The Resolution No One Wants to Make

 You know the feeling. Running all year, putting out fires, never quite catching up. Whether you're leading a kitchen, a nonprofit, or an HR team—the details change, the exhaustion doesn't.

Here's an unpopular resolution for 2026: get slower.

Not less effective. Slower.

The Speed Trap

The faster you move, the less you think. The less you think, the more you react. Reactive leadership isn't leadership—it's just surviving until you burn out.

You already feel this. You make decisions you wouldn't make if you had ten minutes to think. You snap when you meant to coach. You say yes when you meant "I can't right now."

What Slower Actually Looks Like

Pausing before you respond. Your first reaction isn't always your best one.

Saying "let me think about that" instead of calling it on the spot.

Protecting time that isn't for anything—so your brain can catch up to your life.

Having fewer priorities. The word "priority" didn't have a plural until the 20th century. We invented the idea of multiple most-important things, and it's been making us worse at all of them.

Jeff Bezos built one of the world's largest companies, but he was known for regularly stepping away from operations just to think. Not strategy meetings. Not brainstorms. Just time with no agenda. He credited those pauses with helping Amazon evolve from a bookstore into what it is today.

A restaurant owner in Chicago told me she started closing for one dinner service a month—not for an event, just to give her team space to breathe and reconnect. She expected pushback from staff worried about lost tips. Instead, turnover dropped. "Turns out people don't quit jobs where they feel like humans," she said.

An HR director at a mid-sized nonprofit made a simple change: she stopped answering emails for the first hour of her day. She used the time to walk the building and actually talk to people. Within six months, she was catching problems earlier and spending less time in crisis mode.

The Presence Problem

Your team can tell when you're not really there. When you're nodding but already thinking about the next thing.

The leaders people remember are the ones who made you feel like you had their full attention—even for five minutes, even in the middle of chaos.

That's not a technique. It's a choice.

The Real Resolution

In 2026, be slower.

Slow enough to think before you speak. Slow enough to notice when someone's struggling. Slow enough to remember why you wanted to lead in the first place.

The pressure won't let up. But speed isn't a leadership quality. Judgment is. Presence is.

That's the resolution no one wants to make. It might be the only one that matters.