My big, overarching goal for 2026 – the one I think could actually change my life, as long as I consistently try my best to accomplish it.
August 24, 2026
On TikTok (which is always the culprit), my FYP was filled with people’s best New Year’s tips, advice, goals, preparations, resolutions, and rebrand strategies during the week before 2026.
It’s only January 24th when I’m writing this, but late December of 2025 on TikTok already feels like a super nostalgic time. I’m always really excited towards the end of the year – especially a Hellish one like 2025, which made my skin itch as I battled against the claustrophobia that came with being trapped in that stupid, painful, stupid year – because it always feels so hopeful.
I’m ambitious throughout each year; I treat every month like a fresh start, and I consider every quarter a much-needed reset and an opportunity to get back on track if I’ve lost my way.
Yet the feeling of entering a new year is undefeated.
Nothing compares to the optimism I feel when I know I have 365 brand-new, totally fresh days ahead of me. 365 days I can utilize to reach my overzealous yet not impossible and often ultimately accomplished goals.
So, when I saw TikTok crawling with 2026 rebrand videos, I was ecstatic.
And even though it was a week before the New Year and I hadn’t sat down to create a new Notion workspace or write down all my goals the way I usually do at the end of November – since I was too busy working myself to death, juggling clients and building my brand while being pushed past my breaking point daily as I struggled to cope with the thought of my aging, health-scare-having parents’ mortality – I was still feeling positive that I was going to achieve them.
It’s just that I didn’t quite know what they were, that’s all.
I mean, I knew what my usual goals were, and they hadn’t changed. Make more money, feel like the accomplished professional you want to be (and have to realize you are), read more books, publish a book (eventually), listen to more music, work with more musicians, etcetera, etcetera.
But I knew that I needed a bigger goal.
Not an individual goal that would make me feel proud for a period of time before I moved on to letting out anxious sobs over the next thing, but an overarching goal that would actually change my life. Because I really needed a change.
I have not been happy in years. But I have! But I have not.
I’ve experienced plenty of happy moments, but I guess they’ve felt more like…moments.
Tucked in between a bunch of stress and constant worries, constant struggles, constant scarcity mindset, constant doubt, constant anxiety – heightened by the nonstop, uncomfortably quick passing of time.
But I realized that was my fault. I was working hard toward my goals, being strategic about my next moves, trying to make my life better. I was manifesting the things I thought would magically improve my circumstances, and repeating positive affirmations I didn’t believe in throughout the day and night. Yet I felt like I was trapped in a never-ending, depressing cycle of unhappiness, overworking, and watching time fly quickly enough to make me burst into tears every time I thought about how much of it was passing me by.
My circumstances are often unfavorable, and I am not living the life I dream of living yet – but that doesn’t give me the right to spend every moment working or worrying or both. And then wondering why I feel like I’m not really living life.
During my endless scrolling through TikTok, I came across a random video of someone talking about their word of the year for 2026. I liked the idea of having a single word that reminded me of what kind of energy I wanted the year to have and what my main goal of the year would be. I didn’t expect that I would take selecting a word for the year so seriously, but I ended up thinking about it for days.
What one word could set the tone for and describe the energy my entire year should encapsulate?
After days of thinking about it, along with praying relentlessly for the next year to be better than the last and pouring my thoughts about wanting to actually feel like I’m enjoying my life into my journal, I finally came up with one.
Kinda.
Well, it’s really two, because I cheated since I couldn’t just stick to one. But whatever.
Anyways, the word is romancivity.
My big, overarching goal for 2026 – the one I think could actually change my life as long as I consistently try my best to accomplish it – is to bring more romance and creativity into my life.
(And whimsy, too. But romancivitwhimsy isn’t as nice a word, is it?)
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