A month ago, I spent a week in a silent meditation retreat. The experience has had a lasting impression on me. Seven days were long enough to disrupt habits so ingrained they ran on autopilot, creating space for neuroplasticity to begin working its magic. These gifts of awareness have opened up a new way of looking at life as we start a new year.
Deep Cleaning
In my prior post, I offered a metaphor to illustrate the difference between a typical vacation and my experience on retreat. When we unplug on a typical vacation, it’s akin to spring cleaning – an extensive cleaning of the home, including pulling furniture away from the walls to clean behind and under it, and getting rid of things we no longer need.
The retreat experience was like packing up all your belongings and moving them out of the home, including the furniture. With the house empty, you can clean more thoroughly. In doing so, you have a different perspective on your belongings. Perhaps you rearrange the furniture as you move it back in. And rather than simply unpacking all your belongings, you think far more critically about what you want to add back into the home.
The metaphor reminded me of a budgeting technique I’ve used at times – zero-based budgeting.
Zero-Based Budgeting
When managing a budget, the most common approach is to roll forward last year’s spending and then make adjustments. This has some advantages, but it also leads to behaviors in which leaders seek to spend their entire budget each year, fearing it will be cut if they don’t. If you had a $50,000 training budget and only spent $35,000, the CFO decides you only need $35,000 for the following year. If you spend all $50,000, however, it’s easier to make the case that you needed more, and get an increased training budget for the coming year.
Zero-based budgeting disrupts this model. When budgeting for the coming year, start at zero and justify each expense. How much you spent on training last year is largely irrelevant. You look ahead to your training needs and request an amount based on those needs. The organization prioritizes all requests in line with the business’s goals. Perhaps the organization prioritizes cybersecurity, and IT’s training budget is much higher than in prior years, while other training budgets are reduced.
This concept becomes far more powerful when we apply it more broadly to our entire way of life.
Zero-Based Living
Spring cleaning is akin to a traditional budgeting process. We create the budget, and the result is not dramatically different from the prior year’s budget. Deep cleaning is akin to zero-based budgeting. Empty the home. Clean it. Decide what to put into the home once you’re done. We build a brand new budget from scratch.
After a week of being completely unplugged from the world, I could see how I was living more clearly. A week without my phone was long enough to disrupt the automated habit of picking it up, unlocking it, and swiping through all the usual suspects (email, social media, LinkedIn, etc.). I still followed this habit at times, but I was conscious of it, whereas before it had happened unconsciously. So I began to see with much greater clarity how I was spending my time.
I had similar gifts of awareness as I examined other areas of life – What I was eating. My exercise patterns. How I chose to spend my discretionary time.
I spent December reflecting on my newfound awareness and realized I wanted to take a zero-based approach to my entire life as I entered 2026.
I’ve done this on two levels.
On a macro level, I rebooted my calendar – something I encourage everyone to do this time of year. I’ve started each morning in December with meditation and reading, before anything else, which means getting up early enough to fit those in before the workday begins.
I’ve thought consciously about discretionary time – what TV, if any, do I actually want to watch? I’m finding I’d prefer to read. I reviewed each social group I was a part of and asked whether I wanted to remain in it in 2026. This meant I didn’t renew my running club membership, as I’m running on my own. But I continue to embrace the Lamy Mountain Biking Club, where the people are as important to me as the activity itself.
At a micro level, a zero-based living mindset helps break the cycle of habituated behavior. I find myself pausing more frequently before each decision and considering whether I truly want it or am acting on autopilot. As a result, I’m picking up my phone less, eating better, and turning on the TV less often.
This is similar to a “Start/Stop/Continue” exercise, where you review what you are doing, decide what to start, what to stop, and what to continue. The difference is that in this exercise, you stop everything. Then you decide what you want to start (or restart/continue).
Putting It Into Practice
As you dive into 2026, take a moment to pause. Is your plan for the year essentially what you did last year, with some minor adjustments? If so, consider a zero-based living approach. As a thought exercise, stop everything, then consciously decide what you want to add back in:
- Is this the job you want? Are you adding that back or looking for something new?
- Who are the people you want to be spending your time with?
- How do you want to spend your discretionary time?
- What food do you want to be putting in your body?
Take both a macro and a micro view of your life through a zero-based living lens.
I am an executive coach and life coach with software executive roots in higher education and EdTech. I coach because I love helping others accelerate their growth as leaders and humans. I frequently write about #management, #leadership, #coaching, #neuroscience, and #arete.
If you would like to learn more, schedule time with me.