Walking in the Dark: A December Reflection

By this point in the year, everything feels like it’s hurtling toward a deadline. Projects to finish, decisions to make, things I meant to do six months ago now have a 12/31 timestamp burned into them. This post is a Goal Role Soul reflection — not a resolution list. The year is wrapping up whether I’m ready or not — and honestly, I’m not.

While my calendar demands closure, my body wants something else. The light disappears before dinner. My energy dips. My capacity is nowhere near what it was in July.

And when I’m low on bandwidth, I don’t always make decisions — I just react. I get sharp, I get short, and sometimes I get unkind. Not cruel, but sharp enough to leave a mark. It’s not who I want to be, but it’s who shows up when I don’t make space to notice what’s going on inside me first.

Two moments this fall made that clear.

In the first, I said something mean. Not careless — deliberate. I wanted to push someone away, and it worked. But it didn’t feel like a win. It felt like regret.

A few days later, I tried to be helpful — and got told, in no uncertain terms, to mind my business. I wanted to explain, to defend my good intentions. But instead, I paused. I thought about that earlier moment and asked myself: If I’m the one showing up in both of these situations, maybe I need to step back.

I put my hands up and said, “I’m going to take myself to bed.” Not because I was giving up — because I didn’t trust myself to stay in the moment without making it worse. And I said it out loud so no one had to guess. It was the right call. Everyone needed space to breathe and come back to ourselves.

That pause reminded me of a visual I saw — a scatterplot of dots, each one a feeling. Most were just floating. A few were circled, labeled: These are the ones that need action.

That felt true. I feel a lot. Every day. All the time. But not every feeling is a call to fix. Some just need acknowledgment. Some are old patterns. Some are signals that something deeper is at play.

That’s when I know it’s time to check in with something more grounding — and this Goal Role Soul reflection practice helps me find my footing.

Role / Goal / Soul, created by Alfonso T. Wenker and Trina C. Olson and featured in their book Hiring Revolution, is a tool we often use at BetterWorld when teaching people how to navigate and resolve conflict. But I’ve found it just as powerful in quiet, everyday moments — when I’m trying to decide how to show up without doing harm.

• Goal: What am I trying to do?
• Role: What’s actually mine to do?
• Soul: What can I do without losing myself?

Sometimes I realize I’m stepping into something that isn’t mine. Sometimes I am in the right role — but I’m not resourced enough to carry it with care. And sometimes, I just need to ask: What will this moment cost me? and am I willing to pay it?

This time of year, everything in me wants to sprint to the finish line. But I’m learning that December might not be for sprinting. Maybe it’s for walking. Slowly. In the dark. Not to fix everything. Not to judge what I didn’t get done.

Just to notice. Reflect. Choose, with intention, how I want to move through what’s next.

It’s not always graceful, but I keep learning.
Not perfect. Just practicing.