Three Ways to Uplevel Our Resolutions - and Actually Live Them

Most of us enter a new year by setting goals and intentions. Maybe we even feel that spark of motivation when we write out our deepest desires for ourselves and our lives.

And then, life happens.

If you’re anything like me, the gap between setting goals and living them can feel frustratingly wide. Resolutions start to feel aspirational instead of actionable. They become nice ideas - downright brilliant even - that don’t quite translate into real change.

So let’s talk about how to make our goals real. Not perfect. Not aesthetic. Real.

Once we’ve set our goals, these three shifts can help us uplevel them from something we hope will happen to something we actively practice every day.

1. Get Radically Honest: Is This Doable, and Do You Actually Want It?

This might be the most important step of all.

Before committing to a goal, ask yourself these necessary questions:

• Is this actually doable in my current season of life?

• Is this what I want, or what I think I should want?

• Can my body do this?

• Do these goals make space for real‑life obstacles and interruptions?

Put yourself fully inside each goal. Imagine a normal week, not the highlight reel, but the day‑to‑day reality. Does it feel supportive, or draining? Expansive, or exhausting? Can you truly see yourself doing these things?

After a health scare in 2025, one of my newest mantras became: If my body can’t do it, I can’t do it. This has completely changed how I set goals. If a goal looks good on paper but requires me to override my body’s needs, it’s not aligned no matter how impressive it sounds. When our goals are embodied, we’re less likely to damage our nervous systems, energy, capacity, and relationships.

And let’s be real: our goals don’t happen in a vacuum. We live in a volatile world where challenges arise constantly. For many of us, 2025 was an extremely difficult year marked by personal and political crises that shook our sense of stability. And given the way this year has started out, with more than one geopolitical crises, we can expect more uncertainty in 2026 and beyond.

Given that reality, it’s worth holding our goals in an open hand. That may mean setting fewer goals, loosening our grip on outcomes, and intentionally leaving room for the resilience and responsiveness life requires.

2. Turn Goals Into Practices

Goals and resolutions mean nothing without consistent action. That’s the part we tend to gloss over.

For each goal decided is worth carrying out, ask yourself: What are the steps that will actually get me there? Some steps will be one‑offs, but others need to happen repeatedly. Think of those recurring steps as practices.

I intentionally use the word practice instead of steps, tactics, or strategies. Practices give us permission to be imperfect. You don’t have to be good at something to practice it; you just have to show up to do it again and again.

For example, if one of your goals for 2026 is to get out of debt or build savings, your practices might include tracking spending weekly, automating savings, or having regular money check‑ins with yourself or a partner.

The same applies to non‑financial goals. One of my goals for 2026 is to nourish my body more deeply and live in a more embodied way. That’s a beautiful intention but it only becomes real through practice. My practices look like cooking regularly (daily‑ish, not perfectly), taking nutrition classes, moving my body, having a daily body check‑in, and consistently focusing on adding more nutrients into my body.

Some days, that looks graceful and intentional. Other days, it’s messy and basic. Both count.

Practices ground our goals in reality. They move us out of an all‑or‑nothing mindset and into a rhythm we can actually sustain.

3. Align Your Mindset With Your Intentions

Once your practices are clear, take time to mentally set yourself up for success.

One thing I like to do is frame each goal as an affirmation. For example, instead of saying “be more healthy,” your goal might become: I am feeling energetic, increasing my vitality, and prioritizing my physical health and wellness.

Next comes countering. Every goal comes with resistance, doubts, and old stories, quiet (or loud) thoughts that say, I always fall off, or I’m bad at this, or This probably won’t work anyway. Instead of pretending those thoughts don’t exist, bring them into the light.

For each goal, write out the negative thoughts you associate with it. Be honest. Then counter them with affirmations or reframes that feel believable; not overly positive, just grounded and supportive.

For example:

• “I never stick with things” becomes “I am learning how to stay consistent in ways that work for me.”

• “I don’t have discipline” becomes “I can build systems that support me, even on low‑energy days.”

A final layer can be visualization. This might look like a digital or physical vision board, journaling about what life feels like when you’re living your goal, or simply taking a few minutes to picture yourself inside the reality you’re working toward.

By aligning our mindset with our intentions, we create the internal conditions that make follow‑through possible. And yes, this, too, is a practice.

To close, upleveling our resolutions is what’s true, sustainable, and supportive for us.

When we turn goals into practices, align our mindset, and get radically honest about what’s doable and embodied, our resolutions can stop feeling like pressure, and start feeling like permission. Permission to practice. To adjust. To build a life that actually feels like ours.

And that, to me, is the point of setting goals in the first place.