Here's a Different Take on How to View January: It's Not About Optimization

It’s January — the beginning of a new year. A time when many of us pause to reflect on the year that was and imagine what might be possible in the year that’s just begun. A combination that can feel both exhausting and exciting, simultaneously. 🙂

It’s also a time filled with many rituals designed to kick-start the new year — making resolutions (which I don’t subscribe to) and choosing a word of the year as a guiding theme (which I do). 

Though me being me, I don’t have just one word for 2026 — I have three: Re-Imagine. Re-Build. Experiment.

One of the reasons I stepped away from resolutions is that they often invite us to focus almost exclusively on optimization. 

Take a quick look at your social media feeds or television ads this time of year. They’re filled with messages about working out more, losing weight, eating better, being more productive. In other words: How can you become more perfect, effective, and efficient as you reinvent yourself? 

And to be clear — I’m not against reinvention. In fact, it’s exactly what I hope my three words will support. 

But far too often, especially in January, the desire to optimize quietly turns into overcommitment. Everything you want to change gets dialed up to 11 — even though the dial only goes to 10. Can you relate?

What if, instead of kick-starting the year by trying to optimize everything, you embraced an orientation approach? 

It’s not that execution doesn’t matter — it’s that how you execute matters more. 

What does an orientation approach look like in practice? 

It asks questions like: 

• Do you prioritize purpose and direction over a specific, measurable outcome?

• Do you embrace a methodology that’s exploratory — or one that’s purely quantitative?

• Are you open to multiple possible outcomes, or is success defined by a single result? 

While the pressure to figure out the next step or choice to make is always present, January tends to amplify the feeling that we should already have everything figured out.

One of the reasons “re-imagine” resonates so deeply with me is this: it isn’t about having better ideas.

It’s about loosening my grip on the assumptions I’m currently treating as facts, and being willing to experiment. 

What assumptions do you need to hold a little less tightly? Where might you benefit from leaning more fully into being an experimenter?

As I prepare for next week’s Pricing Made Human® masterclass (January 8), I’ve been thinking about how central this conversation about assumptions — and about re-imagining and experimenting — really is when it comes to pricing. 

Assumptions about what’s reasonable. About what clients will pay. About capacity, energy, and sustainability.

Pricing is often one of the first places people try to “optimize” — frequently without orientation. 

(And yes — if this resonates, I’d love to have you join us. Or, share it with your business bestie.) 

And even if pricing isn’t the question you’re actively wrestling with right now, the spirit of this conversation still applies.

Any moment of transition — a career shift, a relationship change, a health reset, a season of uncertainty — benefits from orientation before action. From understanding what’s actually shaping your choices before you rush to change them.

Re-imagining doesn’t require a full plan. Often, it simply asks you to notice what you’ve been defaulting to — and to create enough space to choose differently.

January doesn’t need your certainty. It needs your honesty. It doesn’t require answers — it invites awareness.

So, whether you’re re-imagining how you work, how you earn, how you live, or simply how you move through this season, taking an orientation approach gives you something optimization never will: room to respond instead of react.

If you find yourself tempted to optimize, overhaul, or commit before you’re oriented, consider this your permission slip to slow down.

There’s time to decide. There’s time to execute.

But first — know that there’s value in seeing where you are, what you’re assuming, and what might be possible if you allow yourself to experiment.

And however you choose to experiment this year, I hope you do so with curiosity, compassion, and a little more room to breathe.

Happy New Year!

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About Jacquette

I love to ask questions and spark aha moments. I love to talk about why success with money is about more than just the numbers, and how the cultural impact on the intersection of money, business, and life matters–A LOT! And, I really hope I help people feel seen, heard, and not judged—especially since money is emotional and personal.

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