The Jar Is Already Full (And I’m Not Making Resolutions)
Why I stopped setting goals and started protecting what matters
I don’t do resolutions anymore.
I know, I know—it’s the first Saturday of a brand new year and you’re probably expecting something about fresh starts and ambitious goal-setting and making 2026 your best year yet. That’s not what you’re getting today. Pour yourself some coffee (or tea, I don’t judge) and settle in, because we’re going to talk about jars and rocks instead.
You’ve probably heard the metaphor. A professor stands in front of a class with an empty jar and a pile of rocks. She fills the jar with the big rocks first, then adds smaller pebbles that settle into the gaps, then sand that fills the tiny spaces, and finally water that seeps into whatever’s left. The lesson: if you don’t put the big rocks in first, they’ll never fit. Start with what matters most.
Here’s the thing nobody mentions about that metaphor. You have to decide what your big rocks actually are. And that’s harder than any resolution I’ve ever tried to keep.
My Big Rocks (Not Goals, Values)
A few years ago, I stopped thinking about what I wanted to accomplish and started thinking about how I wanted to feel. Not in a woo-woo manifestation way—in a practical, “what does a good life actually look like for me” way. I landed on six core values that I return to every year. Not to measure. Not to grade myself. Just to check in and ask: am I still protecting these rocks?
Financially peaceful. This isn’t a number. It’s not a net worth goal or a revenue target. Financial peace means I’m not stressed about the things I choose to spend money on. It means buying the good coffee without guilt and booking the trip without a spreadsheet negotiation in my head. It means enough margin that an unexpected expense is annoying, not catastrophic. The goal isn’t wealth—it’s the absence of money anxiety.
Creatively free. This is why I do everything I do with automations. I want to read and write. That’s it. That’s the dream. Every workflow I build, every system I create, every team member I bring on—it’s all in service of protecting my creative time. If I’m spending my days doing things that a well-designed automation could handle, I’ve failed this value. The robots work so I can write.
Light in responsibilities. Once upon a time, I was a chronic hustler. Volleyball team mom. The unofficial web developer for every nonprofit in a 300-mile radius. If a hand needed raising, mine shot up first. I thought being helpful meant saying yes to everything.
I don’t do that anymore.
Now I’m incredibly picky about my time, my attention, and my commitments. If I say yes, it means I genuinely care—not that I felt obligated or guilty or like I should. This value also extends to stuff. A few years ago, I downsized everything expecting a big move overseas. The pandemic killed those plans, but the lesson stuck: I need so much less than I thought. Every thing I own is something I’m responsible for maintaining, storing, and eventually figuring out who inherits. That mental weight adds up. Now when the urge to buy hits, I pause. Do I want to be responsible for this object? Usually the answer is no.
Politically active. I’m not going to overshare here, but this value is non-negotiable for me. It means working locally with candidates I believe in. It means showing up to vote—every single time, no matter how small the election seems. School board. City council. All of it. Freedom isn’t free, and the price I’ve decided to pay is being an engaged member of the electorate. That’s my civic big rock, and it stays in the jar.
Image confident. Something magical happened when I turned 40: I joined the “we do not care” club and never looked back. A number on a scale or a size on a tag doesn’t define me. Image confidence doesn’t mean looking a certain way—it means that wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I feel good. I’m the only audience that matters for this one. Some days that means a full face of makeup; some days it means yoga pants and a messy bun. The confidence comes from internal permission, not external validation.
Ready for adventure. Oh, I’ve taken this one to heart. Eight to ten countries every year. Travel and coffee are my lifeblood—the two non-negotiables that make everything else feel worth doing. This year looks different; I’m staying closer to home for some family obligations. But the go-bag is always packed (literally, it lives by my door), and the passport is current. Adventure doesn’t always mean international flights. Sometimes it means saying yes to the weird local thing or taking the scenic route or trying the restaurant that looks a little questionable but smells amazing.
The Worst Best Year
2025 was one of the best and worst years of my life. I’m not going to unpack all of it here, but if you’ve been through a year like that—where incredible highs and devastating lows happened almost simultaneously—you know what I mean. You come out the other side different. Not broken, but... recalibrated.
What I learned (or maybe re-learned) is that rituals matter more than resolutions. I can’t control outcomes, but I can control what I do every day. The morning coffee routine. The weekly check-in with my team. The daily writing time that’s protected like the sacred thing it is. Rituals are promises I can actually keep because they’re small enough to show up for.
And processes matter more than goals. “Write a book” is a goal. “Write 500 words every morning before checking email” is a process. Goals live in the future and taunt you with how far away they are. Processes live in today and give you something to do right now. I’ll take the process every time.
What This Year Looks Like
For 2026, I’m thinking about how to better support my team. New apps, new workflows, new automations—tools that make their work easier so they can make my creative freedom possible. It’s a virtuous cycle when it works: I build systems that free up their time, they handle the business operations that would eat my writing hours, and everybody wins.
I’m also thinking about you—what you need to make your author business feel less like a second job and more like the sustainable creative life you actually want. That’s what this newsletter is for. That’s what Author Automations exists to do. Not to add more to your plate, but to help you figure out which rocks belong in your jar and which ones you can leave on the ground.
So no, I’m not making resolutions. I’m not declaring 2026 the year of anything, although I do have a word that I’ve adopted as a North Star for the year, and my dear friend Bradley Charbonneau and I talked about it on his YouTube channel over a firepit in my backyard last month.
I’m just going to keep checking in with my values, protecting my big rocks, and trusting the process.
That’s enough. That’s always been enough.
What about you? What are the big rocks you’re protecting this year? Hit reply—I actually read these, and I’d love to know what matters most to you heading into a new year.
Chelle