The Fall Reset Guide: Getting Out of a Rut & Loving Your Life Again

Jeanine Amapola Ward opens the fall season not with a bucket list but with the opposite: a list of things to leave behind. The episode’s central argument is that fall should be a season of slowing down, not productivity-maxing—a countercultural reset built on phone-free mornings, unhurried friendships, and hobbies pursued for joy rather than content. Ward frames this as a spiritual practice of “abiding” in Jesus, drawing on her forthcoming devotional The Abiding Way and her own recent experiences of loneliness and transition after moving to Oklahoma with her husband and young son.

The case for leaving productivity behind

Ward identifies a pattern she calls “productivity maxing”—turning every walk into habit stacking, every quiet moment into a checklist item. She argues this is spiritually and emotionally draining. “What if God wants you to do less?” she asks, pointing to the biblical example of Mary, who sat at Jesus’ feet while her sister Martha busied herself with tasks. Jesus said Mary “chose what is better.” Ward’s own book is built around this principle: abiding means sitting still with God, not cramming more into your day. She admits this is hard, especially for someone who was “that girl” who tried to do everything. But she insists that the relentless comparison culture—measuring your day against an influencer’s highlight reel—kills joy. “The less that we can com