The Wisdom of the Fallow Season
Winter has a way of revealing limitations. The shorter days, the slower mornings, the quieter evenings all seem to ask the same question: What is possible? In a culture that prizes momentum and output, winter can feel like a problem to solve rather than a season to listen to.
Every year around this time, I notice a shift in my capacity. It’s not absent. It’s just more quiet. If I take the time to pay attention, I notice that I have enough energy for what matters most, but far less tolerance for what drains me. It’s hard for me not to judge that shift. But I’m learning to see the shift as information.
In agriculture, a fallow field is not abandoned land. It is land that has been intentionally rested so the soil can recover its nutrients and regain its strength. On the surface, it can look like nothing is happening. Beneath the surface, essential work is underway. Winter reminds us that growth doesn’t happen in a straight line and that rest is not the opposite of productivity, but a necessary condition for it.
What if capacity, rather than ambition, guided our choices in this season? What if we measured wisdom not by how much we can push through, but by how well we can discern what is sustainable? Winter invites a different kind of ambition; not the drive to produce more, but the courage to protect what is still becoming.
In my coaching work, some of the most transformative moments come when people name their true capacity without shame. When they stop arguing with their limits and begin listening to them. When they realize that exhaustion, resistance, or a desire to slow down are not personal failures, but signals worth honoring. This way of listening creates space for trust, safety, and resilience.
What if winter is inviting us to let certain fields lie fallow for a time? To release the pressure to prove or perform? To trust that rest, discernment, and care are not detours from growth, but part of the work itself?
Where is winter asking you to tell the truth about your capacity? What might you stop demanding of yourself if you trusted this season to be fallow on purpose? What might already be taking root beneath the surface?
