Issue 41: New Year. Same Definition of Ready.

January 6, 2026

New Year. Same Definition of Ready.

2026 - Week 1

📌 Pinned Manifesto

Work In Progmess is not a newsletter for finished thoughts.

It is a place for ideas that are still forming, questions that do not resolve cleanly, and observations that feel slightly uncomfortable once you sit with them.

We are not here to provide step by step instructions for life, leadership, or success.

We are here to challenge assumptions that have quietly overstayed their welcome.

If you are looking for certainty, this will disappoint you.
If you are willing to sit in the middle of becoming instead of rushing to arrive, you are in the right place.

Still in Progmess.

🧾 This Week, In Brief

We start the year with a quiet assumption
Completion is not the same as preparedness
Checklists are easy but insufficient
A better question for 2026

👋 Hello

Happy New Year. You already know how this goes.

Fresh calendars
Fresh inboxes
Fresh energies that last until January 12

We also carry with us something old. It is so familiar that we barely notice it anymore.

A quiet belief that finishing something means we are ready for what comes next.

You have heard it before:

Complete the degree
Then you are ready

Complete the program
Then you are ready

Complete the checklist
Then you are ready

And yet.

Some of the most unprepared people we know have perfect completion records.

This is the tension we will live with.
Not because it is comfortable.
Because it points at something overlooked.

✅ A Simple Visual Metaphor

This is not a joke.
It is a real problem disguised as simplicity.

🔎 Observation

Completion gives clarity in status.
Preparedness gives clarity in direction.

They are not the same.

Completion is crisp.
Preparedness is messy.

Completion checks a box.
Preparedness asks questions.

Completion is easy to measure.
Preparedness is not.

And because humans love what is easy to measure, we spend most of our time there.

💬 Worth Sitting With

Completion gives a sense of motion.
Preparedness gives a sense of agency.

❓ A Question to Carry Into This Year

What part of the definition of readiness are you carrying into this year unexamined?

Not just a task list.
Not just something to finish.
Something that will actually matter when the work starts.

If you find that question uncomfortable, you are beginning to think in the right direction.

📅 Next Week

We will look at how the system around us was designed to reward completion and ignore readiness.

That is not an accident.

Still in Progmess.
M and N

Find us on all the Socials!