A new year has arrived — and if you’re anything like most leaders, you’ve already got a list. Goals. Targets. Strategies. The notebook is open, the whiteboard is fresh, and the energy is high. But before you charge headfirst into 2026, I want to challenge you to pause. Not to plan. To celebrate.
The Habit We All Have (and Why It’s Costing Us)
We have a habit, and it’s a subtle one. We wrap up December with a Christmas party — maybe a team dinner, maybe a toast — and then almost immediately shift into “what’s next” mode. The celebration is treated like a comma in a sentence, not a full stop. We glance backward for a second, then sprint forward. And in that sprint, we skip over something incredibly powerful: the act of truly honoring what the last year taught us.
“Celebration isn’t just a nice-to-have at the end of the year. It’s the fuel that powers what comes next.”
Think about it. Your team went through things last year. Real things. Challenges that stretched them in ways they didn’t expect. Wins that came after months of grinding. Moments of growth that, if you stop and look at them clearly now — with the benefit of hindsight and a little distance — are genuinely worth marking. So why don’t we?
Here’s what I want you to do as you step into this new season. Before you lock in your strategy for the year ahead, take some dedicated time to look back — not with regret, but with gratitude and curiosity. Ask yourself: Where did we grow? What did we learn? What challenges did we navigate, and what do those experiences teach us about who we are as a team?
And don’t just think about it in the abstract. Consider planning an actual celebration event — something intentional, something that says to your people, “This is what we built together, and it matters.” Christmas parties are wonderful, but they aren’t really about your year. A celebration that’s specifically about the journey your team took, the lessons you learned, and the growth you achieved? That’s something different. That’s something that sticks.
The beautiful thing about doing this in January — right at the start of a fresh year — is that the lens is clearer. You’re not buried in the chaos of Q4. You’re not rushing to close out the books. You can actually see what happened. And once you see it, you can honor it. You can take the best of what last year gave you and deliberately carry it forward.
“A fresh year doesn’t mean starting from zero. It means building on everything you’ve already earned.”
Listen to your team. Listen to your clients. Ask the people around you what they felt mattered most. Sometimes the things worth celebrating aren’t the ones that made the headlines — they’re the quiet wins, the lessons learned the hard way, the moments where your team showed up when it counted.
So here’s my challenge to you as we kick off 2026: don’t let celebration be an afterthought. Make it the starting point. Honor what got you here. Learn from it. And then — with that foundation solid beneath you — build boldly into what’s next.
About Monday Myth Check
Monday Myth Check is a weekly dose of reality where Jono Brake holds up commonly held leadership beliefs and asks the question “What if this was not true”. You can find the weekly videos and other posts by following Jono Brake on LinkedIn or following The Forged Leader, as well as on Youtube @jonobrake.
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