How To Make 2026 The Best Year Of Your Life

Start with Excitement, Not Goals

Use Dreamlining to Find What Truly Motivates You

• Ask what would excite you rather than what you want to have or achieve.
• Identify the activities and experiences you actually desire instead of arbitrary milestones like "becoming a millionaire."
• Choose a 6-month or 12-month timeline and define what you want to do, have, and become by that point.
• Create goals exciting enough to give you a reason to get out of bed each morning.

Define Your Why Through Fear and Reward

• Identify your dream circumstances and what would make life genuinely fulfilling.
• Use fear setting to recognize what would be terrible for you if nothing changed.
• Consider the pain of staying where you are for the next six months doing exactly what you're doing now.
• Establish strong motivators like never missing your kids' games or avoiding financial stress.

Break Down Unrealistic Goals into Actionable Steps

Select Three Big Goals Across Key Life Areas

• Choose one goal each for health, wealth, and purpose to maintain balance while making progress.
• Make goals unrealistic but exciting to create genuine motivation.
• Reverse engineer each goal by breaking it down into smaller, manageable steps.
• Calculate exactly what you need to do by dividing annual goals by four for 90-day targets.

Create Weekly and Daily Action Plans

• Identify one main priority each week that would make your week feel successful if completed.
• Add secondary tasks that support your goals but aren't critical to weekly success.
• Break weekly plans into daily tasks with one primary action item per day.
• Stack small actions consistently rather than attempting massive changes overnight.

Optimize Your Environment for Success

Curate Your Inputs Strategically

• Surround yourself with like-minded people who are on similar journeys.
• Consume content aligned with your goals through books, podcasts, and videos.
• Watch others succeed in your target area to normalize achievement and build belief.
• Eliminate negative influences that pull you away from your objectives.

Cut Out Dopamine-Draining Distractions

• Remove short-form content like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts from your daily routine.
• Recognize that instant dopamine from scrolling prevents you from working for meaningful rewards.
• Consider eliminating all social media during intense goal-pursuit periods.
• Replace consumption with creation by shifting from input to output activities.

Count the Cost and Commit

Understand Every Goal Has a Price

• Calculate the time investment required for your desired outcome (50 videos for YouTube success, 100 hours for pickleball mastery).
• Identify what you must sacrifice to make room for goal-directed activities.
• Accept that achieving top 1% results requires years of consistent effort, not months.
• Be honest about your willingness to pay the cost, or release the goal without guilt.

Track Progress with 90-Day Cycles

• Use 90-day segments because they're short enough to maintain urgency but long enough to see real progress.
• Review and plan weekly to ensure you're taking steps toward your quarterly targets.
• Spend 15 minutes daily on deliberate actions that move you closer to your goals.
• Stack weeks and months of consistent effort to create compound results.