Looking Forward with a 2026 WOTY

2025 was not a gentle year. It was a year where grief and hope shared space. A year of chaos and overwhelm and striving. It was a year that asked for endurance and persistence. I held it together, most days. I persisted – I kept going, did the re-dos, made the pestering calls, checked off the to-dos. And while many days I felt shattered on the inside, I never doubted I would survive. It was just the length of the ordeal and the fatigue of the fight.  My Word of the Year (WOTY – link here) was Patience, but it could more realistically have been Resilience or Endurance.

For my Word of the Year for 2026, I want to look forward, not back. I want to move from surviving, or  striving or enduring, to thriving. They say where your attention goes, so your energy flows.  And I want my attention and energy on a positive future, living fully again.

I considered staying with Resilience as a WOTY for 2026 as it came to be what I was in 2025. To celebrate the resilience that was so needed.  And for acknowledging how far we actually have come in the recovery journey.

I also considered Rebuild as a 2026 WOTY to reflect a full recovery for our house and to achieve a sense of emotional recovery for me. Although the rebuild on the inside (of me) is more a renovation with rewiring needed! In our environment of building recovery, the terms rebuild, restore, and renovate all have subtly different meanings.

I considered the phrases/word Look Forward or Move Forward or Hope as in “step into the new year looking forward with hope.”.  This feels aligned with of the Chinese New Year symbol next month of the Fire Horse, with its forward momentum and a dynamic, transformational year full of action and breaking old patterns. But it’s nothing grand, the inner transformation I want personally, nor is the rebuilding of the house a grand ambition.  It’s more take it one day at a time, keep going.  Resilience, inner awareness, persistence.

The year forward will be about forward progress, this I believe.  But I also know it will be messy and progress will feel too slow. I know I will continue to struggle with living life fully yet feeling stifled and limited, with managing the uncertainty and delays, and with my tendencies to over-do to distract and over-react to triggers.

And then I read “With the right thoughts, the right actions, the right intentions, 2026 can be an improvement.” (see link to that blog inspiration here)  I want 2026 to be an improvement, and I’m certainly an expert on thought and action!

I wrote in my journal on January 1, “And so the year begins with intention. Step forward with intention – Intention to do my best. Intention to be less reactive to the triggers. Intention to set and keep boundaries. Intention to get up every day and try to find the joy, the hope, the blessings. Live with intention, even on an imperfect day in an imperfect space.”

As the new year dawns, the road ahead feels endless (no house rebuild timeline yet). My spirit feels tired. But I’ve made it through this far, and I am still here, fighting the fight. I know I need to keep going, step by step. I know that even when life feels heavy, life is a gift.  Each day is a new day to breathe, to try again, to step into the day with intention.  Even when I start to second guess (once again) decisions made/actions taken, I need to take it one day at a time.

Look forward.  Rise each day, spark that glimmer of hope, and lean on my resilience. Get back to fully living my retirement lifestyle vision.  Be persistent and live each day with intention. 

My 2026 WOTY is Intention.
What is your WOTY if you choose one?

P.S.  Picture header is the cement block we got for Christmas (delivered days before the holiday) beginning to go into walls on Jan 3 – yeah, we have the beginning of walls!

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