harsh stories.
What I tell clients who feel behind
A client, I’ll call her Monique, came to me last October with a list of eleven things she’d promised herself she’d do in 2025. She’d done two. She was ready to scrap the whole year as a failure.
I asked her to write down what she had done that wasn’t on the list. She sat there a minute. Then she wrote: left a friendship that was draining her. Took care of her father through his surgery. Paid off one card. Started sleeping through the night again.
None of that was on her January list. All of it was growth.
Sometimes you’re not behind. You’re just measuring the wrong things.
How to use the last 11 weeks of the year
There are about eleven weeks left in 2026. That’s enough time to change something real, if you stop trying to change everything.
- Write your “didn’t plan it, did it anyway” list. Everything you handled this year that you didn’t see coming. Read it out loud.
- Pick one thing. Not five. One goal you can actually move before New Year’s. One conversation, one habit, one bill, one boundary.
- Make it weekly, not daily. Daily goals collapse the first bad Tuesday. Weekly goals survive real life.
- Protect your energy for December. Say no now to the things you already know will wear you out. Your December self will thank you.
- Tell someone. A friend, a coach, a sister. Goals spoken out loud get kept more often than goals kept secret.
October is Emotional Wellness Month
That’s a good reason to stop beating yourself up. You can’t grow from a place of constant self-attack. You grow from a place of honest, kind attention. Treat yourself like someone you’re coaching, not someone you’re punishing.
You’re not behind. You’re right here. And right here is where every change starts.
Need to talk it through? Life Coaching Today has life coaches in every niche. Find your coach here, or book a free 15-minute discovery call with Just Ask Maxx.
Read the book: Red Flags: A Woman’s Survival Guide to Dating in the Manosphere by Kiddada Asmara Grey and Georgia Ann Hunter Jones. Get your copy on Amazon.
Just Ask Maxx is the founder of Life Coaching Today, a Master Relationship Coach, Master Hypnotherapist, Certified NLP Practitioner and Certified Divorce Mediator. She writes the weekly Just Ask Maxx column and co-hosts He Said, She Said.
