Yo!

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Every Saturday morning, you’ll get a perspective shift designed to make your brain go, huh, I never thought of it that way.

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Thinking In Seasons

One of the most underrated mental models for navigating life is thinking in seasons.

Nature figured this out a long time ago:

• Winter is for restoration.

• Spring is for planting seeds.

• Summer is for growth.

• Autumn is for harvest.

But somewhere along the way, humans decided every season had to look like summer.

Work harder. Chase more goals. Achieve 24/7.

The result?

Burnout, disconnect, and wondering why we feel stuck in the first place.

But what if we embraced the seasons instead of fighting them?

Real-life examples

1. Athletes and their summers

Top athletes don’t spend all year in competition mode.

Take NBA players: the summer months are their “winter” and “spring“ seasons.

Aka time to rest, recover, and reflect for a bit.

Then, get together with trainers to put an off season training plan together.

Wherever they identify gaps in their game — that’s where they focus (plant seeds) to come back stronger the next year.

How they treat the off-season is drastically different from how they treat in season.

2. Leonardo da Vinci: The rhythm of extremes

Da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man.

A prolific painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and athlete (little known fact — he was once recognized as the strongest man in Florence)

He also understood the power of seasons.

He’d work with obsessive intensity during his “summers,” pouring himself into projects.

But he also knew when to step back and embrace winter-like periods of rest and reflection.

During these pauses, his mind recovered and ideas brewed beneath the surface, allowing him to return to his work with renewed clarity and creativity.

We can learn a lot from the greats who came before us. I listened to this Modern Wisdom podcast on “How To Think Like Leonardo Da Vinci” and it sent me down a great rabbit hole.

3. A personal example

For the past two years, I’ve been going non-stop.

• Full time job

• Training for endurance challenges every 3-4 months

• Building the production studio on evenings and weekends

• While trying to maintain a social life and find time to rest and recover

And honestly, it was one of my favorite chapters. I strived for and achieved a lot.

But, I realized I needed a reset. A season to rest, reflect, and recalibrate.

That’s what the past 6 weeks have been about.

Reading, writing, thinking, creating, and just enjoying the unstructured time.

And as I start to move towards my own spring season, I’m feeling refreshed and dangerous in the best possible way.

Try this exercise

1. Identify the season you’re currently in.

2. Write down what this season might be asking of you.

3. Decide on one small action that aligns with that season.

What season am I in?

• Are you grinding away, feeling like nothing is moving forward? You might be in winter. Time to pause and go inward.

• Have opportunities been blooming left and right? Sounds like spring. Time to plant those ideas.

• Are you thriving on all fronts? That’s summer. Lean in and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

• Or maybe you’re wrapping up a chapter and figuring out what’s next. Hello, autumn. Embrace the change.

Example actions:

• If it’s winter: Schedule time to journal every day.

• If it’s spring: Launch that project you’ve been sitting on.

• If it’s summer: Block time to celebrate wins, big or small.

• If it’s autumn: Write down one thing you’re letting go of.

Wrapping it up:

Life isn’t meant to be one season all the time.

Sometimes you’re planting. Sometimes you’re thriving. Sometimes you’re pausing. And sometimes you’re starting over.

The secret is knowing where you are and leaning in.

Hope this helps. Rooting for ya.

-Dodds

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