The summer social calendar (and the September trap waiting at the end of it)

• The 'I'll start again in September' trap — and how to sidestep it

August arrives, and the diary is suddenly everyone else's. The BBQ your neighbour throws every year, the wedding you've known about since February that somehow snuck up on you, the spontaneous Friday drinks that become Sunday brunch that becomes a week where nothing quite went to plan. Then there’s the holiday where you genuinely meant to keep things roughly on track, and then the airport happened.

None of it is bad and it’s almost certainly a lot of fun, but somewhere around the third week of August, a lot of my clients arrive at the same realisation: Summer has happened to them rather than for them.

The intentions were there in June. The loose plan, the "I'll be more consistent this summer" energy, the optimism. And then the social calendar took over - and now here you are, a little tired, a little out of sync, waiting for the familiar comfort of a thought that goes something like this:

I'll sort it in September.

Does that sound familiar? You are very much not alone. And before we get to the September conversion - because we will - it's worth pausing on how we got here first.

The social calendar problem

Here's the thing about summer socialising: it's not actually the problem. The problem is the absence of that little internal anchor when everything around you pulls in different directions.

BBQs, weddings, holidays, spontaneous plans… these are all wonderful things, but they all share one feature: somebody else is largely in charge of the environment. The food that's available, the timing, the pace, the drinks that keep appearing. When you don't have a clear sense of what matters to you going in, it's very easy to just... go along with it. All of it. And then feel out of control by the end of August, without being able to point to any single moment where things went wrong. This is nothing to do with anyone’s willpower; it's what happens when you're operating on everyone else's agenda without a clear sense of your own. 

The fix isn't a rule set. It isn't saying no to things. It definitely isn't bringing your own food to a wedding or declining the birthday cake. Instead, it’s knowing what actually matters to you clearly and specifically - not what you think you should care about. When you are clear exactly what you want for you, the decisions almost make themselves.

The question that changes everything

In coaching, there's a conversation I come back to repeatedly with clients at this time of year. It goes something like this:

Of all the things you're trying to do for your health right now, which ones, if you kept them through August, would make the biggest difference to how you feel?

I’m asking that of you now. Just think about the ones that genuinely move the needle for you. For some people, it's sleep. Nothing derails them faster than a run of late nights, and they know it. So that's the one thing they protect even through a busy social season.

For others, it's movement. Maybe not quite to the same level you might operate during other points of the year but, as a minimum, the feeling of having been outside and moved their body. When that goes, everything else follows.

For other people, it's breakfast. The simple the habit of starting the day with something that steadies them, can be transformational itself. When that's in place, the rest of the day tends to behave much better.

The point is: it's different for everyone. And most people, if they're honest, can name it pretty quickly when they're asked.

What's yours?

That one habit - kept loosely, not perfectly - is your anchor through the social season. Everything else can flex around it. The BBQ, the wedding, the spontaneous Friday, the holiday. All of it can happen, and happen well, when you have that solid thread running through it. I really don’t want you to underestimate how powerful this can be.

Now... About September.

Here's where it gets interesting and a little uncomfortable. The "I'll start again in September" thought feels like a plan. It has the shape of a plan, there's a date, a fresh start, a sense of intention. September does carry a particular energy back-to-school, new notebooks, the feeling of a reset. But we both know that the September plan often actually is permission to stop trying now. When "I'll sort it in September" becomes the background thought, it closes the door on every small decision between now and then. The morning walk you didn't take. It’s OK, things will be better in September. The water bottle you didn't refill. The early night that didn't happen. All of it gets absorbed into the "September will fix it" narrative.

And then September arrives, and it's busy. The kids are back at school and the logistics are relentless. Work ramps up. The diary fills again and we all know what’s coming next in terms of yearly events. That fresh-start energy is real but so is the tiredness, and somehow the reset keeps getting pushed to next week, and then the week after that, and then it's October and the mince pies are in the supermarket and you're wondering how this happened again.

This is the trap. Not September itself. September is a genuinely good moment to reset. The trap is the waiting. The outsourcing of your wellbeing to a future version of yourself who will, apparently, have more time, more energy, and more willpower than you do right now.

She might. But she'll also have a lot on.

What to do instead

You don't need a giant overhaul, but it will be helpful to do these two things:

One: your anchor habit. The one thing that, kept loosely through August, keeps you feeling like yourself. You probably already know what it is.

Two: one small thing this week. Not a September thing; a this-week thing. Something that makes you feel good today, or tomorrow, or by Sunday. Something small enough to actually do, and specific enough to feel real.

That's it. That's the whole strategy.

Not because big changes aren't worth making. September is a brilliant time to build on momentum, but momentum has to come from somewhere, and it doesn't materialise on the first of September just because the calendar changes. It comes from the small things you kept doing in August, when it would have been very easy not to.

With that in mind, what's one thing that, if you kept it through the rest of summer, you'd arrive in September feeling proud of?

Write it down. Tell someone. Or, if you'd like a conversation about it, that's exactly what I'm here for.

Ready to go into September feeling like yourself?

September is the perfect time to consolidate and build a plan for the rest of the year, taking full advantage of that seasonal energy.

I have a small number of spaces for September reset calls over the coming weeks, a focused, one-to-one conversation to look at where you are, what's getting in the way, and what would actually help as we head into autumn.