Thank You, 2026! Gratitude Practice, The Science of Acting ‘As If’ & Celebrating in Advance

Unlock the hidden power of gratitude and future-focused thinking to set your year up for success and celebrate ‘as if’ all your ambitions are already yours.

Don’t wait for your end-of-year champagne-popping and social media wrap-ups to start celebrating 2026. Imagine starting your year feeling joy, abundance and gratitude for what’s coming - well before it even arrives. The science shows that gratitude, even in advance of your achievements, can rewire your brain, heighten your motivation and prime you for opportunities. 

The Science of Gratitude

Gratitude is about much more than fuzzy feelings. Research in psychology and neuroscience shows that gratitude changes how your brain functions and reacts over time. 

Happy and high-performing hormones 

Practising gratitude consistently improves your physical and mental well-being by activating areas of your brain associated with dopamine and serotonin. These are the neurotransmitters linked to happiness, motivation and reward. The ‘rewiring’ makes it easier to notice positive experiences and reinforce optimistic thinking. 

Reducing stress and strengthening resilience 

Studies show people who experience gratitude have lower levels of cortisol, the stress hormone. By reframing negative experiences, you also strengthen emotional regulation and support yourself in recovering quicker from setbacks. Large reviews and meta-analyses of gratitude interventions - such as journalling and guided exercises - consistently show, when compared to control groups, associations between gratitude and lower stress, better emotional resilience and improved psychological well-being.

Practical Gratitude Practices 

So, how do you give gratitude a greater focus in everyday life? Try these techniques:

Gratitude journalling

Shawn Anchor made the idea of gratitude journalling mainstream in The Happiness Advantage. The Harvard lecturer advocated for writing down three things that you’re grateful for daily. Anchor’s premise is that success doesn’t cause happiness, but rather begins with happiness. And it positively impacts your business outcomes, such as productivity. It rewires your brain for optimism.

His sentiment and own landmark research on happiness and human potential are supported by other preceding science. 

A ground-breaking gratitude study, “Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well‑Being in Daily Life” was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003.

In the research, social psychologists Robert A. Emmons and Michael E. McCullough divided the participants into three groups, where they were assigned to write one of the following daily: 

• Gratitude lists

• Record hassles

• Note neutral events 

After 10 weeks, the gratitude-geared group reported: 

• Great well-being and life satisfaction

• More positive emotions

• Few physical symptoms (e.g. headaches and colds)

The study supported evidence that deliberate, consistent gratitude practice has measurable psychological and physiological benefits. Gratitude shifts your attention from what’s lacking to what’s present, encouraging broader perspectives and reducing rumination on stressors. 

The acting ‘as if’ technique 

Acting ‘As If’ combines cognitive and positive psychology. It aims to use mental simulation of future success to prime behaviour and perception. Linking to neuroscience, imagining reward triggers real neural pathways. 

In the book Steal the Show, actor turned best-selling author and professional public speaker Michael Port, shares an imaginative acting technique known as ‘as if’. It’s a way of converting adverse circumstances into aspirational opportunities.

‘As if’ uses the brain’s power to anticipate and create a different way of seeing the world or behaving. A ‘disclosive space’  is the way we see the world and operate in it. Non-performers are described as seeing spaces outside of themselves as separate from them. While performers understand it’s a space they can step into and inhabit. A reminder that you can ‘perform’ in a role.

Acting ‘as if’ is not about being inauthentic. But rather, understanding that in different situations, you have different roles to play. Like athletes and top performers, acting ‘as if’ creates the neurological pathways to achieve your desired vision. For the everyday person, this might be aspiring content creators with a new Instagram profile, posting with confidence as a 1M+ followers mega creator. 

Celebrate in advance 

In the spirit of acting ‘as if’, celebrate in advance. Research supports that our brains actively respond to thinking about positive future events. 

Neuroimaging studies find that anticipating desired outcomes engages emotional reward networks and correlates with higher well‑being. Guided future thinking also increases vividness, pleasure, and motivation toward those events. So, celebrating in advance isn’t simply wishful thinking, it harnesses the brain’s natural reward systems to make your goals feel more real, more motivating and more emotionally potent long before they happen. The increased emotional resonance of your goals increases the likelihood that you will pursue and see success in those goals. 

Fantasying about your success does not replace action, but the positively-charged images make it more likely you will show up to take the necessary action.

Future-self scripting

Future self scripting is a practical way to combine acting ‘as if’ with celebrating in advance. It’s a method where you write about your life ‘as if’ your goals or desired outcomes have already happened, engaging your emotions and subconscious to reinforce motivation and alignment. 

Future-self scripting you write in: 

• Present and past tense 

• Vivid sensory detail

• Emotionally-charged content 

The mental rehearsal activates similar neural circuits as experience, especially in reward, planning and emotional centres. The anticipatory joy increases motivation and persistence. By scripting in the present or past tense, your subconscious mind aligns your perception and habits with desired outcomes, subtly influencing choices and behaviours. 

Importantly, your future-self scripting should be consistent (e.g. daily or weekly) to reinforce the neural pathways. And it should be paired with real action, so you're priming the mind and are motivated to action. 

Start your goals with gratitude

Starting 2026 with gratitude, anticipation and vivid celebration of your goals isn’t just feel-good thinking; it’s a science-backed strategy. So don’t just express your gratitude when good things come. Practise gratitude early and consistently to rewire your brain, reduce stress, and strengthen resilience. You’ll notice opportunities more clearly and maintain greater motivation. Acting ‘as if’ and future-self scripting harness the brain’s reward and planning networks. Use your gratitude practice frameworks to ensure 2026 is a year defined by intentional growth, joy and fulfilled potential.

For more on how I’ve combined gratitude journalling, acting ‘as if’ and future scripting as part of my everyday routine in one simple method, check out my previous blog, Create your ultimate day (in advance): Morning Pages & mini visualisations.

5. Refresh your space

Declutter your physical environment to remove the energy that is no longer serving your professional personal brand goals and align with the energy you want to attract. Some ways you might do this include: 

• Declutter your desk. Remove the old or stale energy to attract new energy flow. 

• Update your personal artefacts. If needed, refresh your photos or personal mementos. 

• Add life. Introduce plants. Do some research about the types of plants because shape matters in Feng Shui. 

• Balance the elements. In Feng Shui, five elements - wood, fire, earth, metal, and water - are essential for a balanced and harmonious environment. Curate your workspace to include each. If you want to deep dive, research more about how exactly each element can be used and where. 

Creating space for your professional evolution 

Attracting new energy to your career isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about consciously releasing what no longer fits and creating space for what’s next. Working with energy rather than against it, your professional personal brand thrives when it’s intentionally aligned with who you are becoming, not just who you were. Opportunities respond to intentionality. Momentum follows alignment. And confidence deepens when your external presence reflects your internal evolution.