I've been an athlete most of my life. Playing soccer through college, coaching for 25 years, running ultramarathons, logging four or five miles most days. With all that going on, I thought I understood my body pretty well.

Then I turned 40.

My body started telling me in no uncertain terms that I did not, in fact, have it all figured out.

Not all at once—that's not how it works. The signs were gradual at first: recovery took a little longer, my energy wasn't as automatic as it used to be. I'd eat the same way I always had and feel... off.

January in Memphis means gray skies, cold rain, and that nagging voice telling you to wait until March to get serious about training. I hear it every year, and every year, I ignore it. 

Most runners I know treat winter like a grace period—a few easy months before the "real" training starts in spring. And look, I don’t blame them. As I’m writing this, Memphis is under a rare “Winter Storm Warning,” which means snow and ice. Not exactly our forte down here.

Now, am I going to go run in that? Unlikely. I’m not suggesting we forgo safety in extreme weather conditions. That’s just asking for an unwelcome injury. But uncomfortable conditions are a different story.

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about ultramarathons or business ventures: the people who wait for perfect conditions rarely achieve what they're capable of.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes it seems like we perceive time at vastly different paces. December goes by in a flash of holiday cheer, while January is a cold, miserable slog. I swear this month should’ve been over a week ago, but here we are.

Still in January.

That snail’s pace can make everything feel a lot harder than it should. If you're leading a team right now, you might be seeing the signs: slower response times, shorter fuses, that glazed look in Monday morning meetings.

We're barely three weeks into the year, and some of your people are already running on fumes.

I used to treat January like some kind of corporate New Year's resolution—load up the calendar, commit to everything, convince myself this would be the year I finally got it all done.

Then I'd hit a wall mid-February, wondering why I felt like I'd already run a marathon when the year had barely started.

Sound familiar?

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong after the humbling experience of dropping out of the Keys 100 at mile 60. Turns out, the same mistakes that made me bail on that race were the exact ones I was making in business every January.