Start the New Year with Intention
What do you want for 2026? Excitement? Adventure? Happiness?
How do you celebrate the New Year? Do you plan a fantastic party or date complete with a special outfit? Do you stay home and treat it like any other day?
One possibility for 2026, and one of my personal favorite things to do for the new year, is to reflect on what you want. Select one to four words that represent your desires.
And then create some ceremony around them. You could make a vision board (I do this digitally with Google slides—see below), write them down and decorate them to look artistic and then post them in a place you’ll see daily, say them to yourself as a toast with your first beverage of the day, say them to each glass of water you drink (if you’d like to see research on how water can hold memories and is affected by intention, I’m happy to share), say them to yourself at night before you go to sleep, meditate on them, record yourself saying them and then listen to it every day. The point is that you decide on your select words and then you get them into your mind and experience regularly. The ceremony around this emphasizes your intention.
I’ve been doing this for a couple of years and am always amazed at how my intention words in January have become reality, at least in some capacity, by December. And sometimes they manifest in ways I never expected.
Below you’ll see an example. My vision board made on January 1st, 2025 followed by my manifestation board made on December 30th, 2025. Many of the things I hoped for came to be. I still can’t do the splits on the Cadillac. But I’m impressed with what I could do and of course some goals take more than a year to become reality.
Your visions don’t have to be realistic. You can hope for things you can’t picture actually happening. Don’t limit yourself.
And even if they don’t turn out exactly how you wanted, I recommend focusing on what did. The end of the year is an excellent time to up your gratitude practice. Don’t dwell on what went wrong. That lowers your vibration and attracts more of the same. FIND what went right. It might not be obvious and you might have to strain, but find the positives. The silver lining. The glass half full. It’s always there if you look for it.
Once you set your intention, get to work. Don’t just sit back and expect everything to materialize. Meditate, visualize, take a leap of faith, believe in yourself, take action, trust the process.
What do you want for 2026? Do any of these words resonate with you? If so, pick a handful that do. And resolve to make them your reality in the new year.
Health
Resilience
Vitality
Vibrance
Peace
Joy
Love
Stability
Security
Abundance
Bliss
Energy
Serenity
Calm
Harmony
Adventure
Novelty
Celebration
Excitement
Fulfilled
Strength
Radiant
Brilliant
Illuminated
Creative
Accomplished
Satisfied
Free
Grateful
Once you’ve selected your words for 2026, determine your ceremony.
How will you incorporate them into your days?
The visualization I created on January 1st, 2025 for one of the words I chose for the year — Limitless.
Replacing my visuals with actuals on December 30th of 2025. When I reflect back on the year, I realize that many of the ways I had hoped to be limitless were achieved. I did hard Pilates exercises, I inverted, I challenged myself physically with sports like skiing, I hiked to mountain tops, I jumped off a boat into the turquoise sea, I had a 22-course omakase at a Michelin rated restaurant in a new city… even an unlimited breakfast buffet was one unexpected way I manifested living without limits or boundaries.
As we enter the New Year…
Let’s be purposeful.
Let’s wish and hope.
Let’s be optimistic.
Let’s be intentional.
Let’s reflect.
Happy 2026!