Getting 2026 ready: My favourite New Year reset rituals
Step into 2026 with intention: experiment boldly, refresh your personal brand and visualise your goals to create a year of growth and purpose.
If you follow my blog, YouTube channel or podcast, you’d know I love an end-of-year, new year reset. The end of the year marks more than just a calendar change; it’s a chance to reset with intention, not just momentum. Rather than drifting into January on autopilot, why not step into the New Year with clarity, curiosity, and purpose?
From small experiments to a refreshed personal brand, the strategies and reset rituals I’m sharing will help me start 2026 aligned, energised and ready to evolve.
Make pacts
In my earlier blog, I shared how recently reading the book Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff has completely changed the way I look at goal setting. An obsessive goal-setter, the idea of time-bound, experiment-driven pacts, over goals, caught my attention. While goals are outcome-focused, pacts are process-oriented. Unlike a SMART goal, its focus on time is less about achieving a goal by a specific date, and more about setting an end date for your experiment. For example, “I will upload one new video every week in January 2025”. Your pacts can be quick and easy wins or longer and more intensive. It can be 10 days, 10 months or more. The choice is yours. The point is to commit yourself, collect the data and reiterate with a curiosity-driven mindset. Prioritising growth loops over fixed ladders is the smarter way to evolve.
Clear the canvas
The New Year is a chance to start fresh, so head into the new season with a clean slate. Do a deep clean and declutter your desktop, files, workspace and wardrobe to step into the new year feeling brand new, calm and in control. Don’t roll into the New Year with old baggage - reset, ready for 2026.
For ideas on curating your knowledge management systems, see my earlier blogs on Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain and The PARA Method.
Set the stage
Tiny changes can signal to you personally and the market that you’re entering a new era. Update your LinkedIn profile, banner and bio. Refresh the content and imagery on your personal brand website or other digital platforms. If you’re planning a rebrand, there’s no better time than a ‘New Year, New You’ launch. For tips on updating your LinkedIn profile, see my earlier blogs:
1-Minute wins to elevate your LinkedIn profile and professional personal brand (6 tiny tips).
Refresh your LinkedIn profile photo to elevate your personal brand
Create a vision board
As Neurolinguistic Programming proposes, the brain can’t distinguish between what is real and what is vividly imagined. So, detailed visualisation for desired outcomes becomes a form of mental rehearsal. Visualisation triggers your reticular activating system (RAS). Create a vision board to filter all the end-of-year noise and tell your brain what to focus on for your New Year. I love a digital vision board. It elevates your creative possibilities, can be kept private, and if needed, allows for easy editing to evolve as you do over this next year.
I create my vision board in Canva and save it to my laptop desktop. This way, I see it daily without forcing any vision board viewing into my already jam-packed daily routine.
I start my vision board in November and aim to work on it over the festive season, particular in the countdown to the New Year. I’ve found there’s something extra special about making some time for this on New Year’s Eve in particular.
I also set a theme for my vision board overall and capture this as a compelling phrase to anchor the centre of my board.
Curate your vision on Pinterest
Don’t stop visualising with your vision board. Get granular with the details and create a living visualising system using Pinterest. Create specific boards and sub-boards relating to the ideas you capture in your vision board. For more on vision boarding, see my earlier blog 7 Vision-Boarding Mistakes to Avoid.
Move with intention
A New Year is the perfect opportunity to create intentional change, both internally and externally. By making pacts, clearing your space, updating your digital presence, and visualising your goals, you set the stage for a year guided by curiosity and growth. Take the time to craft your vision, experiment boldly, and step into 2026 with focus, creativity, and confidence. The year ahead is yours to design.
