Spring Energy & Mini-Cycles
Spring is a vibrant pulse of both expansion and contraction. A moment where the world around us reemerges from the wintering season of rest and rejuvenation. Spring stretches toward the sun, moving from deep rest into gentle emergence. And also a retraction as it rests before its next growth spurt.
Too often, we push forward against our natural energy, expecting linear productivity rather than honoring the ebbs and flows that make our work (and lives) truly sustainable. It’s all the push without the contraction.
Unfortunately, this is the state of the world we live and work in–where most of us have been taught and trained that your energy should stay at a constant high level except for a few weeks a year, if you’re lucky, for fun (aka that vacation time that then gets filled up with other commitments). You likely rarely build rest and rejuvenation time into your calendar, which might be why you face chronic burnout and career pivot desires.
Time to take back control of your energy and where it goes!
Planning can be more regenerative!
Instead of rigid goal-setting that demands constant momentum and a false belief in linear upward constant growth, you can build minicycles, which are smaller, intentional loops that honor your shifting energy.
Let me share a process with you that I guided my client community through last Friday during our quarterly planning workshop.
Here’s a continuous process of how nature moves through the spring season:
🍂 Shedding – releasing what’s not working
🌱 Emergence – planting seeds, clarifying vision
🌿 Expansion – building momentum, growing outward
🌾 Tending – refining, sustaining progress
❄️ Rest & Integration – pausing before the next cycle begins
What if your projects, leadership, and creative work followed a similar rhythm?
Working With, Not Against, Energy
In a world that rewards constant output, embracing mini-cycles feels radical. But it’s also practical. Building regenerative cycles acknowledges the intersection of work culture (red), nature’s seasons (green), and your own personal rhythms (blue), but lets you plan for more regular minicycles of peaks and dips. Your minicycle reflects more of a wave of peaks that represent productivity and growth, followed by dips for rest and reflection, so that you can integrate that growth into your new norm.
When you feel creative energy rising, lean in.
When you feel the need to refine, focus on alignment.
When momentum slows, let go or pause rather than forcing.
This season invites momentum, yes, but also discernment: What is worth expanding? What needs tending? What’s ready to be let go?
Your Mini-Cycle Reflection for Spring
Take a moment to ask yourself:
What needs to be pruned out to make room for new or so that my priorities can expand?
What is emerging for me this season?
Where do I feel energy rising, and where is it waning?
What can I release to create more space for growth?
Let this be a season of aligned action, not busy action. Our capacities change over time, as we age, and also as we adapt to new norms of constant chaos and distracting noise around us.
Resilience isn’t about endurance or your ability to bounce back. It's about knowing when to move, to adapt, to transform, and when to pause or shed to let go.