By external accounts I should have been finishing the year on a high, after winning the Supreme Business Award, being keynote speaker at a University of Otago graduation and closing a pretty major deal the week prior.
But instead you’d think by my overall demeanour that I’d just put my dog down. I. Was. Just. Trying. To. Make. It. To. The. End. Of. 2025.
Even my last article for the year was flat and uninspiring, which feels about right in hindsight, because I felt exceptionally uninspiring while I wrote it.
Back to the 16th. Our book club Christmas party was due to start in an hour. I’d put exercise off all day, "just trying to get this one thing finished first".
Alex had to do nightshift, which I’d forgotten about, so I had to drag poor Fin along. I had a board meeting to chair the next morning.
And then I discovered a major forecast stuff-up I hadn’t factored into my budgeting.
Because that’s one of the kickers about putting yourself under too much pressure — it’s a series of diminishing returns as your attention to detail and decision-making suffers.
There were only three business days left in the year, and it felt like I had three weeks’ worth of work to squeeze into them.
Which is when my body decided to put its out-of-office on. Enough’s enough, you’re finished.
It’s not normal for your heart rate to hit 174 sitting down. I struggle to go over 150 when I’m training. So when my heart started trying to jump out of my chest, my screen blurred and Fin quietly shut my laptop and said "let’s go to book club mum. You need to stop working and have fun. Don’t worry about dinner", I had an epiphany.
I had done it again, completely wrecked myself trying not to let anyone else down.
And I’m pretty sure if I had a heart attack, I’d be seriously letting the most important someone else down: Fin.
I don’t have a heart condition. I’ve checked. Apparently I’ve got the heart of an endurance athlete.
What I do have is a stress problem, a very low resting heart rate and a recurring pattern of burnout. When I spike, it’s ugly. When I crash, it’s worse.
Which brings me to my 2026 New Year’s resolution: to care less.
Not in a work sense. We absolutely need to care when we’re making 10,000 parts that go to space each year and supplying 55,000 critical medical components.
But the other stuff. The people who don’t respect your time, or who could do it themselves if they cared enough; or the projects or causes where you seem to be constantly dragging people along, rather than walking the path with them.
This year I’m going to care more about what matters to me, and about the people who care for me.
I’m also done assuming every unexpected call or email is impending doom. Alex laughs at me for this. He reckons that’s why we’ve stayed ahead of things.
It’s not a great way to live though, and if I ran the stats, I’d say 99.9% of the time it’s good news.
I’ve spent years tying myself in knots for deadlines that turn out not to matter, meetings with no agenda, or trying to rescue people who don’t actually want saving.
When I was 10, I desperately wanted the queen bee in class to stop being horrible to me. I gave her my locket. At the end of the day, it was in the rubbish bin.
I had agonised over that moment. She hadn’t thought twice.
In peak stress, we lose perspective. Stress is real, and we need to look out for each other better. Notice when someone’s judgement seems a bit off.
Don’t accept "I’m fine" at face value. Quietly take something off their plate.
Also, take a holiday in the middle of the year. RNZ last week reported that forward international holiday bookings are at record highs.
The natural assumption is to blame the miserable summer weather, but I also suspect a lot of people are in the same boat as me — they pushed through 2025 without a break and blew themselves out.
I hate cancelling on things. I’ll break myself to avoid disappointing someone, only to turn up feeling exhausted and disconnected, and spend half the evening tripping back and forth to the bathroom for time out to avoid having to be "on".
That has to stop.
Back to book club. Four of the eight of us had tried to cancel. Michelle told me to come as I was, bring Fin, have a wine and leave if I needed to.
She tucked Fin up, sent me home for a glittery dress, and soon enough we were playing charades and popping Christmas crackers (there’s very little book in book club).
My friends didn’t care if I was on form. They just cared that I was OK. My shoulders visibly retreated as I joined in the laughter.
The board meeting the next day went ahead without me. We were prepared. Resolutions passed. The strategy session waited.
I even got kind messages and offers of help. No harm done.
So what’s my takeaway for this year? Be brutally honest about what I should care more about, and where I could care less.
• Sarah Ramsay is chief executive of United Machinists.
