Take Stock Before You Lock In

My goal tracker and I had a little sit-down this week. It's October, somehow already Q4, and this year has both dragged me and given me more than I could have imagined. If whiplash were a person, it would be me. So there I am at my desk, vision board on full display beside the tracker I've kept all year, going through it line by line. Some of it I can tick off with satisfaction. I planned my wedding. I rebranded SOWN. I made new friendships, and I led the first strategy session as a freelancer. Some of it changed shape halfway through and looks nothing like what I wrote in January, like a career pivot and I moved to a new country. And some of it just fell through the cracks during the shuffling of life.

Somewhere in the middle of it I feel the buzz start, a low hum of anxiety running through my hands, the old instinct to make a new plan and try to cram as many things to do and accomplish before December. Look at me, just over here being reactive but this time I caught myself and welcomed a different response.

What fell through the cracks

If you've spent any time online lately you've probably seen the lock-in challenge. You pick your goals on the first of September and treat the next 122 days to New Year's Eve as a sprint, cutting everything that isn't the goal and grinding all the way to the finish line. It's the version of discipline I know best, and looking at my tracker I could see exactly where it had got me. A lot of ambitious boxes, a fair few of them still empty.

I could feel myself reaching for that version again, the reactive one, but this time I said nope, I don't want that. What I arrived at instead was a soft lock-in of my own. It covers the same stretch of the year, but it's grounded in a few small daily habits for my body and my mind, and the discipline is simply showing up for them every day. It felt better than chasing a trend, and a lot healthier than reacting.

What struck me, sitting there with my goal tracker, was how little of it had slipped for lack of ambition. The things that fell through the cracks were the ones that needed me to show up every day with no deadline making me, and I had built almost nothing underneath them to make that possible. I had goals, but I didn't have habits.

So this time I want to do something different.

A soft lock-in, on purpose

How your morning starts can dictate so much of how the rest of the day goes. I've learned to protect mine by removing the things that make me anxious, reactive or hurried. My mornings still start a little early (I like being up by 6:30), but they're slow now, I don't cram it with a bunch of to-dos, and keeping them that way has taken more effort than any goal on the board. Most days, I don't touch my phone or laptop for the first stretch of the morning, no email and no Instagram, which is an odd rule for someone who runs an Instagram account and is in the middle of a career transition.

Before I look at anything, I read or write. Lately it's mostly a brain dump, three pages by hand of whatever is on my mind. I've been journaling more consistently than I ever have, and it's become the place where the deeper reflection happens, the kind I used to save for the end of a year and never quite get round to.

I'm reading differently. I've always reached for personal development books, always striving to expand but sometimes it's okay to be swept into a different world, so I've found myself in love with fiction again, and it's sparking my creativity in a way that gives me room to just exist and imagine.

Another shift in my habits is getting honest about my caffeine intake. Once upon a time, not to long ago, the first thing in my body was a dark roast espresso, maybe two. Now in its place is a glass of water with clove, ginger, lemon and cinnamon in it, and I've missed coffee less than I expected and I feel more regulated.

Then I move my body. Everyday looks a little different. I'm motivated by music so a little morning dance party always gets the blood flowing. But something that's been a game changer for me has been spending twenty-five or thirty minutes on the StairMaster before I lift. It started as a warm-up and stayed because of what it changed for me. By the time I get to strength training my heart rate is up and my legs are properly warm, and I can actually feel the muscles I'm meant to be using, my glutes especially. It's easier on my knees than running, and it's also very hard to scroll on a StairMaster, which I count as a benefit.

On the days my energy isn't there, I don't force it. I walk instead, at whatever pace my body is asking for, and I count that as a full day. That took me a while. I used to feel guilty about any workout that didn't leave me sweating with my heart racing,ut your body always knows what it needs. It's just the mind catching up.

Then there's what I put into my body, and this has been much harder than any of the other small habits. I've been eating mostly whole foods and trying to eliminate processed foods altogether, but processed sugar has me in a chokehold (release me, please!). It's in everything. So I've been making swaps. Ice cream became homemade smoothies. Potato chips became almonds and 80% dark chocolate, IYKYK. And my late-night snack is now a kiwi, which I recently learned can help with more restful sleep. If anyone has figured out how to quit processed sugar for good, let your girl know.

Oh, and alcohol is down to nearly zero, too. If you've been following along here, you know my relationship with alcohol is seasonal. There are stretches where I can't turn down a glass of vino, or a cold Hugo spritz, my drink of summer 2026. Then there are stretches where I just don't have any interest, and it tends to happen when the seasons change. What I've enjoyed most about the longer breaks is how quickly my energy comes back, and the mental clarity that follows. These days I'd take that over any cocktail.

Then there are my supplements, which sit on the counter next to the spiced water. Iron and B12 come first, and creatine, collagen, ashwagandha, vitamin E and omega-3 fish oil are in the mix too. I'm not a doctor and this isn't advice. I'm just sharing this because getting where you want to go sometimes starts with how you look after yourself and the habits you establish now, whether big or small, will carry you through every season.

What discipline used to mean

For a long time, discipline to me meant this big thing. A new plan every January and a burst of effort whenever I felt behind, usually followed by a loss of momentum where nothing much happened at all.

There's a real price to pay when you don't follow through. Every time I broke a promise to myself, I felt a little shame and a lot of disappointment. Even worse, every time I didn't follow through, the hole got deeper, until I didn't really trust myself to show up. For someone who craves a big life, that isn't worth it to me anymore. Small habits are how I'm earning that trust back, like the 72oz of water I said I'd drink every day, the walk I said I'd take.

I'm sharing all of this because the year isn't over, and I don't see it as one that slipped away from me. It comes down to the gap between what we say we want to do and the habits we have in place to give us the space and freedom to actually do it. For me, that meant taking stock of what I was doing, mentally and physically, and deciding what needed to stay and what needed to go if I was going to reach my goals.

If you're planning to lock in for the rest of the year, take stock before you spring into action. Look at what you're doing for your mind and your body, and be honest about what should stay and what needs to go. Then pick one small thing you'll do tomorrow morning, before you pick up your phone, and do it again the morning after. Whatever you're trying to grow will take root there, in small things done on purpose over and over again.

Keep planting,

Ashlee