2025 was a tough year. I went into it, bright and shiny, with so many goals, thoughts, and emotions. My business was up and down. My father passed away. I traveled far too much for things I wasn’t excited about. And my big goal for the year was just not the right vision for me.
But I have a good feeling about 2026. I figured some things out this past year and it helped me see into my future with clearer eyes and an open heart.
2015 was The Year I Say No.
2016 was The Year I Give No F*cks.
2017 was The Year I Have Fun.
2018 was The Year I Don't Compete.
2019 was The Year I Improve Myself and My Business.
2020 was The Year I Lead A Happy Creative Life.
2021 was The Year I Develop My Systems.
2022 was The Year I Become Stronger, Faster, More Powerful and Positive.
2023 was The Year I Focus on Progress and Cultivate Self-Belief.
2024 was The Year I Embrace What Makes Me Unique.
2025 was The Year I Become An AI-Assisted One-Woman Studio.
2026 will be The Year I Explore!
Last year I was really hoping to figure out being a one-woman studio, and honestly, that just did not fit with my vibe. I loved the idea of being an AI powered content creator until I realized that I only like creating certain kinds of content. Lol. Oh well, live and learn.
And that’s what I’ll be doing this year. I’ll be living and learning, exploring what I might be interested in and setting aside things I’m not gelling with. Yes, again, AI will be a part of this because I’m excited about all the tools at my disposal. Let’s see what I do with them!
Storytelling, Writing, Creating, and Publishing Goals
I will continue to focus on my website and blog which have really grown this year. I love posting here and showing you all what I’m working on. This will also include me sprucing up my site, archiving old posts, and posting more of what I’m into.
I will continue posting my books to my website for free until they’re all here. I hope to be done by mid Spring.
I will continue to write what I’m excited about, with and without AI assistance. That includes new stories and continuing stories from my universes.
I will release other books as part of the Future Fiction Press. I have two books I want to get done for them.
I will learn more all about these awesome AI tools I’ve been using namely Midjourney, Ideogram, Kling, and Suno. I’m currently developing two AI music bands and working on photo projects in Midjourney. So fun!
I will continue working on apps for my businesses by vibe coding with AI. I have lots of apps planned!!
Business Goals
I will continue building my Pinterest presence. I’m driving traffic from there to my blog every day. I enjoy pinning images to my boards and sharing my AI images there.
I will keep up with everything we have planned for the Future Fiction Academy and Future Fiction Press. We are making great progress with both and we have lots of ideas to execute on this year.
I will keep at the Brave New Bookshelf podcast. If you didn't know, I have a podcast with my good friend, Danica Favorite, in which we talk about AI and publishing. Time to start it back up again in January.
I will focus on lessening my time on Facebook. I’m already happy with my progress on this. I am spending less time scrolling and just dealing with my notifications.
I will spin up some Google ads for my website. I did some newsletter lead gen ads this past year and learned a lot. I’ll take the keywords from that and use them towards traffic ads for my site.
I will build websites for my pet projects. I am planning on building one for the Starlight Café Promotions website and smaller sites for my AI music bands I'm developing.
Personal Goals
I will continue to stay gluten free and cut back on alcohol. This is already a thing for me. I’ve had some bad reactions to alcohol (skin flushing) and I have lessened my drinking by like 70%. I didn't even have champagne last night! (Mostly because I'm currently battling a cold.)
I will continue to knit and watch TV in my down time. This has become something I love doing and so I need to keep it up. I'm careful not to binge-watch but I do love to be inspired by TV and movies, so I want to keep this up.
I will continue learning Japanese, Italian, and French. I'm adding in some vocabulary and micro-journaling.
I will learn how to watercolor. This is my big “want” of this year. I have always wanted to learn. Now’s the time.
Fitness Goals
I will stay active. I have some big changes coming this year now that I’m going to be 50 and I need to work on being active every day.
I will try to add more upper body strength. If I could just do a few upper body strength classes per month, that would be better than nothing. I'm going to start with the Tunde arms strength program on Peloton as soon as I'm over this cold.
My Personal Word for the Year
Starting this year, I’m including a personal word that will help keep me focused. The word for 2026 is PURGE. There’s a lot in my life and house that needs purging like all the old medicine in my bathroom, old food in the pantry, old clothes I never wear, etc. 2026 is the year I get rid of stuff we don’t need or shouldn’t even use. Purge it all!!
And that’s it!
This year, my goals are set to inspire me! I hope you find inspiration in your life as well.
I like your sentence/ goal for 2026! I hope 2026 will be an amazing year for you. Learning how to watercolor sounds fun, I hope you can do that this year. And I look forward to hear more about your writing and other projects :).
A toast to all your goals and to your explorations. My main goal this year is to finish the novel I’ve been working on. I was very sick with flu this whole holiday season. Yuck. As I wrote to Danica on her substack, one of the biggest smiles her article got from me was “Copyright 2026” … we made it through that awful and challenging 2025. Go US. ::grin::
Glad you are focusing on YOU this year. Things are going to get much better … I just know it!
<3
Purge is such a good word! We did a ton of that while moving my mom this past year and all I could think of was how much stuff in my house I need to get rid of. I also set a goal to get back to writing and try to self publish my own YA novel, which I’ve been inspired to keep with the editing after all the posts in the AI Group on Facebook. Good luck on your goals!