Why I’m Designing This Year — Not Drifting Through It

The Pause (and Why It Mattered)

At the start of the year, I took a step back.

Not because I was burned out.
Not because anything had gone wrong.
And not because I ran out of ambition.

I paused because I wanted to be deliberate.

The close of last year—and the opening weeks of this one—deserved time. Time to reflect on what actually happened. Time to acknowledge what worked. Time to understand what the pace, pressure, and progress had produced in my life.

January wasn’t about pushing forward.
It was about paying attention.

I spent that time training, reflecting, and doing deeper work—the kind of work that doesn’t always show up on a calendar but determines how everything else flows. I was thinking less about performance and more about how I was carrying my life.

That pause wasn’t avoidance.
It was responsibility.

When Life Gets Full (Not Broken)

Here’s a truth most high-achievers don’t say out loud:

I didn’t need clarity because things were falling apart.
I needed clarity because everything was going well—at the same time.

Career responsibilities expanding.
Family and relationships that matter deeply.
Friendships and community commitments.
Leadership roles that don’t clock out.
Personal growth, health, and legacy goals.

Each one good.
Each one meaningful.
Each one demanding.

And without intention, even good things begin to compete.

High-achieving lives don’t simplify over time.
They accumulate.

That’s life for people who keep saying yes, keep showing up, and keep delivering.

Why Drifting Is the Real Risk

Drifting doesn’t look like failure.

It looks like momentum without direction.
Progress without alignment.
Activity without clarity around outcomes.

You stay busy.
You stay productive.
But slowly, you give up authorship over how your life actually feels—and where it’s headed.

That’s the risk I wanted to eliminate.

The Intention for This Year

This year, the intention is simple:

To design how I operate instead of letting life run on default settings.

That means:

• Being clear about what I can control

• Being responsible for the outcomes I say I want

• Designing around what I can’t control

• And placing the rest in grace

As Audra Bohannon says, the goal is to live life by design, not by default.

This isn’t about doing less.
It’s about doing what matters—on purpose.

Why This Series Exists

This series exists to make one thing clear:

You don’t have to quit, retreat, or downshift to live well.
You don’t have to give up ambition to gain peace.
And you don’t have to simplify your life to lead it effectively.

What you need is a personal operating system—a way to organize priorities, energy, decisions, and rhythm so the important parts of your life don’t compete with each other.

Over the coming issues, I’ll share:

• Why an operating system became non-negotiable for me

• What it is (and what it isn’t)

• How mindset, rhythm, and structure work together

• And how you can begin designing your own—without copying mine

If your life is full, if your responsibilities are real, and if you want to stay in control of what matters most, this series is for you.

Looking Ahead

In the next issue, I’ll unpack why managing life on instinct alone stopped being enough—and what finally pushed me to build a system instead of relying on momentum.

Reflection for the Week

Where in your life are good things quietly competing—and what might change if you designed for them instead of juggling them?

Founder of The Storyteller Newsletter
DeWayne Allen 
www.demalo-ent.com