My 2026 Goals (and Word of the Year)

It’s that time again for another list of annual goals and I have to admit that this year my list is a doozy!

Before I dive into the goals I’ve set, I thought I would share a little behind the scenes of what inspired this list. As I thought about 2026, I had a few things on my mind. In particular, I wanted to:

• pursue a lot of different things all at once because of lines of inquiry that I’ve been exploring for several years now;
• have a lot of variety of things to choose from throughout the year;
• have some accountability for learning some new things or completing some projects that I have committed to;
• have some accountability for wellness, balance, and rest (in the past I’ve called some of these things “maintenance” goals);
• focus on adding depth to different areas, but not broaden out to any particularly new areas this year since my plate has been feeling pretty full for a couple of years now.

So, with all those things in mind, I identified eight main areas of goals:

1. yoga practice, yoga teaching and yoga therapy study
2. coaching and coach training
3. project management, strategy, and change management
4. writing and publication
5. reading (maintenance)
6. health and wellness (maintenance)
7. rest and recovery (maintenance)
8. future proofing

I also decided to keep my quarterly TBD goals because I love to have room for the unexpected in what I document throughout a year.

(If you want to hear more about my process for developing this goals, as well as hear me elaborate on some of them, you can check out this podcast episode.)

Once I started brainstorming goals in all of these different areas, I ended up with almost 70 goals on my 2026 list!

And that’s how I came up with my word of the year, which is moonshot.

Moonshot has several different definitions including “an extremely ambitious and innovative project,” “an exceptionally ambitious attempt to meet a goal,” or “a monumental goal that requires massive effort.”

Now, if you know anything about me by this point, you know that I’m a shoot for the moon and land among the stars kind of person.

So I just decided to go for it.

I decided on eight goals for each category, and the last goal on each list of eight (marked with *) is the one that feels most like the “moonshot” or the hardest one for me to accomplish.

Without further ado, here are my 2026 goals broken down by category:

Yoga Practice, Yoga Teaching and Yoga Therapy Study

• Complete a course on practicing and teaching pranayama
• Complete a course on teaching prenatal yoga
• Complete Yoga Therapy Foundations course materials, retreats, and assignments
• Complete one Yoga Renew course each month
• Complete one Commune course each month
• Continue my weekly guided meditation offering in Prolific
• Take at least one virtual guided yoga class per week
• *Design a differently themed yoga sequence each week to further develop my teaching style

Coaching and Coach Training

• Explore team coaching approaches and tools
• Collect at least 10 MCC level recordings from coaching engagements (currently I need 3 more to reach 10 so this is partially done)
• Start mentor coaching engagement for my MCC credential
• Decide timeline for coach training website revision / somatic coach training website
• Fill more pro bono coaching experience hours 
• Work toward 2500 hours of coaching experience (about 330 left to do after accounting for pre-scheduled group coaching for this year)
• Create a multi-year planning retreat offering for 2027
• *Outline course and begin manual draft for somatic and trauma-informed coaching methods

Project Management, Strategy, and Change Management

• Try 5 new-to-me podcasts on project management, strategy, or change management
• Design and complete PM plenaries for April conference
• Try out PMI Study Hall app
• Learn about core concepts of organizational design
• Complete listening to 15 Prepcast series podcasts on PM leadership
• Map PDUS for PM by Design courses to be applied to PMI training (and offer PM courses again in 2026)
• Complete 50 additional videos for workflow YouTube channel
• *Complete competency-based data analytics certificate

Writing and Publication

• Draft a multi-year book publication strategy
• Outline my next book project
• Begin my next book manuscript draft
• Complete a 2-day minimum writing retreat
• Post regularly on LinkedIn
• Finalize the outline and planning for new business product project
• Write 10 poems for my ongoing collection
• *Write book proposal / secure publisher

Reading (maintenance)

• Watch 10 book to movie/show adaptations
• Choose one random TBR card per week (52 total for the year)
• Stay current on magazine subscription reading
• Publish TBR and debrief videos for YouTube each month
• Read from my 26 Series for 2026 list (I’ll share this list on my blog soon!)
• Complete monthly reading goals/challenges (these are self-designed)
• Read 400+ books throughout the year
• *Start publishing book reviews on the workflow channel

Health and Wellness (maintenance)

• Walk/run 15k steps on average each day
• Complete full body health scan
• Take 10 un-time-bounded naps
• Work up to running a 10k distance (6.2 miles)
• Practice meditation, asana, and pranayama each day
• Log 25k minutes in the Peloton app by the end of the year
• Journal every day with Better Every Day prompts
• *Complete 10,000 challenge for push ups, squats, and lunges in 2026

Rest and Recovery (maintenance)

• Take off at least two evenings per week from client meetings
• Engage in 30 minutes of recovery activities each day (vibration, compression, massage, stretching, nap, etc.)
• Complete a quest-based video game from start to finish
• Schedule at least one massage each month
• Complete subscription challenge each month (where I watch something from each of our streaming services)
• Take at least two 2-week vacations in the year 
• Take a minimum consecutive 2-day do-nothing (i.e. non-working) vacation
• *Say “no” or “not yet” to at least three opportunities that come my way

Future Proofing

• Make an alternating year sustainability schedule for business programs/courses
• Research and decide on adding an employee to my business
• Start working with a financial advisor
• Listen to daily news and tech podcasts
• Floss every day
• Get wills drafted
• Pay off 60% of the current mortgage amount by the end of the year
• *Create a 10-year plan (with this planning kit)

Now that might seem like a lot, but I’ve already moved about 15 goals to a future 2027 list, so I did practice at least a little self-constraint!

I’ll be updating on my progress on these goals each quarter, so stay turned for that. I’ll also update on my usual quarterly TBD goals of what might come up throughout the year that I wasn’t anticipating.

Have you set any goals for this next year?