When Seasons Change Do Clients?

What fall can teach us about timing, context, and behavior change.

It's October.

The days are getting shorter, and school schedules are back in full swing. Lazy summer days have disappeared, and the holidays are approaching. For many people, work and family routines have shifted again, and in the midst of that, a client will walks into a coaching session wanting to make a change. But they didn't walk in alone or immune to all of the change afoot. They brought the season, their schedule, their environment, and the psychology of this particular moment with them.

Timing Can Change Our Motivation

Behavior-change researchers have documented something called the “fresh start effect” where certain moments can create psychological dividing lines between the person we were and the person we want to become. New Year's Day is the obvious example of this effect, but research has found similar effects around birthdays, Mondays, the beginning of a month or semester, and other moments that feel like a new chapter. Researchers call these temporal landmarks.

A new 2026 meta-analysis of 31 studies involving more than 13,000 participants found that temporal landmarks do appear to have a positive, although modest and highly context-dependent, effect on psychological processes related to motivation and self-regulation.

Fall is FULL of potential landmarks where even the first genuinely cold morning can make the year suddenly feel different. These moments don't magically change behavior, but they may create a window in which someone is particularly receptive to it, and for a coach, that's really useful information.

Seasons Change More Than the Weather

There's another side to seasonality. The routine that worked in June may not work in October.

Morning exercise becomes harder when it's dark outside, an evening walk may disappear when the temperature drops, school changes a family's schedule, and holidays reliably alter eating, travel and social routines. Changes in daylight can also interact with our circadian rhythms, sleep and mood. None of this necessarily means a client has become less committed, but the environment has undeniably changed.

When a habit starts slipping, our instinct can be to focus on motivation: Why aren't I doing this anymore? But a better question might be: What changed around me?

Good Coaching Pays Attention to Context

This doesn't mean a coach needs to become a psychologist or an expert on circadian rhythms, but coaches can try to be curious. If a client suddenly feels energized about making a change, what might be contributing to that? If something that felt easy three months ago suddenly feels difficult, what changed? If a client says, “I need to get back on track,” is the old track even the right one for their life today? A few thoughtful questions can uncover a great deal:

• What's different about your routine right now?

• When did this start feeling harder?

• What about this moment makes you want to change?

• What would make this work in your life as it exists today (vs. how it existed six months ago)?

These aren't complicated interventions; they are just reminders that behavior doesn't happen in isolation.

The Bigger Lesson

Fall makes these influences particularly visible, but they exist all year. While some create momentum, others disrupt it...or both. For coaches, the lesson isn't to memorize every psychological effect associated with the calendar, but you can simply to remember that behavior change has context. A client arrives with goals, motivation and obstacles, but they also arrive at a particular moment in their life. Sometimes understanding that moment is where the most interesting coaching conversation begins.

As always, seasonal influences vary considerably between individuals. These findings are useful context for coaching conversations, not assumptions about how any particular client should feel or behave.