New Year, Same You: How to Set Goals You Actually Achieve in 2026

Hello, hello, and welcome back to Crappy to Happy. Happy New Year. Welcome to 2026. Say goodbye to the year of the snake and all of the shedding of our old skin. And hello to the year of the fire horse, if you are into Chinese astrology. Bearing in mind, it is not the year of the fire horse until the Chinese New Year. So that's not coming until February. So don't worry, you haven't missed the boat. But much has been made of the fact that 2025 was the number nine year in numerology. Which is the completion of a cycle, the year of endings. Leading into this year, which is a one-year new beginnings, new energy. I'm feeling good. So I hope that you have had a lovely restful time and that you are feeling good about the year ahead as well.

There's a plane going over my house and it's very noisy, so I'll just wait. So typically at this time of year, first week back, I usually am putting out episodes to do with the fact that it is a new year and to help you to start thinking about and clarifying what it is that you are working towards or what you would like to achieve in the year ahead and to give you some tips, some advice, some suggestions for how you can optimize yourself and optimize your efforts to give yourself the best chance of making this a really great year. And again, there is nothing magical about the new year. About the 1st of January. I'm not a resolutions person. I have made no secret of this for many, many years— if you have been around for long enough.

I am a fan of meaningful goals. I am a fan of sustainable habits and habit change. I do have a master's in coaching psychology. I have worked as a life coach for more than two decades. So obviously, I'm about all of that stuff. I am also very much about saying no to the kinds of resolutions or the kinds of goals that set you up to fail. I am very much a fan of looking after yourself and your self-concept and having a lot of self-compassion and not holding yourself to ridiculously high standards. And then beating yourself up when you fail to achieve them. I'm also not a fan of buying into what you think you're supposed to do, what you think you should be doing.

All of this hype and there's been so much of it over recent years. I think we're coming out the other side of it now. Bloody morning routines and ice baths and this 25-step process that you have to go through to be the best version of yourself and how everybody should be making not just six figures anymore, but you should be making seven figures. And all of that stuff that is just to make you feel like you are never doing enough, that you are never achieving enough. Out with that, out, out, out with that. What we are about is being really connected with what is truly meaningful. What truly matters, and we are about. Prioritising your well-being and your personally chosen. Authentically meaningful goals and priorities.

Over and above any other noise out in the world, anybody else's expectations, any expectations that you've been buying into yourself that you might need to let go of. And just have a rethink about what actually does matter. So having said all of that, there is no question that at the start of a new year, we naturally, psychologically feel this kind of fresh start energy. It's a psychological turning point. We turn over a new page. We have this clean slate kind of fresh energy feeling about us and why wouldn't we want to embrace that and maximise that and use it to our advantage when it comes to making positive changes in your life or just rethinking and realigning your values and your priorities so that life feels more fulfilling and more meaningful for you.

So I'm always like anti-resolution, but I am not against harnessing and really. Embracing this kind of energy that is around at the moment, that is all about. Setting new goals, new priorities, reassessing, reviewing past experiences, and coming back into alignment again and clarifying again. Where you're going, what you're doing, where you're headed. Letting go of what doesn't work for you anymore. Giving yourself permission to do that. And focusing on what does matter. So I thought that I would share today my approach, my non-resolution resolutions, my very low-key resolutions. For this year. And I'm sharing this because it's just something that I decided I wanted to do for me. But as the more I thought about it and the more that I actually crystallised it in my own mind and wrote it down for myself.

The more I realised that there's actually, while I've been drawn to this idea instinctively, fairly intuitively, just based on how I know myself, I thought there was something here that could be potentially of value to you. And I also realised that there's probably actually a fair bit of science to back this up, this approach. So as you know. A year ago, right on a year ago, actually, it was the end of December. 2024. That I was diagnosed with ADHD and in January 2025, I started medication and that was quite a new a beginning for me. That was kind of, I had a lot of energy around, okay, this is it. Now I have a diagnosis and I have medication and now. Everything's going to be different. And everything was very different in 2025.

Not perfect. Improved in terms of focus and in terms of productivity, but lots to be desired still, which we don't need to go into today. But, you know, I've talked to you before on the show about how I, you know, getting that balance right and being able to actually take the time out for self-care and things like that. And I also realised that This is true. And I've said this before that Medication does give you focus, but it doesn't necessarily help you to organise or help you to know what to focus on or what to prioritise first. So there's still lots of areas where I invested energy that perhaps in the wrong things. And I also look back and realised that some of the things that I implemented in January last year, I did really well at sticking to.

And some things. kind of fell by the wayside, not in a, like I'd completely dropped them, but I just didn't, I wasn't as consistent as I would have liked to be. And I suspect in hindsight that partly there was a lot of this new year, new energy around. There was also definitely a lot of this, like everything's going to be different now with the medication. And by the way, I did say last year when I kind of came onto the podcast and I announced that I had been diagnosed with ADHD, I did say, 'I don't plan to be one of those people who makes ADHD their whole personality. Like, I don't want it all suddenly to be, 'oh, it's ADHD, it's ADHD.' Now, interestingly enough, it's probably come up more often than I had intended and I'm always a little bit conscious of not wanting to turn people off.

Buy that? But when I refer to ADHD. It is really because number one, it has given me a new perspective about how I work, how my brain works. And number two, every single time I do, somebody contacts me and says, 'That was really helpful.' I really appreciated that. And number three. I think even if you don't have ADHD, we are so scattered and unfocused and distracted in this world that we live in with all of our devices and technology. Like all of us are suffering with difficulties with attention and focus. So even though I say— or because of the ADHD or something to do with ADHD— without saying, 'oh, of course we've all got ADHD,' I think many more of us do than perhaps people realise, but I think it's still broadly kind of applicable.

Like I think most people. Still struggle to some degree with these same kinds of issues, all right? So that's just all my disclaimers about that. I just don't want people to be turned off. Look at me wanting to be liked, needing to not turn people off. I don't want people to be turned off and go, 'Oh God, here she goes again with the ADHD.' But for the people who it is helpful for, then that's why I'm going to keep on saying it. And if you're a person who keeps thinking, maybe I have got ADHD. Then I'm probably trying to convince you a little bit that maybe you do. So for me, I decided this year, gosh, it's a long-winded introduction, isn't it? I decided this year that I am setting the bar super, super low.

So last year I had five habits I wanted to not do every day, but I wanted to track. I wanted to track how many times I did some exercise, obviously. It's good for you. Even if it's just a walk or go to the gym or go to a yoga class or something like that, just how many days did I exercise? Reading for pleasure as opposed to reading for work. Obviously, meditation. I shouldn't say 'obviously' meditation. Meditation, because I am a meditator and I am a meditation teacher and it's the foundation of most things I do and teach. I think it's so fundamentally important. So I wanted to. Make sure I was being consistent with that. Learning. Something. So rather than always creating content, I wanted to prioritise and schedule.

The like you know courses that I've paid for. There's programs to do with um you know, my work that I have enrolled in and some of them I hadn't finished. So I wanted to make sure I was continuing to prioritize my own learning and development. What was my fifth one? I had five on my little habits list last year. Meditate, move. Read for pleasure, learn, and there was something else. Anyway, it doesn't matter. So I decided this year to just choose one. I have to say that I also found that really challenging to just choose one. I made a decision. That I wanted to just choose one habit, unbehaviour. Really low, low bar for success. And commit to doing that every day. Single day. So the every single day part is the part that's challenging, right?

It's The low bar, like that's easy. But last year where I had sort of four or five things and it was just keep a track of how often I do it and make a note each day that I do it. And I don't have to do it every day. I just want to be kind of measuring progress over the course of a week. I want to be able to look back and see that I kept a bit of a healthy balance and that I was doing these things in addition to all of my work stuff. But I really noticed that when I didn't tick them off and, especially, when I started to get really, really focused on work stuff and I really stopped doing those things, it should have been assigned to me to make some changes and to do something different.

But all it did was make me feel guilty. Like I would just stop looking at that. spreadsheet like at that little, um, it's actually a database in my Notion system which I set up in January last year and I still use my Notion database. I still use it. I love it. That was one of my priorities in January last year to set up a system I would stick with, not have a million different planners and trying all these different softwares, ClickUp and Asana and Trello and all those project management softwares that I pay for and never use. I just set up a free Notion database and really learned how to set it up and use it. And I still use it. So there you go.

But I noticed this five habits a day, not good, just made me feel shit when I didn't do them. So I decided to stick to one. Just one habit, one behavior and do it every single day. Now I'll tell you why I think that this is really important and I think it is really useful. When you don't do stuff, when you say you're going to do something and then you don't do it. It makes you feel. Crappity. And. It doesn't just make you feel crappy because you're not doing the thing and you kind of feel a bit guilty because you said you were going to do the thing and then you're not doing the thing. And that's not fun. Nobody wants to feel like that. Thank you.

The more that that happens, the more that you cultivate this sense of yourself as a person who doesn't follow through, as a person who doesn't do what you say you're going to do. And again, I'm just going to say that applies to a lot of us. It applies to a lot of people. But if you have ADHD. It especially applies to you because ADHD is characterized. Bye. Getting really excited about something. Being a great starter when you're interested in something new and then that interest, that dopamine wears off very, very quickly and then you stop doing it and it's really hard to sustain those things when there's a low dopamine, like there's a low reward. And so there's a reason, there's a neurobiological reason why this happens.

But in our mind, like in your mind, all it does is create a sense of yourself as a person who doesn't do what they say. And that is so damaging. It's so damaging for your self-esteem, just for your sense of self-worth, your self-concept. And so for me, choosing just one. and doing it every single day. The idea of that is to start to build not just the habit, but to build a sense of myself as a person who does stick to something. who does do the thing that they say, even if it is just for five minutes every day. So my one thing is meditation this year. I chose of all of those things and of all the things that I could do, meditation is foundational for me. It's foundational for my wellbeing.

It's a big part of my work. Like I said, it's a really foundational practice for me in my life and it's important and it's good for me and I teach it. So it is important that I maintain it and it doesn't have to be 20 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. It is just meditate every single day, even if it's five minutes or 10 minutes. Now, for me, usually it is longer than that. For me, usually it's 20 minutes. If I don't have as much time, I can do shorter. If I have more time, happily meditate for 30 minutes or longer. So, like I said, it's not actually about the behavior. The behavior is important. You want to pick something that is important to you and meaningful to you.

But more importantly, it is about the self-concept, the self-belief. That is generated when you actually can stick to something instead of stretching yourself and saying that you're going to do all of these things and then not doing them. So I started with one habit and do it every single day. Now, look, the idea— there's plenty of science to support the fact that consistency trumps intensity every single time. Consistency beats intensity, whatever you're doing. You are better to jog for three minutes every day than go for a 30-minute run on a Saturday and then do nothing else. I don't know if that's actually true from a physiological well-being point of view, but you know what I mean. Do a bit at the gym three times a week. Don't go to the gym once a month.

The consistency is the key. It's not 'go big.' It's 'go small,' but go regularly, go often, because it's building the habit. It's building the routine. It's so much more sustainable when it is a part of your routine, whatever it is that you want to do. And it's so much easier to make it sustainable when you keep the goal low, the benchmark low. So that's my number one. So you are welcome to think about that and how you might apply that in your own life. But I think it's really important just to know why that matters. And rather than write it off as being not big enough or effective enough or impactful enough. Consider more broadly the impact on your self-esteem and the power and the benefit of building a habit that you can actually maintain and sustain.

So moving on, my second non-resolution. Was, now I admit, I saw this on TikTok. Somebody did a TikTok on something about what you should do before the end of 2025 or what you should do at the start of 2026. And I was just mindlessly scrolling through. And one of the things was, choose one thing to go deep on. I thought, oh, I love this. It just resonated with me. And the reason that it resonated, I think, is because, again, I tend to be a person. Hey. Skims the surface of a lot of topics. I am interested in a topic and I will get a book. Or I'll watch some videos about it or I'll go on YouTube and I'll learn something about it and I get a little bit of information.

And I get enough information that I've got the gist of it, I understand it, I can use it and I can apply it. But I don't necessarily go deep and become an expert on it. And again, I'm going to say, I think this is especially true for people with ADHD, but it's lots of different personality types. We become these sort of generalists. We get just enough to get by. But we don't really do that deep learning, that deep work and get that sense of mastery necessarily. We probably haven't since we were at uni, you know, which is again, that's the reason I went back and did that coaching certification program because I wanted to go deep. In developing some more skills. Did I though?

I think I just did what I needed to do to get the certificate, if I'm perfectly honest with you. And I did a whole episode on that. As well last year. But choosing one, one topic, one area, one skill. What do I want to learn really well? What do I want to become really masterful at? What do I want to? What do I want to master? So, I'm happy to share with you if you're interested. I decided photography, digital photography, and I want to go deep on this year. I love it, love it. Photography and cameras. I will buy the cameras. I love the camera. Research the camera, buy the camera, never use the camera. Why? Because we have all got our iPhones. Because cameras are bulky and annoying to carry around, especially digital cameras.

Unless you're a photographer and that's what you do, it's just too easy and convenient to carry. Our phones around. And so I have cameras here that just collect dust, not lots of cameras, but more than I probably realistically need. And every time, again, I think, 'Oh, I just need a different lens.' I just need to get a different lens to take a different type of photo. And then I'll use the camera. Doesn't work. So having said that, having said that, I have booked a holiday to Africa later this year and I'm going on a safari and I want to take photos of the wild. wildlife and I had the camera here I just started researching a lens I thought I need to start practicing taking wildlife photos and I live near Richmond Park where there are wild deer everywhere like there's squirrels and foxes um and I thought if I just have a

a proper lens a zoom lens I can start to practice with it and I can start learning how to use it before I. get to Africa. So I did this, what I do, did this deep dive research. And what I ended up doing, long story short, is that I actually traded in my existing camera and lenses and I got a new camera and a new lens specifically for the wildlife, but one that is also kind of very multifunctional. I won't bore you with the details unless you're interested and you can ask me separately, email me. So I am determined. I am determined that this is not going to be a waste. I want to be able to. to go and take photos on this safari in Africa.

And I have spent too many years talking about wanting to do photography and take better photographs. Buying cameras and then never using them. And again, always feeling bad about that. And I. I think I need a hobby. I think I need something to get me away from my desk and away from work. And that's a good one. I'm naturally interested in it. So that's my 'go deep.' That's my 'go deep' in my personal life. And at work in my business, as I mentioned to you in my last episode at the end of last year, I am obsessed. Now, I don't know how long this is going to last, but I have. I have been obsessed with learning about AI and how I can use AI in my business.

And I tend to be quite techie. I really love tech. I love tinkering with tech. If some people aren't, some people are not interested in that at all, I could spend hours playing around with tech and websites and setting up. Tech stuff. I am tech support in our household. We all have our roles. I am tech support. If something goes wrong with the tech, that's on me. Does everybody else do that? Do you have things like that in your house? In my house, I'm tech support and interior design. My husband's always been grounds and maintenance. We just have our roles. I'm tech support in my house. And so that's interesting to me because it's quite a departure from psychology, right?

So it's not, you know, going and training in EMDR and it's not going and getting a certificate in family systems therapy or anything like that. I am obsessed with AI and I'm actually really excited to go and learn new skills and develop mastery in an area that is a complete departure from psychology, but which I think is going to be still really helpful. In my business and for the clients that I work with and really supportive of the work that I do as a coach, actually. I said I was only having one, but I kind of gave myself permission to have one that's more personal and one that's more business or work focused. And so I guess the first one, the daily habit builds that consistency into your routine.

The second one, the go deep, builds that sense of mastery. So instead of just skimming the surface, getting the gist, moving on, next shiny object, next thing. It forces you to go deep on something and to cultivate mastery. I think, again, it's really important for your self-concept, for how you see yourself and your confidence, to have something that you go deep on. Not 10 things. Not trying to become an expert in everything. One thing. In my case, two things. And it's early days. We'll see how that goes, but that's kind of my plan. This is all just an experiment. This is my plan. And the third thing is I thought, okay, so I've got consistency and I've got mastery. But I feel like there's something missing and I need like a third.

thing, a third pillar. And I realised that my other issue is that I will start the week knowing exactly what I have to do. I'm medicated, so I'm very focused. I sit at my desk. all day, probably too long, I sit at my desk, but I can still get to the end of the week and couldn't tell you any major thing that I actually completed. Like I've made progress towards a lot of things and I often will have a lot of. I'm working on multiple things. at the same time. But I really crave that sense of completion, of finishing, whether it's finishing the day or finishing the week with a feeling like I ticked off something important, something substantial that I got it done and so I just again it's all an experiment but I decided for myself that I would choose one task of all of the things that I have to do and I'll make progress on a lot of things.

But there has to be one that rises to the top. That is the one critical task. or project, or milestone. You know, it could be a part of a project. But I have to decide what that is. and complete it. by the end of the week. Now if I'm honest with you, I could probably make that a daily thing. But again, I don't trust myself to tick off one task every day. That sounds terrible, I know, but honest to God, this is the thing. I start on so many things, but the completing is the hard part. So I'm going to start with one really important thing that I have to get done. It could be a work thing. It could be a personal thing.

It could be something around the house that I just know needs to get done that's been kind of annoying me. But regardless of what else happens during the week, that one task is the priority and it has to be completed by the end of the week. So wish me luck with that because completion, not my strong point, not in advance. Like I get things done, but it's usually no matter how much lead time I have. It's always a last-minute rush. It's always a last-minute panic. It's always adrenaline-fueled. panicky situation. And there's obviously, there's still going to be that, that's still going to happen. But in terms of just cultivating habits and systems and with the focus on my self-concept and self-worth and my sense of myself as a person who gets things done.

Then, That's more. So what it is about. Even more so, I mean, obviously. It's going to help me to get closer to. getting things done and completing projects. That's all great. That's what it's about. But it's always also about the self-concept and the self-belief and self-trust, self-trust, self-trust. That's the one. Trusting that when you say you're going to do something that you get it done. So if you're listening to this now and you're thinking some of this sounds good, maybe I like this one, maybe I don't like that one. entirely up to you. But if you are thinking about how can you apply this in your life, if you think this might be helpful then. I really encourage you to kind of to take the it's almost like a shrink test, like a do less test, whatever you think.

Is your goal, your new year's resolution, or the thing that you want to achieve? Your daily habit, how can you like cut it in half and then cut it in half again? If you've got four things, can you choose one? Can you have the discipline to choose one? Because it's easy to have 10 things on your list. So easy to have 10 things, easy to have five things on your list. It's really hard to have one thing on your list. In the disciplined pursuit of less. You actually give yourself the best chance of creating the conditions for success, for creating consistency, and for at the same time, really enhancing your sense of self-belief, your self-trust. So make that barrier to success so low. Just keep it so doable, but every single day.

If there is a skill or something that you want to learn or master, could you choose one thing to go deep on? If you've got like three or four different things kicking around that you're interested in learning or studying or you'd like to know more about, instead of just skimming the surface of all of them, is there one thing— that you can really deep dive into, create some mastery, create some skill? In that. And if you have issues with completion, then maybe what's your completion cycle? Maybe you have no issues with completion. Maybe you finish stuff all the time. Maybe there is still value in just deciding what is the most important thing to complete. Instead of you just completing any random thing, like, it's about prioritising—like, what is the most important thing to complete?

Because sometimes we can complete lots of stuff that's not the important stuff because we get busy doing all the busy work and maybe we give ourselves that little bit of a dopamine hit because we've finished stuff, but it's not the important stuff. So, for you, if it's not the completion, then it's part of that process— working out what is the most important thing. If you're in business, if you're self-employed, if you're an entrepreneur. What is the most important thing? What moves the needle in your business? Do you really have to change all the branding and the colours on the website? Or do you actually need to send an invoice or send a quote to somebody? Do you need to? Ask for a sale? Do you need to raise your prices?

So what are you avoiding by doing all the busy work? Pick the thing that's going to make the difference and make that your completion task, get it done. So we're keeping the bar low, but I think we're going to make a lot better progress. Along the way. So look, I hope that is helpful for you. By all means, hit me up and share with me if you can relate, if you can resonate, if any of it's helpful. Share with me what your goals are so I can hold you accountable. I just wanted to share that with you the why that matters to me, and I guess just to let you know that it is very valid. You don't have to go big and bold. Low and limited, minimal and finite.

Let's just keep the bar low and optimise our chances of success. Next week, I will be back with Tiff Hall. I interviewed Tiff last year. I meant to get the episode out before Christmas. If you've been waiting. For my chat with Tiff and all about her sale of TXO and her, you know, going to 28 by Sam Ward and everything happening in her life. It will be out next week. So definitely tune into that. And in the meantime, enjoy the rest of your week. I cannot wait to catch you next week for another fabulous episode of Crappy to Happy.