Coming Back on Purpose After the Summer Break
I am guessing two things are happening in your feed this week, side by side. One person is already back at full tilt, diary colour-coded, posting at seven in the morning about their fourth quarter. Another is still somewhere in August, moving at holiday speed, wondering why their own desk feels like they have landed on another planet. Each of them is watching the other and quietly panicking that they got it wrong.
I’ll tell you which one I am. I’m a hit the ground running kind of gal. I always have been. Give me the first properly cool morning, something in me wants to plan the entire year before lunch. For a long time I thought that was a strength.
It really isn’t! It’s simply how I’m built. It comes with its own risk. I can be a long way down a road before I’ve stopped to ask whether I really want to be on this particular road. Running fast feels like progress. Sometimes it’s just running.
So if you came back slower this year, or you haven’t quite come back at all, I’m not going to tell you to catch up to me or anybody else. Your way back in does not have to look like mine, and it certainly doesn’t have to look like the person with the seven a.m. goals. The moment you start measuring your September against someone else’s, you’ve handed them your rhythm. Your rhythm is the thing that carries you all the way to December in one piece.
The comparison trap sets in early
September comparison is a particular kind of mean one, because everyone’s performance is turned up. The feed is louder. The announcements are bigger. The launches are in full swing. Everyone has decided this is the term it all comes together.
Measuring yourself against that noise does one useful thing and one destructive thing. The useful thing is that it reminds you the year is moving. The destructive thing is that it makes you reach for someone else’s pace instead of finding your own, and someone else’s pace was never built for your life.
What happened back in 2024
Back in 2024, I ran something I called a September reset. Not a bootcamp. Nobody hustled. Over eighty women followed along, and the whole premise was the opposite of hurry. We slowed down on purpose and got conscious about what the rest of the year should actually hold, before rushing to fill it.
What struck me watching it was how much clearer people’s decisions got once they stopped sprinting to make them. Women who’d been about to over-commit didn’t. Women who’d been drifting found one thing worth moving towards. The reset didn’t add anything to them. It took the panic out, and what was left was their own judgement, which had been sitting there the whole time under the noise.
Don’t burn off the rest you found
Here’s the part almost nobody says out loud. The summer gave you something. Maybe it was a full stop after a hard stretch. Maybe it was just enough distance to remember there’s a life attached to the business and your career. Whatever it was, it’s an asset, and September is when most people set fire to it.
They come back and immediately behave as if the rest never happened. Same over-full days, same nine-tabs-open way of working that had them craving a holiday in the first place. Within a fortnight the summer might as well not have happened.
Getting back into rhythm is not the same thing as undoing your rest. You can return to the work without returning to the version of yourself that needed rescuing from it. That’s the balance worth finding. Enough momentum to move, enough consciousness to keep what the break gave you.
The months are going to move regardless. That part is true whether you sprint or drift. September becomes December faster than we are ready, and the only real question is whether you arrive there having chosen how you spent the time. Or having watched it go swoosh by. Conscious beats fast, and it beats frozen. What it asks of you is that you decide on purpose, and keep deciding as the season keeps moving on.
Five things that actually help
If you want somewhere to start, here’s what I’d point you towards…
Don’t try to sort everything at once. The urge in the first week back is to clear the whole inbox, restart every habit you dropped over summer, and have it all fixed by Friday. That’s the fastest road back to overwhelmed, not out of it. Pick one thread and pull it. Just the one.
Watch the story you’re telling yourself. “I’ve fallen behind” feels like a fact. It isn’t. You didn’t fall behind. You had a summer. Say the truer version to yourself and notice how different your shoulders feel saying it.
Run your day in chapters, not one long unbroken stretch. If the morning falls apart, let the morning fall apart. It doesn’t get to decide your afternoon. Every few hours is a clean start, if you’ll allow it to be one. That’s the whole idea behind the Four Chapters framework I build with clients.
Put one thing in the diary that points forward. Not a grand plan, just one dated thing you’re walking towards, so the weeks have somewhere to go instead of just slipping past you unmarked.
Before you switch your old routine back on, ask whether it was working in the first place. Sometimes the fog you’re feeling is information, not a problem to push through. Don’t put the autopilot back on without checking where it had been flying you.
Start from your roots, not the calendar
If you’re not sure what conscious re-entry looks like for you, start further back than the to-do list. Start with where you actually stand right now, rested or frayed, clear or foggy, because that’s the place any good decision gets made from.
The Resilience Blueprint Assessment is free and takes two minutes. It shows you where your roots are strong and where they need attention, so the choices you make about the rest of the year come from clarity rather than comparison. It’s the quietest, least hustly way I know to come back on purpose.
Take the Resilience Blueprint Assessment at joannegrobbelaar.com.
Joanne Grobbelaar, a Manchester-based resilience architect, business strategist and coach, argues that the goal after a break is not to catch up but to return with intention. She advises against measuring your own pace against anyone else’s in September, and warns that rushing back at full speed often destroys the rest a summer provided. Her approach favours conscious re-entry, getting back into rhythm slowly enough to protect what the break restored, so the final months of the year are shaped by choice rather than by momentum or drift.
Frequently asked questions
Why do I feel behind after the summer holidays?
Usually because you’re comparing where you are now to where the loudest people in your feed appear to be, or to your own pre-summer pace. Neither is a fair measure. Your head has been resting, the year is moving, and both of those can be true at once. Feeling behind is a comparison problem far more often than a productivity one.
How do I get back into a work routine after a long break?
Slowly and on purpose, rather than flipping every old habit back on at once. Pick one thread to restart, check whether the old routine was serving you before you reinstate it, and give yourself a few weeks rather than a weekend. The aim is to return to the work without returning to the pace that left you needing the break.
Should I set new goals in September or wait?
Set direction before you set goals. One dated thing to move towards is worth more in September than a full plan built in a panic. Get clear about what you want the last stretch of the year to hold, and let the goals follow from that rather than from the calendar telling you it’s time.
How do I stop comparing myself to people who seem more productive?
Remember that much of the September noise is the same anxiety you feel, presented well. Someone else’s pace was built for their life, not yours. The practical move is to measure your progress against your own last week, not against anyone’s highlight reel, and to make your decisions from your own position rather than theirs.
RESOURCES AND NEXT STEPS
If you’re looking for more support and guidance, here are some valuable resources:
- Book a conversation to see how we can help you with your 2026 plans HERE.
- COMPLETE THE RESILIENCE SCORECARD HERE and get a clear picture of which pillar needs your most attention.
- Use our Flip The Thinking Toolkit HERE and share it with people around you. See how it helps you enrich the connection and conversation.
- Follow along on LinkedIn HERE
- Find out more about our women’s leadership programme HERE