In this four-minute read, I’ll take you through why September is the perfect time to regroup on your career goals and give you four tips for making the last quarter of the year a success.  

It’s September, which seems to bring with it back-to-school vibes even if you haven’t been to school for decades. This month feels like a fresh start, and there’s scientific evidence that makes it a great time to kick things off. I often feel a renewed sense of momentum once the summer is over and like to make the most of that positivity. 

It’s easy to tread water career-wise over the summer – perhaps because that’s all you had mental capacity for while juggling kids and a holiday, or maybe the heatwaves knocked you off your stride. Even if you don’t feel like the summer stalled your work, you might not have made as much progress as you’d like to on your 2026 goals. If so, now’s the time to fix that.  

Why is September a good time to do a career reset? 

World-leading behaviour change expert Professor Katy Milkman says September is one of a few logical fresh starts that you can make the most of. While being interviewed for the Nudge podcast, she explained that there are moments when people are more receptive to making changes. Prof Milkman has extensively studied the ‘fresh start effect’, which describes our tendency to feel like we have a clean slate at key points. Fresh starts can be Mondays, birthdays, moving to a new home, getting a new job, and going back to school.  

She explains that underlying the effect is the idea that we get to be a different person in our new chapter, and the chance for a fresh start encourages us to step back and broaden our view. Taking advantage of this psychological effect and the natural back-to-school vibes that September delivers means now is the perfect time for a career reset.  

Why do you need to regroup and reprioritise? 

The latest newsletter from the Squiggly Careers podcast told me that on 1 September there were just 88 working days left of 2026. Doesn’t sound like a lot when you look at it that way! But there’s still plenty you can do for your career if you focus on the right things.  

So firstly, a quick stock-take. What do you want to achieve between now and Christmas to make you feel like this year has been a success? That could be about completing some of your objectives, squeezing in some personal development, or even looking for a new job.  

September’s career MOT needs to both round up the last few months and solidify what you can realistically achieve by the end of the year. (There’s more detail about how to do a career MOT in this blog.) The reprioritising exercise might mean you decide to push some of your objectives into early 2027, and that’s fine.  

How can you make the most of the final quarter of 2026 to benefit your career? 

Long-distance athletes will tell you they don’t slow down in the final stages of a race. They maintain the pace, and sometimes even speed up. This is what you need to do between now and December if you want to make the most of the time left in 2026. 

Here’s what I’d do to pull off an effective career reset in the final quarter of 2026: 

• Pack your bag – just as you’d get everything ready for school (ideally not on the morning you’re going!), you need to gather your resources together. If you’re not planning a job move, look at your personal development plan and review your goals. If you are thinking about a new job, refreshing your CV, updating your success stories and giving your LinkedIn profile a polish are all good steps 

• Reconnect – at school, it’s great to hear about what people have done over the summer. The career equivalent is catching up with key people in your network who might be able to support you. That could be highlighting a vacancy on the hidden jobs market because you’ve disclosed you’re looking for a move, or just providing some useful feedback about your performance in your current role 

• Do your homework – having reviewed your development plan, identify which goals you still need to deliver on and look for quick wins. If you’re in the market for a new job, spend some time refining exactly what you’re looking for, then sign up for job alerts. Regardless of whether you’re looking for a new job, plan for what personal development you need to fit in before the end of the year 

• Tackle the tough stuff – a new school year means learning new things, which can feel difficult. At work, we all have things that we move down the to-do list because we don’t want to do them. We could think they will be hard or just don’t enjoy that kind of task. But you have to ‘eat the frogs’ at some point (a phrase reminiscent of I’m A Celebrity food trials, and that means do the hard stuff!), and September is crunch time. Getting through some of the things you’ve been postponing can be really satisfying – they’re often not as hard or unpleasant as we believed they would be. If you think you’ll struggle, recruit an accountability partner and commit to a deadline to increase your chances of following through 

Back-to-school career benefits 

Instead of feeling like the year is over, there’s still plenty you can achieve in 2026 if you plan and prioritise properly. Finishing the year strong will feel good, whether that’s because you have a solid plan for how to find your next dream job, or because you’ve made genuine progress on goals in your existing role.  

To explore how I could support you with looking for your next career move and the benefits of a back-to-school career reset, get in touch for a free, no-obligation chat.