My Actual New Year Reset 2026 (To Start the New Year Strong)

Whilst I have a New Year Reset blog post that I absolutely love, as a high achiever, I’m always tweaking things a little. Rather than update that list over and over again, I thought it might be cool to share what I’m actually doing for this year’s reset to close out 2025 and start 2026 strong. So here’s my actual new year reset to start 2026!

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Text graphic says: My *Actual* New Year Reset 2026 to start the new year strong!

What Is a New Year Reset?

You can read my full and detailed New Year Reset post here. But basically it’s my approach to wrapping up one year before starting a new year.

In general, I like to do a few things to close a year at the end of the year: answer reflection questions to review the past year, clean my home so I start the new year fresh, etc.
And I do a few things to start the new year strong: plan my goals + intentions, pick my word of the year, and decide what a successful new year looks like to me AND how I’m going to make it happen!

This approach has helped me continuously uplevel my life year after year!

My Actual New Year Reset 2026

For 2026, I’ve decided to group my new year reset activities. And I’ve sprinkled in a couple new things to try in 2026. I’m going to see how they go before incorporating any into my tried and true New Year Reset ideas.

REVIEW

It’s super important before launching into a new year to think about how the past one went. It’s actually SO inefficient to just jump from one year to the next without pausing to ask what went well and didn’t. Those lessons can help you know what to stop doing or start doing in the new year versus making the same mistakes again and again or not applying helpful wins repeatedly.

Answer End of Year Reflection Questions
Figure out my 2025 monthly highlights – from this strategy
Decide what to leave in 2025
Review 2025 goals + year overall (what did I accomplish vs not and what did I tweak over the year)
Complete review section of 2026 Artist of Life book (my yearly goal and intention book by Lavendaire)

PLAN

Next, I take last year’s lessons and keep those in mind as I plan my big goals and dreams for the year ahead. I love doing goal, intention, and word of the year planning because it helps me start my year on my terms and with my own vision in mind.

Choose my word of the year
Go through remaining 2026 Artist of Life book
Plan 2026 monthly highlights – from this strategy
Plan 2026 goals and intentions (use input from Your Best Year Ever live event with Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt on January 2, 2026)
Set up Erin Condren LifePlanner (my planner since 2011) – Planner tips here
Set Up The Dailee Daily Planner (a new planner I’m trying in 2026)

DREAM BIG / STRATEGIZE

Here’s where we take our initial reflections and plans and turn them into a bigger vision. I have a few things I want to really strategize in 2026 – from my fashion to my overall dream life vision.

Make a 2026 Vision Board – All of my vision-board-related blog posts are here: https://thechiclife.com/2021/01/vision-board-ultimate-guide.html
Start a 2026 Delulu Dream List (aim to get 1,000 no’s)
Start a 2026 Style Makeover Plan

DE-CLUTTER

This could probably go with the reflection section, but I like to clear, clean, and purge my home either at the end of the year or the start of the year. I really like leaning into the fresh start energy of the new year with this. Plus it helps ensure you do some regular purging at least once a year if you don’t have a habit to do it more frequently already.

Clean home – all rooms (ideally around 10 days before the new year)
Purge closet – donate / sell clothes
Purge and organize pantry
Unsubscribe from at least 10 marketing emails (+ delete old emails for that brand)
Sage and Palo Santo energy cleanse

Note: avoid washing sheets or laundry on Jan 1 or Jan 2

Remember – your physical space and your home are a reflection of your mind and your success. Clutter = chaos in your home and life and other areas of your life. But the clutter can also impact your mind and energy levels. The impact goes both ways. So be sure to put some care towards your home.

EXECUTE

Lastly, whilst execution is important year round, I like to focus on strongly executing a few things in the new year especially. In my family, we say how you start the year is how your year goes, so we really try to put action to our words and actually follow through on our plans and big ideas!

13 Magical Nights: This is a beautiful experience of writing down 13 intentions you have for the new year and burning one every night starting with the winter solstice (this happened on December 21, 2025). You burn 12 through January 2 (or otherwise safely release it to the earth) to give 12 to the Universe / God / your higher power to take care of and the last one is for you. Love the explanation by thatglasglowwitch on Instagram and TikTok – https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSfLwGVinx3/?igsh=MjVpZTBlbW1ud2Jn
Meal plan for Eat in Month week 1
Get groceries post-travel / for Eat in Month
New Year’s Day workout
Set-Up and place The Dailee monthly calendar – this one
Start using planners (fill in key dates, plan months / weeks / days accordingly), including habit tracker

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What’s New for Me in my New Year Reset 2026?

I’m excited to try a few new-to-me New Year activities to start 2026 strong!

Here’s what’s new in 2026:

I added in some digital de-cluttering with the step of unsubscribing to email newsletters I don’t read.
This will be my first year ever trying the Daily Planner by The Dailee from Sophia Lee. I’m only a couple days into using it, and I’m loving it so far!
Speaking of planning, I re-joined Michael Hyatt’s Your Best Year Ever Live one day program for goal setting and life planning in 2026. I did his course in the same name back when it was self study in 2017. And then I did the live event in 2019. It was so wonderful to do it again with fresh eyes. I learned a lot!
Whilst I’ve done a casual Personal Rebrand before, this is the first year I really want to write out a literal strategy and be more intentional with making over my style to better fit where I am in life now.
I saw a cool video about a girl (paigelewinofficial on Instagram) who was inspired by another girl (can’t find her name – please comment if you know) on TikTok who tried to get 1,000 no’s in 2025. So, she created a delulu list of dreams. So I’m making a “Delulu Dream List”. And I’m aiming for 1,000 no’s because why not!?
The Magical 13 Nights was new for me too and very fun. I saw a great tip to write down your intentions somewhere, which was a phenomenal idea because I’ve already forgotten some of the ones I wrote down. Good thing for the list!
Speaking of lists, meal planning is totally new for me in 2026. But it really helped me stay successful with Eat in Month to have that first week planned out. Especially since I traveled on January 1 and usually get a quick sub sandwich or something on travel days. Luckily I had a plan to make the day work!
And lastly – I’m really wanting to uplevel my home in 2026. So I started back in 2025 by cleaning every. single. room before leaving for the holidays. And it was great!

I can’t wait to see what new things I’ll try in 2027!

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