Happy New Year 2026!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with your family and friends, and Happy New Year! You may have spent some time looking back on 2025, the fun you had, the things you accomplished–PS I’ve got another Year Reflection worksheet you can get on the website, I’ll remind you about it later. Some of you gals are halfway through this school year, and some of you just started a new one! Maybe you’re eager and excited about what’s ahead and have already set goals or made big plans for 2026.

Already Behind

Or maybe you made a lot of resolutions on New Year’s about good habits and things you wanted to start or stop doing, but despite your best efforts and intentions, just a few days into it, you’ve already gone off track. Perhaps you’re disappointed about goals that you didn’t reach last year, so you are resetting those goals again for this year. You might feel like you’re not where you thought you’d be by now, you’re stuck or stagnant. Or you may have come into 2026 with a ton of great ideas, but the list got long real fast, and now you’re already feeling behind and overwhelmed. Yep, I’m all of the above.

It can be hard to look at the gap between where you are and where you thought you’d be, or where you should be–ohhh watch out for that one! And it can be discouraging to know that, despite how much you tried, you’re still not there, and the time and distance it will take to reach where you want to be keeps getting longer.

Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Just so you know–you’re not alone. In fact, most New Year’s Resolutions fail. A Forbes Health survey found that only 13 percent of people said their Resolutions lasted four months, the other 87 percent of people had already broken their Resolutions before then, and by six months, only 5 percent of people were still keeping their New Year’s Resolutions. And those were grown adults!

Clearly something isn’t working with how we typically make Resolutions, so maybe we should do things differently. I previously talked about how to handle When You Don’t Reach a Goal in ep. 113, if you need a refresher. To expand on that, here’s my angle on how to approach the New Year–a new view on Resolutions to help you keep them.

Give Yourself Grace

How come, when a friend doesn’t reach a goal, we will offer them loads of support, comfort, and encouragement. But when we don’t reach a goal, we tend to ruminate on what we did wrong, we repeat all sorts of critical self-talk we would never say to our friend, and we label ourselves as incapable, inadequate, and hopeless. Why do we reach out to lift others up when they fall, but we kick ourselves while we’re down? Why do we do that? We’ve got to do things differently.

So the next New Year’s Resolution you break or goal you don’t reach or mistake you make, I want you to give yourself grace. Show yourself the kindness, the understanding, the generosity that you would offer to a friend–this is self-compassion (more in ep. 120). Tell yourself that you know you tried hard, and even if you didn’t reach it yet, you’re still proud of your efforts. Point out that you did make progress and gain knowledge from this experience. Reassure yourself that you can still keep going if you want, and it’s okay if you don’t. Remind yourself that you believe in you, and others do too. That may sound cheesy right now, but you’d be surprised how much a self pep talk can help when you’re feeling low. So the next time you slip up, instead of judging yourself, tearing yourself down, making yourself feel even more horrible, please pause, and instead give yourself grace.

Give Yourself Realistic Expectations

Next–some like to say, “New Year, New Me!” I don’t. I think expecting to change multiple things about ourselves, our habits, and our lives is far too much pressure. Perfectionism (ep. 033) and body image (ep. 098) is something many girls struggle with as it is, so the messaging that a New Year means you need to become a different version of yourself is bogus. There is nothing wrong with who you are right now, and requiring yourself to instantly change is unfair and unhealthy. In addition to that, considering how incredibly busy you girls already are (ep. 031), a New Year’s Resolution is not a good reason to bite off more than you can chew. If you overload yourself with too many new commitments–like starting a dog walking business AND volunteering 10 hours a week at a senior center AND joining a competition team AND AND AND … you’ll either burn out or you’ll bail on what you said you’d do. While all of those sound like great ideas individually, starting them all at the same time isn’t a great idea.

So instead, give yourself realistic expectations. If you made a long list of New Year’s Resolutions, pick just a few to start with, preferably ones in different categories, like reading for 20 minutes a day, learning how to do a back handspring, and babysitting three times a month. Start there, and when you accomplish one or make it a solid habit, choose another Resolution to work on. And if you find yourself putting off a goal, maybe listen to ep. 104 Procrastination. The year is new, but you don’t have to change who you are. Give yourself realistic expectations as you set Resolutions and goals.

Give Yourself Time to Adjust + Good Pace

So many things in our lives today can be accessed super fast, if not instantly–streaming services, smartphones, social media, shopping, shipping. We’ve gotten so used to the rapid pace of our lives, that sometimes we expect reaching our Resolutions to come quickly too. And when they don’t, we feel frustrated that we’re not reaching them as fast as we should (there’s that word again) or we think a goal is taking too long so we give up on it. We’re a bit like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory–we want it now!

Do you know why freeways have onramps? Drivers entering the freeway need time to get up to speed with the flow of traffic. It would be nearly impossible–and dangerous–if drivers had to turn directly onto a freeway from a stoplight, they wouldn’t have enough time to increase their speed on the freeway before cars caught up to them. They would either veer off the road to avoid getting hit or they would cause a crash, and then they wouldn’t make it to their destination.

You too need to give yourself onramps with your Resolutions, meaning, give yourself time to adjust. Be patient as you try something new–after all, you’ve never done it before so you can’t expect to be great at it right away. Allow yourself to make mistakes (everyone does), and then get back on track and keep going. And if you find yourself comparing your progress with someone on social media, remember it’s full of highlight reels, rarely do we see the work it took to accomplish what they did.

Also remember to give yourself a good pace. You may want to rush into a goal head on, full of enthusiasm and energy, but that’s hard to sustain long-term. There’s an episode of the 1950s show I Love Lucy, where Lucy and her friend Ethel try working at a chocolate factory. At first they can handle wrapping the chocolates moving toward them on a conveyor belt. But then it picks up speed, and the chocolates are coming out rapidly, and the ladies are scrambling to keep up. It’s a funny scene to watch, but not to experience yourself. So along with giving yourself time to adjust, also give yourself a good pace as you work on your Resolutions.

To recap, my new view on New Year’s Resolutions is to give yourself grace, give yourself realistic expectations, and give yourself time to adjust and a good pace. I hope these help you keep your Resolutions, and if you want to tell me what you’re working on, I’d love to hear.

More New Year episodes

Also, here are some past New Year episodes that still apply today:

Last year’s INs and OUTs are still IN and OUT, ep. 117
For advice on Facing the Future year, listen to ep. 085
If you’d like to choose a Word of the Year again, check out ep. 056 for inspiration
The original Goals episode is number 006, and recently I talked about Visualization in ep. 140

2025 Year Reflection Worksheet Printable

I created another “Year Reflection” worksheet for 2025 so you can have a snapshot of your life’s highlights, lessons, and goals right now. There’s a spot to list your friends, books you read, music and shows you’re into, your interests and hobbies, the best experiences this year, things you’re proud of, what you tried and what you learned, and the goals you set. This worksheet is for you to print out, thoughtfully fill out, and post on your wall where you’ll see it, remember it, practice it, and believe it — that’s the important part.

Resources

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