Planning for a "Full" Year (not a perfect one)

Detaching from rigid outcomes and learning to ride the waves of a full year

A couple of years ago I had to break up with New Years as I had known it, because I was going about it all wrong. 

For years I would be so hopeful and excited for the “best year ever” and then find things falling short a few weeks into the year. A hiccup, detour, closed door - something - would make me feel like all the hyped up energy was for naught.

This pattern wasn’t just within me: Inevitably and early each year a sad, disappointing, or disruptive headline would cause a resounding chorus that the New Year was “already ruined.” 

I would go from a sense of excitement to dejectedly figuring out how to “ride out” the remaining months until it became time for a new prospect at the end of December. 

However, when I really started to think about this energy it just didn’t make sense to me. After all, life is, usually, everything all at once. Some events have greater ripple effect and require greater depth of inner healing and transmutation to come out on the other side, but when we are open to it, I find that most of the joy coincides with the grief, most of the satisfaction is on the other side of disappointment, and a lot of our possibility is rooted from redirection from where we thought we wanted to go / were going.  

What if we expected, planned for, held space for 2026 to be full of everything? Joy, hope, grief, disappointment, possibility, excitement, failure, and success?

What would it feel like to really understand life’s baseline for what it is - waves that retreat and then return, a pendulum steadily swinging back and forth between the good and the tough, and all of it perfectly seasonal and cyclical? 

What happens when we detach from the rigid outcome of what a good year should be and instead expect - and allow - a full year to happen?

When things get a little upside down or feel like the walls are closing in, the mantra I repeat until I begin to see things differently is “I am safe, I have space, and I have choices.”

What I found from the shift from wishing and hoping for a good or perfect year to expecting (and allowing) a full one brings exactly these things - an ability to look for and build safety within, more space to see things fully, and more choices in how we reflect on what transpires and then decide how to proceed. 

 In short, it keeps me in the drivers seat, still the master co-creator of all things in my mind and world, and (as always) open and available to becoming stronger and more adept at navigating what comes. It sets the scene for growth and possibility no matter the external circumstances and keeps me in the business of becoming exactly more me. 

Reflections

• As we move forward with all things 2026 reflect on how you are framing your year. Is it setting yourself up for the kind of growth and expansion you want, or are you attached to a fixed definition of what the year should be?
• As ever, what is it that you truly, deeply want? What causes a deep inner glow of energy that nudges you forward?