September is my birth month, and like clockwork, I feel different as my birthday approaches. It’s as though reflecting on the growth experienced over the year reconfigures my settings and I feel like a better version of myself. There’s always gratitude for the year past and excitement for the year ahead. September 2021 had an extra bit of sparkle for me, and I’m curious how anyone else reading this relates to this month’s topic of “seasons”.

Sidebar: Of course this has to be my theme song all month long!

I get these intuitions which come and go about whether I am “in season” for the year ahead. Being in season feels like having such strong internal alignment that I approach life with the firm belief that everything that matters can and will fall into place. It’s a state of mind so the challenges between where I am and where I want to go are still very real and difficult. For me, the difference between being in-season and off-season is largely the clarity to pursue and the persistence to execute the right things. It prods me to think of better answers to a question which might have become trite but still works for me: “What would I do if I knew I could not fail?” September 2021 has me in my feelings because being in-season is exciting and a little intimidating at the same time.

Writing this made me think about what sort of issues have previously come up during these times when I felt empowered to achieve a lot but was slow to convert. I got there in the end but I am increasingly sensitive to not wasting time: now that I know better, I actually want to do better.

Some of it was taking for granted that I would always have access to certain options when the time felt right for me as opposed to when the opportunity presented itself. I also attached more value to the options which I had worked harder for versus those were offered to me with less effort. It’s been said that “the difference between a weed and a flower is judgement.” It took me a while to appreciate that the opportunities I intentionally cultivate can be just as valuable as the ones which arise without any direct intervention.

Then there were times when I was slow in transitioning from the circumstances, habits and/or people that might have been appropriate at one stage, but weren’t congruent with the aspirations I was pursuing in the next stage. There is a certain wisdom I needed about pruning timeously and choosing the right environment to flourish.

Fear has also been a factor at the beginning of new experiences and it worked both ways: fear of failure as well as fear of success. I think the latter is something people should probably talk about more because the perceived pressure and visibility of success can be off-putting. Pandemic life has helped me shed a lot of these irrational fears. I call them irrational because in the bigger scheme of things, my interests are not so revolutionary as to evoke a feeling so strong as fear, and the regret of not trying would be unacceptable. When I simplify to this basic level (do I chose fear or regret), I find ways to dismantle fear and engineer a path forward.

I’ve been very fortunate that my off-season years weren’t even terrible - they just felt different and somewhat sluggish. It’s natural to prefer “better” once one has experienced it. However, I know how intense I get so alternating between the two states is probably best for my long-term wellbeing :-) just as we see it in nature that very few flowers bloom all year round. 

When you are in-season, what are some of the things you do to protect that energy? How do you manage the transition from off-season to in-season so that you make the most of it while it lasts?