The September Sprint: Finding Your Pace in a Busy Season

The September Sprint: Finding Your Pace in a Busy Season

Let’s be honest—September feels like the real new year for a lot of us.

The pace picks up. School starts. Schedules shift. That illusion of “free time” we had in the summer vanishes. And even if you're not personally going back to school or packing lunches, there's something about fall that seems to demand productivity, presence, and perfection... all at once. The stores are bringing out holiday decorations which can’t be coming up that soon…right?!

And if you’re someone who already lives with anxiety, high-functioning stress, or parenting burnout? That pressure gets loud-FAST.

You might find yourself snapping more easily, waking up already tense or on edge, and feeling behind before the day even begins. If you’re like me, sometimes we can be quick to judge ourselves in these moments. But there is a reason why your experiencing those symptoms/feelings. This is your nervous system responding to a stack of micro-stressors, all disguised as normal life.

Here’s why September hits hard:

    • Transitions require energy—mental, emotional, and physical.

    • Our culture treats September like a second chance to “get it together,” which triggers performance pressure.

    • If you’re a parent, you're carrying not only your own stress—but your kids’ big feelings, too.

So let’s name it clearly: It’s okay if this season feels overwhelming. It doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong.

Here are 3 ways to move through the September surge without burning out:

1. Shrink your expectations, not your capacity.

Your capacity isn't broken. It's maxed out. Start by lowering the bar on what “successful” looks like—this allows your nervous system to recover and your real capacity to return. Tune down perfectionism, reassess that to-do list and evaluate what you’ve got the bandwidth for.

2. Make transitions visible.

Write down everything that’s changed in the last few weeks (new wake-up times, commutes, childcare shifts, less daylight, etc). Your brain regulates better when it can see what it’s reacting to. It can also be helpful to balance this by writing everything that remains stable and consistent. There may be a lot of change happening, but we can anchor into what feels like a reliable constant.

3. Pick one daily anchor.

Choose one small thing you’ll do each day just for you. A song, a stretch, a cup of tea in silence. It doesn’t have to be profound—it just needs to be consistent.

You don’t have to “master fall.”

You just need to move through it gently. And I promise, that counts as progress