Wanna Go SLOWBoarding?

Permission to Ease Into the New Year

I have a confession: I suck at using a planner.

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on them. Elaborate layouts, stickers, leather-bound covers, personalized initials, gold embellishments…the works. And after 2-3 weeks, every single one of them becomes an expensive notebook collecting dust. I’ve tried digital calendars, fancy apps, and even attempted to use my tablet. Complete fail. Every time.

I am not a planner girlie.

I have tremendous respect for the color-coded, sticky-tabbed, highlighted organizers of the world, but after YEARS of trying, I can’t count myself among them. I’m also not a vision board girlie. Despite my crafty past, my brain just doesn’t work that way. I’ve made vision boards, beautiful collages with carefully curated images and aspirational quotes. But they end up being just that: pretty collages. A box I checked to say I did it. They don’t motivate me throughout the year.

They just... exist.

This is the time of year where millions of people start feeling pressured to have it all figured out by the top of January. This year, I’m not doing it. I’m putting my foot down. I’m resisting the pressure to painstakingly plan, and instead, I’m going to ease into the year.

The Pressure Cooker of January

2025 has been a tough f*cking year. People are exhausted. Nerves are fried. Edges are frayed. Many people are facing financial hardship, and Christmas isn’t exactly helping with that. By the time January rolls around, many of us are bedraggled. Tired. Running on fumes.

And somehow we’re supposed to dig into the well of our already depleted reserves and plan a fabulous year ahead? We’re supposed to set SMART goals, map out Q1 objectives, create content calendars, and manifest our dream lives while we’re still recovering from the year that just tried to take us out?

No.

What If We Did Something Different?

What if, instead of yielding to the pressure to plan, we actually took the time to recover?

What if we honored what our bodies are feeling and regulated our nervous systems?

What if, instead of focusing on quarterly goals and all the boxes we need to check, we focused on what we actually need? What if we looked at how we’ve shown up this year, examined our patterns and choices and behaviors, and just... reflected? Looked at what worked. What didn’t. What lit us up. What drained us dry.

That’s what SLOWBOARDING is.

It’s resisting the first-of-the-year frenzy and instead choosing to move with intention, not urgency. It’s giving yourself permission to start the year without a five-year plan, a word of the year, or a perfectly curated aesthetic for your “new chapter.”

The Anti-Vision Board

SLOWBOARDING isn’t about creating a vision board in January. It’s about creating space for yourself to become throughout the year.

Instead of planning, we’re processing.
Instead of goal-setting, we’re grounding.
Instead of forcing clarity, we’re allowing it to emerge.

Think of it like this: traditional planning is like sprinting out of the gate on January 1st. SLOWBOARDING is like doing a long, slow warm-up first: stretching, breathing, checking in with your body, fueling yourself before the run.

Because here’s the truth: you can’t plan your way out of exhaustion. You can’t vision board your way into wellness. You can’t productivity-hack and habit stack your way into a life that actually feels good if you’re starting from a place of depletion. (Can I get an Amen?)

What SLOWBOARDING Looks Like

SLOWBOARDING is about asking different questions in January:

• What do I need to release from last year?

• What patterns kept showing up that I want to shift?

• Where did I feel most alive?

• Where did I abandon myself?

• What relationships filled my cup vs. drained it?

• What does rest actually look like for me? Why is rest difficult for me to do?

It’s about giving yourself the first few weeks of the year to just... be. To recover. To integrate the lessons from the year before without the pressure to immediately turn them into action items.

SLOWBOARDING is the radical act of saying: “I don’t have to have it all figured out right now… and I don’t have to.”

Why This Matters

We live in a culture that glorifies the grind. That tells us rest is lazy. That sells us the lie that if we just write the vision, we can manifest our way into happiness.

But what if what we actually need isn’t another app, or planner, or vision board? What if what we need is permission to slow the f*ck down and actually listen to ourselves?

SLOWBOARDING is that permission slip.

It’s for those of us who are tired of performing productivity. Tired of chasing someone else’s definition of success. Tired of starting every year in a deficit because we never gave ourselves time to recover from the last one.

Let’s Raise THE BAR

For the past few months, I’ve been sitting with those questions about what I need. Really sitting with them… not rushing to answers, not forcing solutions, just listening.

And what emerged led me to six practices that have eased me off the hamster wheel and helped me return to myself. The self that gets lost in the noise of doing.

I call it THE BAR (Talking, Hobbies, Experiences, Body Awareness, Arts, and Reading).

THE BAR is a simple, grounded tool I created for people who are tired of performing and producing, and ready to start feeling better in their actual lives. It isn’t a planner that pressures you to predict your whole year or map out ambitious goals while you’re still recovering from the last one. It’s not about hustling harder or optimizing faster.

It’s about restoring your nervous system and rebuilding a life that feels like it includes you.

THE BAR offers gentle, science-supported practices that help you:

• Regulate your nervous system so you’re not constantly running on stress and cortisol

• Reconnect to your needs and desires that got buried under everyone else’s expectations

• Rediscover what actually feels nourishing and true instead of what you think should feel good

No hustle. No overwhelm. No pressure to have it all figured out by February.

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I’m genuinely excited to introduce THE BAR to my Substack subscribers first. Thank you for being with me this year. Thank you for leaning into my work, for reading these words, for trusting me with your time and attention.

If you’re interested in learning more about THE BAR, you can download it here and use coupon code: RAISETHEBAR

Paid subscribers: You’ll be receiving a free downloadable preview of THE BAR that you can start using right now to ground yourself and ease into the year ahead. Keep an eye on your inbox.

Feel free to hop into the comments and share your thoughts about SLOWBoarding.

Wholly,

Dr. Shanté