The Pattern You Created (Which Means You Can Interrupt It)

So here's the thing about the season you're in—the one where gratitude feels like work and presence feels like a performance.

It's not happening to you.

I know that lands hard. I know there's a part of you that wants to point to the revenue that didn't come through, the client that churned, the hire that didn't work out, the market that shifted, the economy, the algorithm, the whatever. And I'm not saying those things aren't real. They are. But the experience of this season—the weight of it, the way December feels like a verdict instead of a transition—that's a pattern. Your pattern.

And here's why that's actually the best news you'll hear all week: if you created it, you can interrupt it.

I spent the first five or six years of my entrepreneurial life believing that the holidays just were hard. Like it was written somewhere. Like December was objectively, universally difficult for anyone trying to build something. I thought the melancholy was the cost of ambition. The price of wanting more than a normal life.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that wasn't true. Other people—people just as driven, just as hungry, just as dissatisfied with ordinary—weren't experiencing December the way I was. Some of them were genuinely present. Genuinely grateful. Not performing gratitude for Instagram or forcing themselves through the motions for their families. Actually experiencing it.

What the hell was different about them?

The Question That Changed Everything

It wasn't their circumstances. Some of them had harder years than me. Some had less money, less security, more uncertainty. It wasn't their success—I knew plenty of people who had crushed it financially and still couldn't enjoy a single Christmas morning without mentally rehearsing January's to-do list.

The difference was their operating system.

I didn't have language for it then. Now I call it Drive State. There are two of them, and you're running one of them right now as you read this.

Generative Drive is future-focused, possibility-oriented. It's curious. It asks "what could I create?" It feels expansive, sustainable, like flow. When you're in Generative Drive, you make decisions toward a vision.

Protective Drive is past-focused, threat-oriented. It's vigilant. It asks "what must I avoid?" It feels contracted, depleting, like survival. When you're in Protective Drive, you make decisions away from pain.

Neither is bad. Both are necessary. You need Protective Drive when there's an actual threat—when the building is on fire, when the cash is running out, when something genuinely dangerous is happening.

But here's the problem: most of us are running Protective Drive as our default operating system. Especially in December. Especially when the year didn't go how we planned. Especially when we're surrounded by evidence (real or imagined) that we should have done more, been more, achieved more.

And you cannot—I need you to hear this—you cannot experience gratitude from Protective Drive.

It's not a discipline problem. It's not a mindset problem. It's not that you need to try harder to be present or force yourself to appreciate what you have. Protective Drive is physiologically incapable of genuine gratitude because it's scanning for threats. It's looking for what's wrong, what's missing, what could hurt you. That's its job.

So when you sit at the Christmas table and try to feel grateful while running Protective Drive, you're asking your nervous system to do something it literally cannot do in that state. You'll get performance. You'll get the words. You might even convince everyone around you. But you won't get the experience.

And then you'll feel worse, because now you're adding "can't even feel grateful properly" to the list of ways you've failed this year.

Sound familiar?

The Pattern Revealed

Here's what I want you to do right now. Before we go any further. Grab something to write with—I don't care if it's the notes app on your phone or the back of a receipt—and answer these questions honestly.

Not how you wish you felt. Not how you think you should feel. How you actually feel, right now, reading this.

Energy Level (1-10): How drained or energized do you feel entering this season?

Satisfaction with 2025 (1-10): When you think about your business this year, what number comes up?

Personal Satisfaction (1-10): How satisfied are you with your life outside business?

Clarity (1-10): How clear are you on where you're going next year?

Stress Level (1-10): How much chronic stress are you carrying right now?

One Word for 2025: If you had to name this year with a single word, what would it be?

Look at what you wrote.

Now, second assessment. Read each statement and rate how true it feels on a scale of 1-5:

Generative Indicators:

• I'm excited about possibilities in my business

• I'm curious about what I could create next

• I feel energized thinking about the future

• I'm focused on growth, not just survival

• I see challenges as opportunities

Add those up. That's your Generative score out of 25.

Protective Indicators:

• I'm constantly worried about what could go wrong

• I'm more focused on avoiding failure than creating success

• I feel defensive when thinking about my business

• I'm in survival mode more than growth mode

• I see challenges as threats

Add those up. That's your Protective score out of 25.

If your Generative score beats your Protective score by 10 or more, you're operating in Generative Drive. You're in a good position for this work.

If they're within 10 points of each other, you're mixed. Common. Workable.

If your Protective score beats your Generative score by 10 or more, you're in Protective Drive. And I want you to read the next part very carefully.

Why This Matters More Than Your Goals

If you're in Protective Drive right now—and statistically, most people reading this in late December are—then any goal you set in the next two weeks will be contaminated.

I don't mean slightly off. I mean fundamentally broken.

Goals set in Protective Drive are about avoiding pain. They're structured around what you don't want, what you're afraid of, what you're running from. They sound like:

"I need to stop losing money." "I can't let that happen again." "I have to get out of this situation."

Even when they're disguised as positive goals, they're fear-based at the root:

"I want to hit $500K" (because I'm terrified of being broke again) "I want to scale the team" (because I'm afraid of being exposed as a one-man show) "I want to take more time off" (because I'm scared I'm going to burn out like last time)

The goal itself might be fine. But the energy underneath it is running away, not running toward. And your unconscious mind—the part that actually controls your motivation, your follow-through, your "mojo"—knows the difference.

This is why New Year's resolutions fail. Not because people are lazy or undisciplined. Because they're setting goals from Protective Drive, at the most Protective time of year, in Reactive mode between holiday obligations. Those goals were dead on arrival.

This is the pattern you've been creating without realizing it. Every year. The December verdict, the January reset, the February collapse. Not because you lack willpower, but because you've been trying to build from the wrong operating system.

The Interrupt

So what do we do about it?

You can't think your way out of Protective Drive. Trust me, I've tried. Affirmations don't work. Gratitude lists written from Protective Drive are just more performance. "Mindset work" that doesn't address your nervous system is rearranging deck chairs.

What works is environment.

You cannot solve problems from the same level of thinking that created them. Your environment shapes your thinking. Your thinking shapes your actions. Your actions create your results.

This is why twelve years ago, when I was drowning in this exact pattern, I booked a cabin in the mountains and went alone with my journals. Not because I had some grand plan. Not because I knew what I was doing. Because I understood, at some instinctive level, that I needed to physically remove myself from the environment that was keeping me stuck.

Same office = same thinking. Same kitchen table = same patterns. Same couch = same rumination.

The physical triggers in your environment are constantly activating mental patterns. Your brain is associating your surroundings with certain states. Your home office doesn't just remind you of work—it literally shifts your nervous system into work mode. Your living room doesn't just remind you of rest—it shifts you into whatever state you've been practicing there (which for most entrepreneurs is "half-resting while mentally working").

You need a pattern interrupt. And the most powerful pattern interrupt is environmental change combined with intentional structure.

What Jump Start Actually Is

I turned that first desperate cabin trip into a framework. Not all at once—it evolved over years. But now it's a complete system for ending well and starting ahead. I call it Jump Start.

Three parts:

Intelligent Reflection (looking back) — Most year-end reflection fails because it's either toxic positivity, negativity spirals, or vague statements like "I need to be better at marketing." Intelligent Reflection uses structured frameworks to extract real insights. You look at your year through multiple lenses—positive, negative, gratitude, constructive—and through the Neurological Levels that shape everything you do (Identity, Beliefs, Capabilities, Behavior, Environment). You also look at the numbers. Because your emotional experience of your year is almost never accurate, and the data will tell you what actually happened.

Ecological Goal Setting (looking forward) — Most goals fail because they focus on WHAT you want, not WHO you need to become to get it. And most goals are set from Protective Drive, so they're about avoiding pain instead of creating possibility. Ecological goal setting means checking your drive state first, then building goals that pass specific tests: stated in positive terms, 100% in your control, sensory-specific, ecological (considering the effects on all areas of your life), with multiple pathways, a specified first step, and increasing your choice rather than trapping you.

Artful Implementation (making it real) — Planning without implementation is hallucination. But there's a crucial distinction most entrepreneurs miss: the difference between Action and Traction. Action is heroic one-time efforts that require constant energy and don't compound. Traction is systems that work without you, compound over time, and create leverage. Most entrepreneurs are stuck in Action mode—it feels productive but it doesn't scale, it's exhausting, and it's not sellable. Artful Implementation means building quarterly rocks that create Traction, not just more Action.

The Permission Slip

I know what some of you are thinking.

"I don't have time for a retreat." "I can't justify the expense of a cabin." "My business can't run without me for a weekend."

If your business can't run without you for 48 hours, that's not a reason to skip this—it's the exact reason you need it. You're stuck in Action mode. You've built a job, not a business. The retreat isn't just a luxury; it's a diagnostic. The fact that you can't take a weekend away is the symptom we're treating.

As for time—you're going to spend time on year-end reflection whether you do this intentionally or not. The only question is whether you'll do it scattered across stolen moments in Reactive mode, or whether you'll architect the space to actually shift your operating system.

Same time. Dramatically different outcomes.

And the expense? I'm offering you the entire Jump Start workbook for free. Twenty-five pages of everything I've learned in twelve years of doing this practice. Drive state assessments, the full Intelligent Reflection framework, ecological goal-setting templates, Action-Traction analysis, Time Architecture designs, everything.

If you want to do the work in your living room, you can. It's not ideal—the environmental change matters—but the framework is still more valuable than anything you'd come up with on your own. I can say that because I tried for years to do this without structure, and it doesn't work.

The Invitation

Here's what I know about you, reading this.

You're tired. The year was hard. You're probably oscillating between beating yourself up for not achieving more and trying to force gratitude for what you have. Neither feels authentic because you're running Protective Drive, and Protective Drive can't do authentic anything. It can only perform.

You're also capable. Of so much more than you're experiencing right now. Not because you need to work harder—you already work too hard. Because you need to work from a different operating system.

The pattern you're in—the December heaviness, the forced gratitude, the New Year's goals that will be abandoned by Valentine's Day—it's not inevitable. It's not the cost of ambition. It's a pattern you created, which means it's a pattern you can interrupt.

That's what Jump Start is. An interrupt.

Download the workbook. Block a weekend. Get somewhere different, even if it's just a hotel room across town. And do the work of ending well so you can actually start ahead.

Or don't. Keep running the same pattern. Keep wondering why the holidays feel like a sentencing instead of a celebration. Keep setting goals from Protective Drive and wondering why you can't sustain the motivation past February.

Your choice.

I'll be in my cabin, doing my own Jump Start. Twelve years running. Not because I've figured it all out—I clearly haven't, based on the opening of this piece. But because the practice works even when I don't feel like it works. Because the framework holds me when my discipline doesn't.

Download the Jump Start workbook here: [link]

And if you want support doing this work—someone to help you see the patterns you're too close to see, to call out when you're in Protective Drive and don't realize it, to help you build Traction instead of just more Action—that's what the Diagnostic is for. Schedule one here: [link]

Here's to interrupting the pattern.

Here's to ending well.

Here's to 2026.

Now go be great.