The 26 for 2026 List

It’s the best time of the year my friends! Maybe it’s because it’s my birth month, but something about the cold, post-holiday air gets me so excited about the new year and all that is to come. I’d liken my energy level to that of Superman in these dark, frost-bitten months.

This year I really struggled with my one-word theme. If you read the Year in Review 2025, you already know that much of the past year felt more like me getting owned by the year than the other way around. However, as the year came to a close and I started a new job, everything started to swing back towards neutral. As I was brainstorming my word for 2026, I wanted something striking that would symbolize the feeling of coming back from a year that knocked me down a little bit. I circled around thoughts of the phoenix rising from the ashes and wabi-sabi, an ancient art of Japanese mending what’s broken, but nothing felt quite right. Explaining my thinking to the bestie, she suggested something not on the list and this word felt quite right: PENDULUM.

What I like about pendulum is that it acknowledges the back and forth that is ever-present in life. Unlike words like wabi-sabi, there’s action and movement. To quote Blow: “Sometimes you're flush and sometimes you're bust, and when you're up, it's never as good as it seems, and when you're down, you never think you'll be up again, but life goes on.”

Confused about where this one-word theme and goals schema came from? Since 2019, the bestie and I have an annual goal-setting ritual as part of the Design Your Year challenge hosted by our favorite podcast, Happier. At a minimum, we create a list and choose a one-word theme, though I usually make the yearly podcast challenge one of my list items as well.

With that, here are the annual goals for 2026 to help swing the pendulum in the right direction.

Movement & Health

#1 Happier Challenge: Move 26

Every year the podcast does an annual challenge and this year the goal is to move for 26 minutes a day, something I most certainly have done for the past few years. Since my workout routine is fairly solid, I’m using the challenge to help me address my dwindling NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), or simply the non-exercise movement you have throughout any given day. While we lived in Germany, I was constantly hitting 10,000+ non-exercise steps a day between running errands and walking to and from transit lines, often ending the day with step counts in the 15-20K+ range. Since we moved back and I’m working remotely in a car-bound country, my daily steps have fallen to 10-15K most days. So for this aim, I’m setting a timer and taking small walk breaks during the workday to get those missing steps.

#2 Go on 20 Hikes

The bestie had this last year as a goal and with my love of nature I thought it would be a great aim for me too. Las Vegas and the surrounding area have amazing trails that are perfect for getting lost in nature year-round. Plus, we have plans to summit Mt. Charleston this year (a 16-18 mile round-trip hike) once it thaws out in the late spring or early summer.

#3 Try Pilates

One of the ways I prevent running injuries is by scheduling monthly massages. These aren’t your spa massages; these are painful sessions that I have to do some serious mental work to get through. In one of my post-marathon sessions, my therapist recommended that I try pilates to help gain strength in my stabilizing muscles. I’m always looking for ways to help my running, so I’m willing to give it a try!

#4 New State on the Race Map

Back in 2019, Mark made me a board for all of my race medals. It has a sticker decal map of the United States on it, so I can mark off each state as I finish races. I do laugh at how short-sighted this was in hindsight since I now have quite a few medals from other countries in the mix. Now that we’re back in the good ole USA, I’m ready to start chipping away at new states.

#5 Schedule a Mammogram

As much as I love to focus on the fun aspect of health, there’s the extremely important preventative maintenance that needs to happen as well. Now that I’m of that age, I need to schedule my first mammogram this year. And if I need to do something, I might as well get credit for it, am I right?

Creativity

#6 Daily Creative for 26 Minutes

I’ve been circling around how to set aside time for creative work for the past couple of years, mostly centered on blogging. The problem is, some days I just don’t want to pick up this hobby, and in 2025, I lost interest in almost all of my hobbies between an international move and working a soul-crushing job. So this is my gentle, open way to hold space for hobbies to make their way back into my life, 26 minutes at a time. I’m counting anything creative for this: knitting, blogging, or any other artistic endeavors that appear this year (spoiler alert for another goal further down). What doesn’t count? Anything that consumes, which includes reading.

#7 Take a Pottery Class

I have thought about this nonstop since we landed in Vegas. I took pottery as a junior in high school and loved it. I would spend most days after school at the wheel, just shaping the clay and improving my skills. Las Vegas has several pottery shops that have classes and open studio time, so I would love to jump back into this hobby, now that I have more free time.

#8 Edit 6 Batches of Photos

I’m not even going to go into what the backlog looks like. This aim is just to edit 6 different batches, no matter the year. Also, to clarify what I’m considering a batch: if it’s from a vacation, then it’s all days of the trip.

Home

#9 Finish 2 House Projects

Obviously, we still have some areas of our move that need to be addressed (like organizing the garage), but we’re mostly moved in now, which means we’re ready to move on to phase two: projects. I have some ideas for painting certain rooms, but the main projects I would love to tackle this year are renovating our guest and master bathrooms, both of which are stuck in the early 90s. If you’ve had the pleasure of staying at our house, then you already know how much of a facelift the guest bathroom needs. Additionally, I’d like to revamp our closets, which are massive but not making wise use of the space. TBD on whether or not the closets are a DIY or get hired out.

#10 Plant an Outdoor Garden

Our backyard has this partially shaded patio area that’s sitting empty right now. I was inspired to create a little garden after visiting my brother’s house over Thanksgiving. Also, I want to give Mark a space for his “experiments,” like growing cilantro from seeds, that’s not on the kitchen windowsill.

#11 Fill Flower Boxes

This goes along with the garden. The previous owners of our house left some long wooden planters and pots in the backyard and it was a little past planting season by the time we arrived in the hot heat of summer. I’m not quite sure if I want to do seasonal flowers or plants yet, but I have a little time until spring to figure it out.

Connection

#12 Make In-Person Plans with someone Six Times

I think at this point most of us are aware of the loneliness epidemic, and losing your community when you move every three years or so makes it even more challenging to establish connections. I love all of my friends, but unfortunately, many of them live in a different time zone. Here’s to (hopefully) making plans with the few people I do know in Las Vegas and maybe making some new connections.

#13 Find a way to make local connections

I know this one seems similar to making in-person plans with friends, but it’s important to me to find my people here. We all just need people we can text to meet up for coffee on a random Wednesday.

#14 Send Holiday Cards

At this point, I think this has been on the list for at least the past 3 years. Unfortunately, they haven’t happened, but I’m hoping it comes to fruition with a more stable year and easier access to a post office. If you’re one of the ones that faithfully sends a holiday card year in and year out, know that I love receiving them and they live on our fridge throughout the season (and then some).

#15 Take the Annual Girls Trip International: Eurotrip

The bestie is all set to move to Germany this spring so naturally we all decided that the annual girls’ trip would be to visit her! We’ve already slotted the dates for early December so that everyone can enjoy the Christmas markets together. Unbeknownst to the group, I’ve already deemed myself the unofficial tour director since this may be one of the few areas I have extensive knowledge in. Go ahead, just read the post on the Best Christmas Markets in Europe. I’ll wait.

Life Admin

#16 Run an App Subscription Audit

No changes this year, just simply observing how frequently I use the apps that I pay for annually: Peloton & Headspace. I’ve used ChatGPT to help me determine what my utilization thresholds should be for both apps, so we’ll see if they make the cut in 2027.

#17 Annual Trip Planning Summit

This is something that Mark and I did our last year in Germany to ensure we hit all the places we wanted to go. Basically we spent one weekend tallying up PTO counts and slotting trips into place throughout the year. This will be especially important now that I’m back in the workforce and have a little less schedule freedom than before. I’m sure this will look differently than it did while we lived overseas, but it does help make sure that you actually take the trip instead of just talking about it.

#18 Closet review: Get Work From Home Fits

Since I’m not much of a shopper, I feel like this one makes it onto the list every few years. Here’s the thing: I’ve been working incredibly hard on my fitness goals for the past few years, and as a result, a lot of my old clothes just don’t fit my new body. Also, since I’m now in a work from home role, I want to have more things in my closet that are not only cozy, but tailored and look well put together for my Zoom meetings.

#19 Organize closets

Obviously depending on whether or not we achieve our house project goals will dictate the follow through on this aim. When we moved, we focused on organizing all the high visibility areas first. As a result, everything is haphazardly shoved into closets. Seriously, my yarn stash is a mess; don’t look at her.

Entertainment

#20 Go to a Show

We live in the entertainment capital of the world. It would be a shame to not take advantage of that. Here’s to making sure we get the tickets and see the show… even if it means having to go to The Strip. (Yes, the stereotype is true—locals never go to The Strip.)

#21 Read 52 Books

And so a frequent repeat finds itself on the list again. I think reading more landed on one of my first ever lists, and in 2020, I unexpectedly read 52 books in the course of the year! Since then, it’s been a bit of a background goal for me. Some years, I have zero issues hitting the mark, and others, like this past year, I fall short by almost half. I hit a major slump between the chaos and not quitting books I wasn’t into, so for accountability sake, I think it’s time to move this goal from the background back into the limelight. I’m also hoping to restart my monthly book blogs, so if you’re a fan, stay tuned!

#22 Plan a Basic Bitch Day for the Fall Colors

Back when we lived in DC, we tried to explore the East Coast as much as possible since it was one of our least explored corners of the USA. Since my favorite season is fall, we took a weeklong camping trip in Vermont to see the fall colors. It was life-changing. I don’t know whether this aim will take us near or far this year, but I want to do something to celebrate the season again.

#23 Visit 2 New National Parks

During our first Vegas tour, we spent a ton of time hiking in Zion. We also agreed that as our dogs are very much in their golden years of life (13.5 and still going strong!) our priority is to spend our precious remaining time with them and including them in our travels as able. Luckily, we live within driving distance of so many national parks so that’s where we’ll go on our travels for the foreseeable future!

#24 Go to Spring Training

This one may be a little bit more for Mark, but I’m never one to turn down a new travel opportunity. Mark loves going to MLB games any time we travel to a new city and has wanted to go to spring training for a couple of years now. Luckily, we know quite a few people in Phoenix willing to let us crash at their house during spring training.

#25 Go to 6 VGK Games

Mark and I have been huge VGK (Vegas Golden Knights) fans since the team first dropped the puck in Las Vegas in 2017. We’ve faithfully kept up with the team even while living abroad, so when we learned we would be moving back to Las Vegas the real debate began: do we pull the trigger and become season ticketholders? Ultimately, we decided season tickets were a little beyond our bandwidth for this current stage of our lives (there’s 54 home games in a season). This is going on the list to make sure that we actually go to the games instead of just watching from the sofa all season.

#26 FREE SPACE

Always my favorite goal! I can’t wait to see what happens this year and gets the highlight spot.

So there you have it. My 26 for 2026, complete with a one-word theme that I hope will keep me grounded and strong this year. As always, there will be a recap at the end of the year so you can see how things played out. In the meantime, I’d love to know about your approach: Do you make a list of goals each year, or do you choose a theme? What’s worked for you, and what hasn’t? Drop a comment and let’s swap inspiration. I’m all ears for new ideas!

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