Resolutions Out. Intentions In.

Resolutions end. Intentions continue—hopefully, your intentions for 2026 lead you on a path towards growth.

As 2025 comes to a close, many of us are starting to think about what our resolutions will be as we ring in 2026.

I know I've spent the better part of my life doing exactly that.

When I was younger, resolutions revolved around performance—getting faster, stronger, better at whatever sport or pursuit had my attention at the time. As I’ve gotten older, the themes haven’t changed all that much. They’ve just shifted form: get back in the gym, cut out sugar, lose 20 pounds.

And like a lot of people, I usually hit January 1 with real momentum.

Until I miss a workout.

Or eat the first dessert of the year.

Or life inevitably gets in the way.

And just like that, something that felt firm and motivating on January 1 quietly stalls by mid-month.

At some point—probably through a coach, or more likely, my therapist—I was introduced to a different idea: what if we’d be better off setting intentions rather than resolutions?

Resolutions tend to be fixed, rigid, and outcome-based.

I will lose 20 pounds.

I will go to the gym four days a week.

I won’t eat dessert.

They draw a hard line in the sand. And the moment we miss a target, skip a day, or slip up, the resolution is effectively broken.

Intentions work differently.

They’re broader. Process-oriented. Directional rather than absolute.

Sometimes growth looks less like pushing forward and more like finding a place to steady yourself.

When we resolve to go to the gym four days a week, the first missed workout feels like failure. The resolution is gone.

But when we intend to prioritize our physical health, a missed day doesn’t erase the intention—it simply becomes part of the process.

The intention still holds. And so do we.

At first, this distinction sounded like semantics. But it didn’t take long to make sense. By reframing resolutions as intentions, we build compassion into the process. We give ourselves permission to be imperfect—and in doing so, we quietly increase our chances of lasting change.

Because the truth is, growth isn’t linear. It’s a long, winding journey filled with false starts, moments that feel disproportionately heavy, and stretches where progress is hard to see at all. More often than not, it includes far more messy failures than clean wins.

There are so many things outside of our control—the pace, the pressure, and the reality that life rarely unfolds as planned. And where broken resolutions tend to signal failure, intentions give us something steady to return to when things don’t go quite as expected.

So many of our struggles stem from the constructs we operate within—whether they’re imposed by others or quietly built by ourselves.

Some forms of growth take decades. Others last far longer than we can measure—especially when we lead with intention.

As we move into 2026, I’m less interested in perfect plans and more interested in sustainable ones. Intentions give us room to adjust, to return, and to keep going without losing ourselves along the way.

Wherever this next year takes you, I hope it’s met with a little more patience, a little more compassion, and the freedom to grow without needing to get it right all at once.

Happy New Year!