A Different Way to Clarify the Year Ahead

A Question That Stayed With Me

Each week, I meet with four other professional coaches I respect and admire. We’ve been meeting together for ten years now. The membership has shifted over time, but the group itself has been a steady anchor in my professional development.

Two Questions Worth Sitting With

When we met recently, one of the coaches suggested that when we gather after the first of the year, we use our time to explore two questions together: what each of us is up to personally and professionally in 2026, and what challenges we anticipate navigating as the year unfolds.

Those questions stayed with me.

Turning Reflection Into a Process

This morning, I sat down to answer them for myself. What started as a simple reflection turned into something more structured. By the time I finished, I had written a personal manifesto for 2026 and, alongside it, a step-by-step process that anyone could use to answer those same two questions.

Naming What the Year Is Really About

These questions invite you to describe what feels true about the year ahead, both personally and professionally. They help you clarify what the year is about and name the challenges you anticipate navigating as it unfolds.

Making the Process Available to Others

When I finished, I realized that the process that had helped me arrive at my own answers could be used by anyone else seeking to answer the same questions for themselves. I thought about how I’d arrived at my answers and documented the process. Here’s a link to what I am calling the Aspirational Year Reflection Worksheet.

Accounting for the Challenges Ahead

After I had written down some of the things I wanted to accomplish and what I wanted to shift in 2026, it occurred to me that there would be challenges. Of course there would be. Any time I try to stretch and explore new territory, parts of me get scared. Other parts like my ideas so much that they bulldoze more conservative or reluctant parts. As I noticed this, I realized it would be helpful to acknowledge and address the challenges I was likely to face rather than be surprised by them later.

Learning From Predictable Responses

Some of my predictable responses have helped me move through challenges in ways that support progress and flow. Others have slowed me down or stopped me altogether. One part of the process, then, is simply naming the challenges I anticipate. Another part is noticing how I have tended to respond to similar challenges in the past and deciding, ahead of time, how I want to respond when they show up again so I can stay focused and oriented to my intentions.

Staying Oriented When Things Get Hard

One of the outcomes of this process is a set of questions I can return to throughout the year. These questions help me reorient when I feel challenged or off course and remind me of what I said this year is about and how I intended to meet it. For example, when I notice a familiar urge to push harder and try to force progress, I now have questions I can ask myself, like, “Am I pushing, or am I in the flow?” or “Is it time to step back and stop pushing so hard until I feel rested and inspired?”

Why This Approach Works for Me

What I appreciate about this process is that it doesn’t require certainty about how the year will unfold. It simply asks for honesty about what I want the year to be about and thoughtfulness about how to respond when familiar challenges arise.

If you’re curious, I invite you to try the worksheet with the year ahead in mind.