Practical Magic | Everything Has Its Season
How to use the archetypal energies of the seasons as a natural prioritisation system for planning and goal-setting.
Everything Has Its Season
In this episode, I call attention to an ancient practice that many of us have lost touch with because of the Industrial Revolution and our mechanistic, always-on 24/7 society. The status quo involves ideas like perpetual harvest, where at every moment we’re expected to create, publish, make, and do. This non-stop state of production leaves us constantly distracted, overwhelmed, disconnected from nature, and most importantly, disconnected from the universal energies that can fuel us with energy.
This way of being and of thinking is new. For more than 200,000 years, humans were seasonal beings. What we ate, where we slept, our moods, energies, and activities were all tied to the natural cycles of life. Orienting ourselves to the seasons and aligning our activities with what was right for that time was a natural way of being. Even though many of us are disconnected from that way of being, it still shows up in our psychology and habits. When we take holidays collectively, productivity goes down. In the winter, we are more tired because our circadian rhythms are being affected by less light in the atmosphere. Some of my coaching clients find that their businesses have natural dips, either in January, July or August when their client, customer or supplier base is less available or there's a natural slowing of the industry. There are cycles and seasons steering us, and we have very little control over them.
We've become so disconnected from universal energies around us that when we’re in one of these cycles, we attack ourselves, blame ourselves, or get anxious that because we're not producing it means there's something catastrophically wrong.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
In this episode, I share a tool used by my 1:1 coaching clients in my Make It Happen program. This tool will help you create an aligned, effective process and timeline to realize a vision, project or goal. Using this tool, you can cast a vision for the year ahead and make a rough timeline of the different processes that you want to experience each season of the year. Rather than thinking in corporate terms, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, I invite you to think about Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. I invite you to embody the energetic states of each season in order to align the kinds of projects or activities that you want to be doing with the seasonal energy that will best support you.
One trap that we all fall into is believing that all time is created equal. That we are most productive and effective if we simply organize our time.
This is not true.
Not all time is created equal. How we use our time on any given day is linked to our mood and energy. If we’re able to work with not against those energetic states, we will become truly productive, effective and impactful.
Here is the framework for how to use the archetypal energies of the changing seasons to guide your planning and intentions.
The Archetypal Energies of the Four Seasons
You may live in a place where the seasons aren't necessarily distinct. I'm from Northern Europe where they certainly are but doesn't matter if the seasons in your world don't exactly match what I'm about to share, because these are also archetypal energies.
The archetypal energies show up in our body systems and the cycles of energy that we experience. The energy building up, which are the spring and summer energies, and the energy breaking down, which are the autumn and winter energies.
I talked at length about this cyclical process of expansion and contraction, the fundamental building block of everything in our universe, in Episode 10, Use Everything.
Let’s briefly run through the different archetypal energies of the four seasons, and what it looks like for me personally.
Spring is a time of new beginnings, high-energy explorations, experiments.
Summer is a time of ripening, connecting, communicating, getting stuff done, bringing things to fruition.
Autumn is where the energy starts to contract. This is a great time to bring attention to detail, finish projects, tie up loose ends, get things across the finish line, and do things that require a lot of hard, repetitive work.
Winter for many is a time of rest and reflection, doing low energy, repetitive work as there's less going on in the outside world.
Let's imagine you're planning your year. You can start this exercise at any time of year, but in this case, let's start with spring and end with winter.
Planning Your Spring
Spring is the natural energy that arises in us at the end of winter when we see the budding and blooming in the natural world. It’s the state of emergence. It's an energy of hope and optimism; you’re called outwards. If you’re energetically in a state of spring, it can feel like you too are full of tiny shoots rushing up to meet the light so they can express themselves.
This is a time of year to come out of your shell. You may want to engage with the world in different ways; try new things, start new projects, research, learn, and socialize.
How to Best Use the Universal Spring Energy:
Start new habits or routines. January 1st is an incredibly difficult time for many to take on new challenging habits or commitments because January is in the depths of winter. Everything in the universal energy is working against that intention. It's far easier to do new things when the sun is shining more when there is a natural sense of hope and new beginnings all around us. For me, my energetic new year starts on the first of February and I tend to not get too ambitious about what I'm planning to do with my year until later in spring.
Start new things, take on new projects, do experiments, and make big changes in your work, routines, business, and strategies.
Put yourself out there and increase your visibility.
If you think about embodying the energy of a new shoot that's emerging from the frosty ground and blossoming into a flower or a small tree, think about what kinds of tasks and projects would be able to harness that energy best.
Planning Your Summer
Summer is the peak of the expanded energetic states. I like to say the archetype of summer is the Unstoppable Superhero. They're busy in their social life, getting things done, and are the life and soul of the party. It seems like everything is possible.
Summer is also a time that many of us want to maybe work a little less, enjoy ourselves, focus on pleasure, be outside, and take holidays or vacations. Remember when planning for the year ahead, to not massively over-schedule yourself in summer and miss the beauty and pleasure that's available during this time.
When I ask my clients to do their seasonal yearly planning, I recommend first scheduling time off before planning anything else. That way they may see a natural window of opportunity to go all-in on certain projects if they know exactly when they want to take time off.
Everything has its season. There will be seasons of working less and playing more. There will be seasons of working more and playing less. There's a lot of talk about balance, and that balance = doing the right amount of all of the things every day. This is often not true; it’s very hard to do and not necessarily rewarding to do a little bit of everything all of the time. You may get more out of the experience if you optimize for one thing per season.
How to Best Use the Universal Spring Energy:
Take advantage of the higher energy at your disposal because of the extra light in the atmosphere that drives our hormonal circadian rhythm. It’s easier to be upbeat when the sun is shining, but remember to not over-schedule yourself because this is also a season where you're likely going to want to be out and enjoying the world.
Summer energy can feel like confidence. You may feel a desire to be more visible. You may feel more resilient, less fragile, more upbeat, and the sense that you can do more with less. Summer energy is a good time to go the extra mile and on tough or challenging projects that require high energy and resilience, any kind of visibility work, or making big moves and taking advantage of that natural confidence that is available to you.
If you feel energized in summer and less energized in autumn and winter, use this summer energy to get ahead of big things. That way you’re not overstretching and exhausting yourself before the end of the year. If you use your spring and summer energy to do the hard legwork, by autumn and winter, you're tying up loose ends and bringing things to fruition.
If your business has a natural dip in and it’s not a peak time for you, work on rather than in your business. Work on strategy, behind the scenes, up-leveling, work on your brand, all of the things that get left to the wayside when we get busy in our businesses. Take advantage of any seasonal dips in your industry and business. Instead of panicking, think about how to use the pause to get ahead in ways that move the needle forward in your business.
Planning Your Autumn
For many people, autumn is one of their favorite seasons. It can be a time of great productivity. We’re riding high on all the energy that we soaked up during the summer; we've often taken a break and have rested and recharged. That back-to-school feeling can feel so rewarding for some, and early autumn can be an incredibly productive time to put in the work and push things across the finish line.
How to Best Use the Universal Spring Energy:
If autumn is a naturally productive time for you, go the extra mile. Sit down at your desk and commit to getting that project across the finish line.
Consolidate, collect, synthesize, organize, analyze. When you harvest a crop, you take the fruit and cut off the dead ends. This is a great time to be really analyzing, editing, and changing things up. It has a cleansing effect.
Go all-in on a launch, produce or promote one thing that you know will move the needle financially. For me personally, I love to use autumn in my business as a time of stability. I may have allowed myself to experiment and play in spring and summer, but by autumn, I know which ideas I'm going all-in on, and I choose to focus on stabilizing actions that are profitable, productive, and generative, and I’m less likely to play around the edges with new things.
Planning Your Winter
Finally, we arrive in winter. For some people, winter is very challenging, especially if you're deeply affected by the change in light and you experience seasonal affective disorder or are generally very sleepy. It can be hard to get things done in winter.
How to Best Use the Universal Spring Energy:
Check-in with your gut, your inner wisdom, and evaluate if you’re focusing on the right things and pouring your energy into the right places. For me personally, winters are an inward-facing cocoon time. It's a chance for me to evaluate and question projects by myself. I do a lot of writing. This podcast, for instance, was started in winter and I’ve found it more challenging to keep up in the spring and summer.
Don’t over-schedule yourself. You may feel more fatigued, withdrawn, or vulnerable along with a natural call within to slow down, rest, and have less on your plate. You may also feel uninspired and that's totally normal. In the times when humans were aligned with the natural world around them, winter was a time in many places for hibernation and for the bare minimum of activity. It was a time of survival, making repairs, and eating preserved foods that have been prepared in autumn. Remember that you have this winter hibernation instinct encouraging you, through your hormones, to not overdo it in winter because you have less chance to gain energy. Change your expectations; instead of feeling guilty, think about the seasons in which you feel naturally more energized and focus on doing those projects then.
For many, winter is a time of celebration, family gatherings, and social parties. When planning out your year, remember to consider taking time off to socialize and get out in the world so you won’t feel so isolated.
Evaluate your achievements and challenges, celebrate yourself, and become present to how you experienced your energy each year. Reflect on each season. Think about your intentions and what actually happened. I'm a big fan of the power of reflection in our contracted states, so I urge you to not let a year pass without doing a thorough year-end review. Use the inward, slow energy of winter to look back on the year. Where was your energetic alignment? Where was it mismatched? Where did you thrive? Where did you struggle? How can you set yourself up in a more aligned, compassionate way for the year to come?
Why Use This Natural Prioritisation System for Planning and Goal-Setting
By using this seasonal orientation for planning your year, use the seasons to guide you instead of trying to do everything at once causing you to feel scattered or paralyzed.
There are fewer decisions to make. Harness the universal energy instead of fighting against it.
It's incredibly grounding. And what I find is the more that we align with the external energies available to us, the more we are reminded of our own internal cyclical energy. And that also helps us to understand the unique seasons that we experience in ourselves several times a day in the course of a week or in the course of a month in the menstrual cycle.
There are no hard and fast rules about cyclical living. You get to decide when your seasons begin and end and what your seasons are for.
Everything has its season. When we let go of the myth of perpetual harvest and tap into the natural order of things, life starts to feel more magical, peaceful, productive, profitable and pleasurable.
I hope this has given you some inspiration for how to use the universal energies available to live and work more cyclically.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Episode Resources:
1:1 Coaching Programme, Make It Happen
EP 10. Practical Magic | Use Everything
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