The Other New Year: Finding Your Rhythm After Summer

Someone once said to me that living in this part of the world can feel like having two starts to every year.

There’s January, of course, with its resolutions, fresh starts and new intentions. And then there’s the other one: the end of summer, when people return from holidays, schools reopen and, almost overnight, the pace of life shifts again.

Having spent most of this summer in the UAE (and no longer having the luxury of those wonderfully long teaching holidays), I’ve noticed that second beginning more than ever this year.

You can almost see it happening around you. The roads are busier and school buses are reappearing. Newly arrived families are perusing the aisles of IKEA, while IKEA trucks, in turn, seem to be whizzing around every neighbourhood. The quieter coffee shops aren’t quite so quiet anymore, people are returning to offices and conversations are shifting from summer travel plans to uniforms, timetables and — because this is the UAE — where everyone is going for the December break!

There’s an energy to it, a sense that the UAE is waking up after moving at a different pace for the summer. And it’s made me think about what it means for us to change pace too.

As schools reopen and workplaces fill up again, our own rhythms change too. Alarms get earlier, calendars become fuller and there seems to be considerably less space between one commitment and the next. Even if you’re nowhere near a school, you can feel it: the pace has changed.

And I wonder if we sometimes underestimate the energy it takes to adjust to that.

We tend to think of returning as exactly that: going back. Back to school. Back to work. Back to routine. Back to “normal”.

Even using the word “normal” can trick us into thinking that because we’ve done it before we should be able to step straight back into the same rhythm we left a few weeks ago.

But readjustment doesn’t quite work like that. It takes energy.

Even if the things we’re returning to haven’t changed that much, perhaps we have. I know I’m not quite the same person I was a few months ago. I’ve learned things, stretched myself in different ways and built a little more courage and confidence along the way. So perhaps returning isn’t always about finding our old rhythm. Maybe it’s an opportunity to consider the rhythm we want now.

So if the alarm feels particularly offensive this week, your usual routine feels strangely unfamiliar or you’re wondering why you’re tired when you’ve just had a holiday, perhaps you’re simply adjusting.

Fresh starts can be wonderfully motivating, but they can also become another opportunity to pile expectations onto ourselves before we’ve even found our feet.

So perhaps this “other New Year” doesn’t need another set of resolutions.

Perhaps it could begin with a little more awareness instead.

Three questions to help you find your rhythm

Sometimes finding our rhythm isn’t about becoming more efficient at doing everything. It’s about becoming more intentional about what gets our attention in the first place.

An invitation

Before the diaries fill, the routines settle and summer begins to feel like a distant memory, take a moment to notice what you’re returning to — and who is returning to it.

What did the slower pace of summer remind you that you need? What do you want to carry with you? And, perhaps most importantly, what do you want to protect before life gets busy again?

The UAE will find its rhythm soon enough. Maybe this is your opportunity to decide what you want yours to be.

Whatever change looks like for you right now, you don’t have to navigate it alone. At alkalma, we’re here to support individuals, families and organisations through life’s transitions — helping you move forward with greater awareness, confidence and intention.