--- title: This Is How Successful People Get Ahead During the Holidays description: They live the '13-Month Year' canonical: https://time.com/4135795/13-month-year/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-07T22:33:22.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:56:56.590Z article:section: Ideas og:title: This Is How Successful People Get Ahead During the Holidays og:description: They live the '13-Month Year' og:url: https://time.com/4135795/13-month-year/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ca9b77f1fe23578/698873bfbc6cfc59b73daaa4/notebook-pen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5400 og:image:height: 3038 og:image:alt: notebook-pen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is How Successful People Get Ahead During the Holidays twitter:description: They live the '13-Month Year' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2ca9b77f1fe23578/698873bfbc6cfc59b73daaa4/notebook-pen.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is How Successful People Get Ahead During the Holidays > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=bd90d33f-f6a1-453b-a533-01aa6f29d358&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Tony Robbins: How to be a better person [Watch (HLS stream): Tony Robbins: How to be a better person](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pwTCW5Bo.m3u8) (1:30)  _Published 2015-03-11. Tony Robbins talks about his 37-year long career as a life coach._ by [Daniel DiPiazza / Entrepreneur](https://time.com/author/entrepreneur/) ## Daniel DiPiazza / Entrepreneur Dec 7, 2015 10:33 PM UTC  Silver pen on a notebook --- Image by © Tammy Hanratty/Corbis Silver pen on a notebook --- Image by © Tammy Hanratty/Corbis Corbis by [Daniel DiPiazza / Entrepreneur](https://time.com/author/entrepreneur/) ## Daniel DiPiazza / Entrepreneur Dec 7, 2015 10:33 PM UTC There’s a disturbance in the Force. The weather is getting colder. Winter is setting in. The holiday season is soon upon us. I’ve found that there are primarily two types of people that emerge when the holiday haze hits. Which one are you? **1\. “The Sheep”** By Dec. 1, the Sheep are already mentally checked out. They might be here here physically, but their minds are roasting chestnuts over an open fire. “Dude…it’s December,” they’ll tell you. The Sheep have plenty of big goals that they’re hoping to accomplish in 2016\. (I mean, who doesn’t?) But right now, all that stuff is on the back burner. Going on mental cruise control around the holidays doesn’t sound like such a bad idea for most people. I think we can all relate. But inevitably, a sinking feeling begins to develop. Right in your core. It starts very subtly, when you look back at 2015 goals and realize, “Darn…I didn’t really accomplish what I set out to do this year.” _“It’s OK,”_ you tell yourself. _“New Year, New Me. Right? I’ll get a fresh start in January.”_ So you set new resolutions to get even _more_ done in 2016\. It feels good to envision yourself following through. Maybe you even write some things down. Deep down inside, though, you know nothing has really changed. You don’t really have a plan for getting from where you are to where you want to be, and in your heart-of-hearts—as much as it hurts you to admit it—you wouldn’t exactly be surprised if December 2016 left you feeling just as unsatisfied as this year. So you just…bury your expectations in food and embrace the holiday slump. It’s a nice six-ish weeks of self-induced, “I’ll deal with it after New Year’s” bliss. But on a core level, it an agonizing cycle of self-defeat. That’s how most of the population spends their holiday season. I’ve been there, too. But there’s another way. **2\. “The Hustlers”** On the outside, Hustlers seem like anomalies whose massive success can’t be explained with logic. They’re like “glitches” in the system. These are the people who set out to accomplish _massive_ goals every single year, and not only _crush_ those goals but surpass them. I know you’ve seen them: Maybe you’re reading _TIME_ and catch a glimpse of some young, brilliant entrepreneur in his 20s who’s making billions with an app he developed in his dorm room. Or perhaps it’s the newest junior executive at your job, who despite being with the company for less time than you, has already put herself on track to become a partner. How are they doing it? The 13-Month Year is how true Hustlers get ahead. More than anything, someone living a 13-Month Year says: _“I don’t care that everyone else is taking the holidays off. I’m about to turn the rocket boosters ON.”_ While your friends and colleagues are winding down, eating a lot and singing carols, they’re grinding through the holidays. They’re starting their year early and they get an entire “bonus” month in 2016 to figure things out without wasting time. They’re working out all the kinks in your plans so that come Jan. 1, while everyone else is sobering up and crawling back to the office, they’re already well into the groove. THAT’S how winners kill the game. This isn’t another played out New Year’s Resolution that you’ll sweep under the rug in a few weeks, quietly embarrassed. This is a proven strategy for success. If you want to get in better shape, maybe you’ll use that extra month to start your workout routine and diet plan early. (You’d be appalled how empty the gym is in December. Only Hustlers are gettin’ it in. Perfect.) [If you want to start a business](http://rich20something.com/), maybe that extra month is used to begin testing your ideas early and identify where to focus your efforts so that you already have momentum and clarity going into 2016. Now here’s the catch…. This stuff is not easy. I’m not a guru. I’m just [Daniel](https://www.youtube.com/c/Rich20Something?sub%5Fconfirmation=1). I’m not a millionaire (yet). I’m not perfect. I’m not all-knowing. But I have figured some stuff out that can help you. And the more I hang out with [people who are much more successful than I](https://youtu.be/Gfq0mFWmuzI), the more I realize that success is not an accident. It’s not luck. A big part of getting ahead is the ability to focus while other people are distracted. So get focused now. Not in January. _Right now._ _This_ [_article_](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252553) _originally appeared on_ [_Entrepreneur.com_](http://www.entrepreneur.com) _More from Entrepreneur.com:_ * [4 Ways to Banish Post-Holiday Blues From the Workplace](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241309) * [Why You Don’t Keep Your Resolutions…And How to Fix That](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241289) * [9 New Year’s Resolutions for Every Entrepreneur](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241332) ## Transcript Started out really just for the passion of human beings. I grew up in a really tough environment. I experienced suffering, so I hate to see other people suffer. I'm here because I believe emotion is the force of life. I really got addicted to seeing people light up, and frankly, the love that I got from helping people. And that led to 37, almost a 38 year obsession now, with finding answers for people. [ APPLAUSE ] [ APPLAUSE ] Everybody has desires and goals that are different, but we have the same needs. We have a need for certainty, we have a need for uncertainty, surprise, variety, to feel alive. We have a need to feel significant, we have a need to contribute beyond ourself. Some people, their problem meets their needs. And so they're not about, it doesn't matter what you do for them or with them. It's not gonna change. So you have to figure out, what's the leverage? Everybody has something that'll push them over the edge, that'll make change a must, and not a should. Cuz when you should change, you try, and it doesn't work, and you give up. We've all had time when you, for years, you said you're gonna do something, well, one day, finally something happens. You say, not another day, not another moment, this is changing now, and you did it, and you followed through, and you never went back. I'm hungry to always know the road ahead and I really think that is a huge advantage in life. If you know the road ahead, you're not reacting so much. I always told people success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. You know, achieving what you thought was the ultimate dream and then saying, is this all there is? This happens too often to people. It's cuz they know what they want but they don't know what they need. 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