Projects are how strategy becomes reality. When projects move forward with clarity and momentum, organizations make progress. When projects stall, strategy stalls too.

In early March, many organizations are deep into execution mode. Plans for the year are underway, projects are moving, and teams are working hard to follow through on priorities. But there is one type of work that often slips through the cracks because we don’t always recognize it as work.

Decision-making.

In almost every organization I work with, I hear the same sentence:

“Everyone is responsible.”

And yet… things still fall through the cracks.

Deadlines drift. Stress builds. People overwork. Hard conversations get postponed. And when something finally surfaces, it feels heavier than it ever needed to be.

If you’ve ever sat in a meeting where a decision was “approved” but somehow still unraveled later… you already know the problem.

A quick “Any objections?”
A few nods.
Silence.
“Great, we’re aligned.”

Except you weren’t.

You log in a few minutes early.

Your to-do list is running in the background of your mind. Slack notifications. Text messages. The quiet pressure of “I should be further along in my monthly to-do list.”

And then we begin.

We don’t start with strategy or setting goals.

We start with breath.

We wrapped up our very first Reset recently, and before rushing ahead to the next one, I wanted to pause and reflect.

Because that pause is the whole point!

With 11 more Monthly Resets ahead in 2026, the January session gave me clarity not just about what worked, but about why this work matters and how I want to hold it going forward.

Here’s what I learned:

Choosing a word for the year is easy.

Living it is the real practice.

A word of the year isn’t meant to sit prettily in a notebook or become a screensaver you forget by February. When used well, it becomes a decision filter, a pacing mechanism, and a self-trust builder.

At the beginning of 2025, my word for the year was Architect.

I was inspired by this quote often attributed to Joseph Pilates that says:

“You are the architect of your own happiness.”

As a result, last year felt like a year of actively shaping the systems, relationships, and rhythms that make real life work.

If you’ve been following this series and you’re still on the fence about joining the first New Moon Reset for Leaders, here’s what I want to say:

Bring a friend.

Truly. Everything feels more approachable when you build the habit with someone you love or trust. Life is just more fun that way. You focus on your work or personal goals, they focus on theirs, and suddenly you’re having richer conversations, building accountability together, and sharing the experience of growth instead of doing it alone.

If I were personally inviting you to the very first New Moon Reset for Leaders, I’d probably say something like:

Come hang out with me. Come play. Come sit in my little circle.

This experience feels less like a formal workshop and more like welcoming you into my home. And in a way, I am. You’ll literally see my living room through the computer screen. It’s intimate. Cozy. Safe.

By the time we reach the planning section of the New Moon Reset, you’ve already grounded your nervous system and reflected on what’s been working and what hasn’t. You’re clearer, calmer, and more connected to yourself than when you arrived.

This is intentional.
When your mind is clear, your strategy becomes clear.
When your emotions are regulated, your decisions become aligned.

Only then do we shift into planning.

After we ground the body and settle the nervous system with breath and gentle movement, we move into the next part of the New Moon Reset: reflection.

This is where clarity starts to take shape.
This is where overwhelm loosens its grip.
And this is where we begin to understand what we truly need before we even think about planning.

Every New Moon Reset for Leaders begins the same way: with grounding, intentional breath, and gentle movement. For some people, this is their favorite part. For others, it’s the part that makes them think, Wait… what exactly are we doing here? Can we skip to the planning?

I get it. Most leadership development experiences start with thinking. We’re used to beginning in our heads. But in today’s world where constant stimulus hits us from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep, starting with the mind doesn’t actually give us access to our best thinking.

Movement and breathwork do.

Let me explain why…

If someone asked me to describe the New Moon Reset for Leaders in just a few sentences, I’d say this:

It’s a monthly two-hour workshop where we come together to pause, get grounded, move our bodies, reflect intentionally, and leave with a plan you can actually follow. It’s a reset point (built right into each month by nature!) to help you feel calmer, clearer, and more capable of taking your next step as a leader.

The older I get, the more clearly I see how deeply connected we are to everything happening around us. And not just in our teams and businesses, but in the natural world too. We grow up hearing lines in songs and poems about being tied to the moon and the tides, and as it turns out, there’s more truth in those metaphors than we give them credit for. Our systems respond to rhythms we don’t always pay attention to. The moon is one of them. And leadership, surprisingly, is another.

Thanksgiving week always pulls me into reflection. This year, I found myself thinking about a 40-day ritual that changed me more than I expected: my Kirtan Kriya practice from the Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training I recently complete.

What began as a requirement quickly became something I learned to lean on. Not in a meditation corner or in a perfectly still room, but in real life moments like between meetings, on walks, in the nail salon, and often in my car. Somehow, that made the practice even more meaningful. It met me exactly where I was.

If you’ve found yourself nodding along at any point during this series… if a phrase opened something for you… if a definition helped you finally put words to something you’ve been feeling… then you should know: this entire journey was inspired by Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown.

This book is one of the most powerful guides to emotional literacy I’ve ever encountered. Brené maps out the emotions that define the human experience, not to categorize or control them, but to help us navigate them with clarity, compassion, and courage.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve explored the many places we go when emotions show up at work. In the moments when we feel stretched, inspired, uncertain, or human, we know something is happening internally, but we aren’t always the best at explaining those things verbally to the people we work with (or even ourselves).

In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes that naming our emotions doesn’t give them more power, it gives us the power of understanding, meaning, and choice. That idea has guided this entire series. Because when we can name what we’re really feeling, we can respond with clarity, empathy, and courage And that changes everything about how we work together.