A client told me one late September day that her team had no chance to finish the year strong.

She pulled up the plan she’d presented in January. A reorganization had overtaken half the priorities. Two had lost their budgets, and one had lost its executive sponsor.

Her team was working harder than ever, but on the wrong things. “Honestly,” she said, “I’m thinking we write this year off and start fresh in January.”

I understood the impulse. I also knew what it would cost her: an entire quarter.

The Goals You Set in January Are Dead

Here’s the hard truth. Many of the goals you set in January are dead, and they died quietly, sometime around June.

That isn’t a failure. It’s what happens when a plan meets a year.

The failure is waiting until January to do something about it.

In August, I wrote about the people on your team who can’t leave but have already checked out. This piece is about the moment before that spreads to your whole team: the stretch between Labor Day and the holidays, when a team either rallies or coasts.

Why Fall Is the Right Time to Reset

You don’t need January for a fresh start. The research says the calendar hands you several every year.

Wharton professor Katy Milkman and her colleagues call it the “fresh start effect.” Their studies found that people pursue their goals more after “temporal landmarks,” such as the start of a new week, month, semester, or year.

Those landmarks let us file past imperfections under “last period” and step back to see the bigger picture. That’s what makes people ready to act.

The return from summer is a landmark. So is October 1. Use it.

A fall reset is an action, not a mood. Here’s what separates the leaders who finish the year strong from the ones who coast into the holidays: three actions they take themselves, and three they get their teams to take.

Part One: What You Do

1. Declare the reset. Tell your team, out loud, that you’re resetting for the final quarter. A fresh start works only when people notice it.

Put it on the calendar. Call the meeting what it is.

2. Write a stop-doing list. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, has long argued that the best New Year’s resolution is a “stop doing” list. The same holds in October.

Go line by line through your January plan. Kill what’s dead, and say so. Give it a proper burial so your team stops carrying it.

3. Define what winning looks like on December 31. Pick three outcomes, not thirty. Ask yourself: if your team delivered only three things between now and the holidays, which three would make you proudest?

Those three become the plan. Everything else waits.

Part Two: What You Get Your Team to Do

1. Run a premortem. Psychologist Gary Klein designed the premortem to surface risks before a project fails, not after. Gather your team and say: “It’s December 31. We fell short. What happened?”

Klein cites research showing that imagining an event has already happened increased people’s ability to identify reasons for future outcomes by 30 percent. It also gives people permission to name risks they’d otherwise keep to themselves.

2. Let the team build the priorities. According to Gallup, as of May 2026 only 49 percent of U.S. employees say they know what’s expected of them at work. Gallup also finds that managers account for at least 70 percent of the variance in team engagement.

That makes clarity your job. Hand your team the three outcomes and let them decide how to get there. People commit to the plans they help build.

3. Make commitments public, then check in weekly. Ask each person to name one commitment for the next 30 days, in front of the team. Then hold a short weekly check-in through the holidays.

Momentum dies in silence. Keep the conversation going and the work keeps moving.

Ask Yourself

Which January goals is your team still carrying that died months ago?

Does everyone on your team know the three things that matter most between now and December?

When did you last ask your team what could go wrong?

How My Client Finished the Year

My client didn’t write off her year. She held a reset meeting the first week of October.

Her team buried four initiatives, ran a premortem on the three that survived, and left the room with one commitment each.

They didn’t hit every target. They walked into January with momentum instead of regrets.

Finish the Year Strong, Starting Now

January is a date. A reset is a decision.

You don’t need the calendar’s permission to start over. You need the discipline to start now.

Sometimes a leader needs an outside perspective to see which goals are dead and which deserve rescue. That’s the work I do in executive coaching.

If you’d like to talk about how you and your team can finish the year strong, I offer a complimentary consultation. You can schedule it here.