The "New Year" energy usually lasts about ten days.

By now, the excitement of the fresh strategy has met the reality of your inbox. The clean slate you felt on January 1 is already getting crowded with the same old fires, the same vague meetings, and the same challenges that were there in December.

This is where most plans begin to drift.

Not because the strategy was bad, but because a strategy is only an intention. Culture is what actually gets reinforced. If the way you work has not changed, the results will not either.

If the gap between your goals and your reality is already widening, the answer usually isn't to "try harder." It’s to look at what you’re still tolerating.

Are you tolerating meetings without agendas, “urgent” interruptions that are not actually important, or a lack of feedback because it feels easier to avoid the conversation?

The second week of January is where leadership really starts. It is the shift from declaring what matters to actually defending the time around what matters. From the what to the how.

Before the week starts tomorrow, take five minutes to look at your calendar. Does it look like the leader you say you want to be this year or the leader you were last month?

Your calendar will usually tell you the truth before anything else does.