Did 2026 sneak up on you too? Well now the air is thick with ambitious resolutions and transformation promises. Trust me, I’ve seen my local gym attendance this week. Social media feeds overflow with before-and-after photos, productivity gurus mapping out their 5 AM routines, and friends announcing their plans to run marathons, launch businesses, and completely reinvent themselves, all before March!
It’s intoxicating. It’s also exhausting.
This year, what if we chose a different approach? What if instead of reaching for the stars at breakneck speed, we honored the ground beneath our feet?
The Comparison Trap
We live in an age of curated highlights, where everyone’s wins are on display and their struggles are tucked neatly out of sight. When your colleague posts about their morning yoga practice, you don’t see the three days they skipped. When a friend shares their meal prep Sunday, you don’t know about the pizza they ordered on Wednesday.
The danger isn’t in their sharing, it’s in our comparison. We measure our messy reality against someone else’s polished presentation and inevitably come up short. We forget that we’re comparing our Chapter 3 to someone else’s Chapter 20, our rough draft to their edited version.
The Cost of Overreaching
There’s a particular kind of enthusiasm that strikes in early January, you know what I’m talking about. A feeling that this time, everything will be different. We stack goals like Jenga blocks: lose 30 pounds, write a novel, learn Spanish, renovate the kitchen, start a side business, run a 10K, read 100 books (yes I actually made this a goal one year!), master meditation, and finally get organized.
Then February arrives. The tower topples. And we tell ourselves we’ve failed, when really, we just built something that was never meant to stand.
Overcommitment doesn’t just lead to abandoned goals, what it does is erodes our trust in ourselves. Each time we set unrealistic expectations and fall short, we reinforce a story that we’re not disciplined enough, strong enough, or capable enough. But that story is false. The problem wasn’t you. It was the plan.
Setting realistic goals doesn’t mean thinking small. It means thinking clearly.
A realistic goal considers:
- Where you actually are, not where you wish you were
- The time you actually have, not the time you imagine you’ll create through sheer willpower
- Your real energy levels, accounting for your job, relationships, and the fact that you’re human
- One or two priorities, not everything at once
Realistic goals are rooted in self-knowledge rather than self-judgment. They acknowledge that growth happens in seasons, not overnight. They recognize that sustainable change is built through consistency, not intensity.
Building Your Own Blueprint
This year, try this: before setting any goal, ask yourself three questions.
First: Why do I want this? Not why you should want it, or why it would look good, or why everyone else is doing it but WHY you, specifically, genuinely want this in your life. If the answer is rooted in shame, comparison, or external pressure, please pause. Those foundations most likely won’t hold.
Second: What’s the smallest version of this that would still matter? If you want to exercise more, what if you committed to ten minutes three times a week instead of an hour every day? What if “reading more” meant one chapter before bed rather than 100 books? Small, consistent actions create lasting change. Grand gestures create great stories…until they don’t.
Third: What will I say no to? Every yes to something new is a no to something else: your time, energy, and attention are finite. If you’re adding a goal, what are you removing? If the answer is “nothing,” you’re overextending and will likely fail in your best efforts.
Your Mantra for 2026
When the comparison creeps in, when the urge to do more, be more, achieve more starts whispering, return to this:
“My pace is not a race. My path is my own. I have done enough today.”
Say it when you see someone else’s highlight reel. Say it when you’re tempted to add just one more thing to your plate. Say it when you feel behind, less than, not quite measuring up.
Your pace, the speed at which you can sustain growth without burning out, is not a race. It doesn’t need to match anyone else’s.
Your path, the specific combination of goals, values, and priorities that make sense for your life, not theirs. It doesn’t need to look like what works for someone else.
And enough for today, the progress you made, the effort you gave, the simple fact that you showed up. Well, that actually is enough. You don’t need to do more to earn rest, peace, or self-respect.
The Practice of Enough
Setting realistic goals is ultimately a practice in self-respect. It’s saying: I will not betray myself by promising what I cannot deliver. I will not abandon my present life in pursuit of an imagined future one. I will not measure my worth by someone else’s yardstick.
This doesn’t mean complacency. It means building a life that’s sustainable rather than spectacular, consistent rather than extreme, and deeply, genuinely yours.
As 2026 unfolds, there will be countless invitations to do more, be more, and want more. Some of those invitations will be right for you. Many won’t be.
Your work is to know the difference and to have the courage to honor what you know.
Your pace. Your path. Your enough.
Holiday Prep…Or Something
