It’s that time again—resolutions, planners, colored markers…
CHANGE.
New Year, New You
Personally, I don’t do resolutions. Seems like it’s a cover-up for re-solving a problem we’ve had on repeat for years.
But the world is telling us to make ’em, to plan, plan, plan, to promise ourselves that this time it will be different.
What if there’s a more loving, lasting way to approach a new year?
What if you don’t need to change? What if there’s nothing wrong with the current version of you?
What if we dropped the guilt? The mean inner voice. The assumption that being in our 60s or 70s means we’re in damage control mode.
What if we started from a place of appreciation and then curiosity?
Aging into the Third Age could mean status quo, no risks; I’m comfortable as I am.
But here’s what I know: this period of life doesn’t have to be the wind-down time everyone suggests it is.
Me not winding down looks like investing big bucks in a year-long program at the Institute for Functional Medicine Coaching Academy to finally get their certification and add additional skills to my arsenal of wellness tools for women.
But from the world’s perspective, we’re all just managing decline.
There is change to be managed, call it decline if it feels that way, sure, but where’s the good news, the advances in science to increase our healthspan, the awesome makeup and clothing designed with us in mind?
Enough with the hearing aids, singing and dancing prescription medication ads!
That’s not acknowledging us as having value beyond our ailments. That’s patronizing.
So here’s my invitation for 2026:
Come at this clean slate of a new year with curiosity about what’s possible and how you want to feel.
Appreciate all that you are. I guarantee you, you are more capable, powerful, and full of life than you might know.
What does that make possible? It gives you the feeling that if you’re all that, then this thing you want to be, do, or have is possible because you already rock.
So how do you want to feel in this new year?
And what do you want to leave behind?
Sure, set some goals if you want and set them around the things you can control.
But don’t set resolutions, which you’ve proven to your brain time and again don’t work.
Set intentions about the person you want to be.
I’m the kind of person who will exercise even though I don’t love it because I want to keep my heart healthy.
I’m the kind of person whose book will get written because a daily writing habit is one I know from the experts that works.
I’m the kind of person who… (Thank you, James Clear, for this reframe)
Even if you aren’t right now.
And plan for some plans to not be the one that gets you there.
We can’t be right the first time all the time, and some plans won’t exactly align with who we are right now.
Spoiler alert: We don’t stick with what makes us feel meh, or worse.
Get support. You have a better chance of becoming “the person who” so that you get those goals realized.
Make resolutions if you must, but be sure to make them from a place of self-love. Not from a place of something’s wrong and must be fixed.
Dream big. No matter what the world says about where you are on the timeline, you are more.
Don’t set goals from where you are now. What would a courageous, rebellious you do?
As Mary Oliver asked, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Don’t settle. Your life is precious, and if I had my way, you’d get a good dose of wild.
Enough is enough. Yes, that’s a Donna Summer/Barbra Streisand reference, and yes, it’s become my guiding principle for 2026. Enough with the decline management narrative that keeps us quiet, sick, and living at half mast. Enough with being told what’s possible—and not—at this age by people with no idea what it’s like or who we are.
I’m exploring all of this in the first episode of 2026 on the podcast, dropping January 8th. I’ll be walking through my own anti-resolution framework and how I find what matters most to keep and what should be kicked to the curb to make room for better, for more, for living fully, no matter your age.
Wishing you all the good stuff life has to offer in 2026.
