As the natural world leans into another equinox and launches all its spectacular protocols for shutting things down for another winter, we find ourselves taking another tack. We staged an exuberant celebration in the middle of the streets in the middle of town on Monday just as our academic, social, and political calendars started coming back to life after a long languorous summer. It was a de facto New Year’s Eve Party.

It turns out that right now, and not January, is the perfect time to make resolutions. The lassitude of summer provides the perfect medium for introspection. Silent promises made in the shade to be better and do better when the slow season is done. The advent of autumn seems to urge us to change as surely as the leaves on the trees.

Get up an hour earlier. Read every day. Study for hours, not minutes. Quit smoking. Eat healthier foods. Sleep more. Volunteer more often. Take up painting, writing, yoga, tai chi, or dance. Audit a history course. Learn a new language. Do it all, do it better, and do it before the distraction of the holiday season.

“The honeymoon is over,” a local teacher observed at the end of the first week of school. Students and teachers who had anxiously prepared for the new school year, who had made vows to be better and to do better than last year, are already downsizing aspirations. It could feel like failure; or it could merely be that too many goals have been set for too short a time.

There is no shame in downsizing lofty goals. We are bound to waver in our exuberance as surely as leaves will drift from the branches. The trees lose leaves in increments. Some leaves fall singly, others in a torrent. And when the branches are finally bare, the season has succeeded in its task. It is a process fueled by patience and persistence.

Get up five minutes earlier. Read. Study. Smoke less. Eat a new food. Go to bed five minutes earlier. Try one new skill, learn one new thing. The honeymoon may be over, but the best is yet to be. And when one goal is accomplished, lean in to the next knowing the momentum of the planet is behind you.