231 Setting your 2026 goals: how to set sustainable goals and live with more intention this year
If you’re thinking about your 2026 goals right now - instead of diving straight into the temptation of hustle, restriction and unrealistic expectations…we’re going to get intentional!
That means sustainable goal setting, sustainable habits and starting to live with more intention. In other words - creating your 2026 goals in a way that honours your energy, works with your nervous system, and finally stops the cycle of huge January overhauls that burn you out by February.
I’ll share how to choose your “north star” and how to lean into identity based goal setting, as well as talking you through my very own EDIT Goal Setting Method. So we can create the life upgrades that finally banish all or nothing thinking and lead to long term change.
Your key takeaways:
- Why traditional New Year goals have failed you and what to do differently.
- How to choose a “North Star” feeling to anchor every decision you make this year.
- The power of identity-led behaviour change (and why discipline isn’t the missing piece).
- How to use the EDIT Goal Method to simplify your life and create sustainable
NEXT STEPS:
- Share this episode with a friend
- Listen to next: Episode 230 - A New Way To Step Into 2026: Choosing Your North Star
RESOURCES:
Work with me: www.lifeeditcoaching.com
Instagram: @lifeeditwithalix
Transcript
Welcome to a brand new year and to kick us off in the best possible way.
Speaker A:Today is all about making truly meaningful life upgrades and setting your goals in a way that actually work with you.
Speaker A:In other words, this year we're going to get really clear on your desires, we're going to honor your energy, and we're going to help you to create goals that are fully aligned not just to your life as it is right now, but also to the woman that you desire to be.
Speaker A:We're taking out the hustle and embracing clarity, simplicity and intuition to make this the year when you step into the life upgrades that will make you feel like a queen.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to Wellbeing, the podcast for women who are done with the hustle and are ready to feel at home in their own skin.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Alex Life, therapeutic and fitness coach for busy women who want to do less, live more, and feel good from the inside out.
Speaker A:Every week I'm going to help you to cut through the noise, challenge the shoulds, and find new ways to live and move that actually feel like you.
Speaker A:Foreign.
Speaker A:Welcome back.
Speaker A:And I've had a little break from the podcast the last couple of weeks as we finished off last year, but of course I am so, so excited to be back and I am ready to help you make those breakthroughs and those upgrades in your life this year that are going to make you feel absolutely amazing.
Speaker A:And what better place to start than by looking at your goals for the year.
Speaker A:Now, back in December, I created three episodes that were all about setting you up to get you ready for this point.
Speaker A:Because if there is one thing I've learned over the years, it's this.
Speaker A:We often dive into things without doing that foundational work that is gonna really increase our chances of success.
Speaker A:So if you've not listened to those, do go back, have a listen.
Speaker A:They're all quite short episodes, but they were really about reviewing the year, giving ourselves a little bit of space to really tune into what we wanted.
Speaker A:And then we also started thinking about what's gonna be our North Star this year.
Speaker A:What's the one that we want to work towards or that we want to bring into our lives a little bit?
Speaker A:I will talk a little bit about that in a minute.
Speaker A:So if you haven't got time to listen to that, don't worry because this is absolutely all going to make sense.
Speaker A:But all I will say is that we often dive straight into making those goals and they can often be quite reactionary ones, particularly at the start of A new year, because we come out of that period of time where our routine's been different for a while.
Speaker A:We've been probably eating and drinking more than normal, probably moving less than normal.
Speaker A:And so we wake up in the new year ready to react to that.
Speaker A:We suddenly wake up and think, right, I'm going to be different.
Speaker A:Everything's going to be different.
Speaker A:I'm going to change all of these things.
Speaker A:You know, we want to get ourselves feeling better about ourselves, better about our lives as soon as possible.
Speaker A:And so we often end up going in a very.
Speaker A:What's the word?
Speaker A:A very challenging direction, I suppose, where we're really setting ourselves up for a lot of changes in a very short amount of time.
Speaker A:And what I would love you to do this year is to just take a beat to make sure that the way that you are setting your goals, the way that you're thinking about this year is really truly aligned to what you want for yourself.
Speaker A:Because what I see as being the reason that a lot of our goals fail is because they're not truly aligned to what we want.
Speaker A:They're not truly aligned to how we want to feel.
Speaker A:Or simply we have not set our lives up in the best possible way to allow us to do the things that we want to do.
Speaker A:Because is for me, it's not about this big sudden change on the 1st of January.
Speaker A:It's more about, okay, how can I take what I already have and make it better?
Speaker A:How can I take what I already have and upgrade it so that throughout the year we are seeing these incremental changes that mean that by the end of the year we are in a very, well, not necessarily a very different place, but we're in a better place.
Speaker A:We're in a place that feels more cohesive.
Speaker A:We're in a place where we feel more confident with who we are and what we have.
Speaker A:So that's what we're going to be looking at today.
Speaker A:And like you say, what usually happens in the new year is that there is.
Speaker A:There is an awful lot going on.
Speaker A:Like everywhere you look, there are people going on diets.
Speaker A:There are people committing to doing a workout every single day.
Speaker A:What's that program, 75 hard or something where I think you maybe even have to do two workouts a day.
Speaker A:Like, it's a lot.
Speaker A:You've got to be proper, committed for that.
Speaker A:So there's a lot of that around us.
Speaker A:And the whole environment just is geared towards this very restrictive, this very discipline, this very push, focused mindset.
Speaker A:And it's easy to get Pulled into that.
Speaker A:You know, even with everything that I talk about, everything I teach, I can feel that gravitational pull myself.
Speaker A:I can feel myself questioning, oh, God, should I be doing that?
Speaker A:Should I be doing more?
Speaker A:Should I be setting big goals for myself?
Speaker A:Like, it's very easy to feel that gravitational pull at this time of year.
Speaker A:But the thing is, I'm speaking to you as somebody who is probably very aware that that approach often doesn't last.
Speaker A:It feels very good in the moment.
Speaker A:It feels very inviting.
Speaker A:So we're like, yeah, of course I can do this.
Speaker A:Of course I can wake up on the 1st of January and be a different person.
Speaker A:But we know deep down, don't we, that that approach often doesn't last?
Speaker A:Because what we're trying to do is we're stepping into a completely new identity that our brain is not actually ready to step into yet.
Speaker A:We have not done the groundwork for that.
Speaker A:We have not prepared ourselves for that.
Speaker A:We have not provided ourselves with the safety to do that yet.
Speaker A:To have this completely new identity as this.
Speaker A:This person's doing everything differently all of a sudden.
Speaker A:We end up trying to change too much all at once.
Speaker A:And, you know, we all know that we then get overwhelmed and we don't want to do anything at all.
Speaker A:We're trying to make huge changes at a time of year that is probably not particularly conducive to that.
Speaker A:The new year is an obvious time to do changes.
Speaker A:And it's not a bad time to do changes.
Speaker A:It's just recognizing that January, February, things, they're not great times, really, for making big, big changes to your diet or big, big changes to your activity levels and things like that, because we want to hibernate.
Speaker A:It's cold, it's miserable, it's dark.
Speaker A:We're just trying to get through life, quite honestly.
Speaker A:But of course, we try and make massive changes at that time of year, which is not necessarily the best.
Speaker A:It's not impossible, but it's not necessarily the best time.
Speaker A:We kind of need to recognize that as well.
Speaker A:And all of that means that a lot of the stuff that we try and do, a lot of the goals that we have, they're built on pressure.
Speaker A:They're built on the pressure to succeed.
Speaker A:They're built on the pressure to be able to do what that person on Instagram is doing that you feel like you should be able to do.
Speaker A:And we're not necessarily tuned into desire.
Speaker A:We're not tuned into alignment.
Speaker A:We're not tuned into our own values, the reality of our lives, you know, and when that is true.
Speaker A:When we are not in alignment with that, when it's very much built on pressure, it demands a huge amount of energy to stay with it.
Speaker A:And I would say probably 99% of us do not have the willpower or the discipline to see that through.
Speaker A:There might be a few out there of you out there that it works for, but I'm going to say the vast majority notes, certainly not me.
Speaker A:I certainly do not have the.
Speaker A:The reserves of energy that it takes to completely change the direction of my life in the space of a couple of months.
Speaker A:Nor do I want to, because I don't think that when you do that the changes that you make are necessarily relevant to you or in alignment with you.
Speaker A:And you make the changes and you realize you still don't feel any better.
Speaker A:And so we do not want that for ourselves.
Speaker A:We don't want to waste energy.
Speaker A:You know, I don't want you wasting a load of energy on doing stuff that is actually not going to get you where you want to go.
Speaker A: aking these life upgrades for: Speaker A:Not trying to overhaul everything, not trying to change who you are overnight, but instead just getting really intentional, really clear about what you want, and then leading yourself from a place that feels really aligned with who you want to be, because that's the way that you get what you want.
Speaker A:You don't get it by reacting to outside pressure.
Speaker A:You don't get it by doing what your mate is doing.
Speaker A:You don't get it by trying to please other people.
Speaker A:So we're talking about an upgrade, a life upgrade.
Speaker A:And what I really mean by that is that a life upgrade is not about becoming somebody else.
Speaker A:It's not about saying, who I am is not enough, or I don't do enough, or I'm not disciplined enough, so I'm gonna become somebody who is all of those things all of a sudden.
Speaker A:Instead, what we wanna do is we want to embrace, like, who are you already?
Speaker A:And then asking yourself, and from there, from that point, where can I upgrade?
Speaker A:Where can I expand?
Speaker A:Where can I just be more true to myself?
Speaker A:And I think this, that's actually such an important point because we tend to ignore the amazing qualities that we already have, the amazing things that already live within us, because we have existed in a world that's told us with either too much or not enough.
Speaker A:And so we push down, we ignore those gifts.
Speaker A:And part of upgrading our lives is about embracing more of that, embracing who you are, embracing your Uniqueness and realizing that the messages that you got to told around don't do what you want to do because what you want to do is not enough.
Speaker A:You know, recognizing those messages were not about you in the first place.
Speaker A:A really good example of this is that for some reason, I've ended up following a lot of people on Instagram.
Speaker A:Or they pop up.
Speaker A:I don't think I actually follow them.
Speaker A:They pop up a lot, people on Instagram that are often Americans who are living in the uk.
Speaker A:And what you see happening in these videos is that they are highlighting amazing things about this country, highlighting all of the wonderful scenery and the things that make the UK a really unique place to be.
Speaker A:But it's things that we will complain about.
Speaker A:We will sit here and complain about, oh, you know, this is going wrong and that's going wrong, and this should be better, and that should be better.
Speaker A:And they're not fixing the potholes and they're not doing this and they're not doing that.
Speaker A:So we spend a lot of time.
Speaker A:Maybe not you necessarily, but as a nation, we spend a lot of time talking ourselves down and telling ourselves that this is a rubbish country or we should, you know, we want to live somewhere else, or everything's going wrong and it takes somebody from outside of the country to come in and to highlight, actually, there are some bloody amazing things about this country, and that's what we do to ourselves as well.
Speaker A:We're so used to ourselves.
Speaker A:We're so used to the things that we just do by default that we don't value those things.
Speaker A:We ignore the amazing qualities that we already have.
Speaker A:So part of this life upgrade is going, hey, here's where I am.
Speaker A:This is not a bad thing.
Speaker A:But here's how I'm going to expand from that.
Speaker A:Here's how I'm.
Speaker A:How I'm going to upgrade from that.
Speaker A:Here's how I am going to be more of myself.
Speaker A:And that's really a big part of this.
Speaker A:Rather than trying to follow the tribe all the time, rather than trying to appease other people, rather than trying to get other people's approval, this is about you.
Speaker A:This is about what drives you and what is important to you.
Speaker A:And I think when we recognize that, we act from a very different place, our motivation comes from a very different place as well.
Speaker A:This life upgrade is also about elevating what already works.
Speaker A:So there's gonna be some stuff in your life that already works, and again, you're ignoring it, but it's taking those things and it's going, hey, how can I elevate this?
Speaker A:How can I upgrade this?
Speaker A:How can I push this more?
Speaker A:And it's also about removing friction.
Speaker A:And when I talk about friction, it's things like people pleasing, it's things like boundaries that are not necessarily in place, that should be in place with other people and with other things in your life.
Speaker A:It's about realigning routines to who you actually are now, as well as the upgraded version or the upgraded identity that you're stepping into.
Speaker A:That is what a life upgrade is all about.
Speaker A:You know, that usual January overhaul is more aggressive.
Speaker A:It's about forcing yourself to do everything differently from day one.
Speaker A:And that's attractive because you then see the possibility of things changing very quickly, but it's also very, very challenging because it's not necessarily aligned with your deeper desires.
Speaker A:And so really, what is this upgraded identity?
Speaker A:How are we going to elevate what already works, but also step into some new things that are really going to align with who we are and what we want for ourselves?
Speaker A:And when we do all of that, it becomes more sustainable because we choose these things based on information we've gathered about ourselves already, things we know to be true about ourselves, and then the upgrades that we want to make, the steps that we want to take, that we can step deeper into our values, we can step deeper into an identity that we want to create for ourselves.
Speaker A:So how do we actually translate that then into something that honours our energy, supports that consistency, feels really good for us, and taps into that intrinsic motivation, that sense of this is what is important to me and this is why I'm going to make that move.
Speaker A:Well, the first thing I want you to do is choose your North Star.
Speaker A:If you have listened to the episodes before Christmas, the last.
Speaker A:Actually, the last episode, we talked about our North Star, and our North Star was really the word that we were going to use for what we wanted to feel this year.
Speaker A:If you haven't listened to that, that do listen to it or just have a think about what.
Speaker A:What's the feeling you want to embody in your life this year?
Speaker A:What's going to kind of guide everything that you do?
Speaker A:It could be, I want to feel strong, and that's not necessarily just strong in body, but that's strong in body, strong in mind.
Speaker A:Maybe you want to embody calm this year.
Speaker A:Maybe a lot of things felt overwhelming last year, but you want to embody a bit more calm.
Speaker A:Maybe you want to embody energy, maybe you want to, like, feel really vital and energized.
Speaker A:Maybe you want to Embody spaciousness.
Speaker A:You want to feel like you've got the space in your life to breathe the space in your life to do the things that you want to do more of.
Speaker A:So what is your North Star?
Speaker A:What's the feeling you want to embody?
Speaker A:Because that is your basis.
Speaker A:That is going to then inform every other decision that you make, every other goal you set for yourself.
Speaker A:Is this going to help me towards that feeling or not?
Speaker A:If it is, great, let's go for it.
Speaker A:If it's not, chuck it out, try something else.
Speaker A:When you know that, you can then ask yourself, who is the woman I want to be?
Speaker A:Or maybe what is the identity that I'm stepping into?
Speaker A:You can ask yourself one or the other of those and really tune into that feeling that I want to embody.
Speaker A:What am I stepping into?
Speaker A:What's this identity?
Speaker A:How am I showing up for myself?
Speaker A:What are the things that I'm doing each day?
Speaker A:What does my life look like?
Speaker A:What does my life feel like?
Speaker A:And this isn't about seeing yourself as some like, ultra disciplined automaton who has every single part of her life in control, because that sounds flipping exhausting.
Speaker A:But it's about breathing life into this upgraded version of you.
Speaker A:Maybe you can picture yourself walking into a room feeling glowing and energized.
Speaker A:Maybe you can see yourself eating food without all of the internal chatter around it and therefore making more healthy choices.
Speaker A:Maybe you see yourself as a person who's listening to their intuition more and who has a more trusting relationship with their body.
Speaker A:Maybe you see yourself as someone who's sitting in a bikini on the beach feeling really confident and at peace in her body this year.
Speaker A:Like what?
Speaker A:Who is she?
Speaker A:How's she showing up in the world?
Speaker A:What are the things that she is doing each day?
Speaker A:Just give that a little bit of a time and don't try not to get pulled into how do I want to appear to the outside world?
Speaker A:Or what do I think I should be doing?
Speaker A:This is about how you want to feel on the inside.
Speaker A:This is about I walk into a room and I feel glowing and energized.
Speaker A:And that feels amazing.
Speaker A:And actually being able to feel that emotion in your body and using that to lead you, using that to inform the decisions that you make.
Speaker A:Because if that's the person you want to be, you're probably not going to put yourself on a restricted diet that you were going to do before and you're going to go, hang on a minute, she's not doing that.
Speaker A:No, she's waking up and she's eating an amazing breakfast, that's going to give her that energy, that's going to have her glowing.
Speaker A:She's getting to bed at a decent time because that makes her feel energized.
Speaker A:It makes her skin glow.
Speaker A:She's going to have a proper skincare routine.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:But can you see the difference between that and right, I need to go on a diet and lose weight.
Speaker A:It's a very different feeling.
Speaker A:And it then embodies or creates a very different way that you are going to achieve that, a way that is going to feel much more aligned with what you want to feel.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Number one, your North Star.
Speaker A:Number two, what is the identity I'm stepping into or who is the woman that I want to be off the back of that?
Speaker A:And then once you have that in place, that's the foundation for you planning your goals.
Speaker A:Because once you have those two things and they can be really simple, they don't have to be like pages and pages of notes.
Speaker A:It can just be a couple of sentences that really embody this.
Speaker A:Then as you start to think about your goals, you can start to say, okay, that fits, that doesn't.
Speaker A:And you can filter things based on that.
Speaker A:And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to share with you my own method, which is edit goals.
Speaker A:So that is going to give you a little bit of structure around it.
Speaker A:So edit goals first 1e.
Speaker A:Eliminate.
Speaker A:So eliminating one thing that is draining you, distracting you, keeping you stuck in old patterns or something you are no longer willing to carry or tolerate.
Speaker A:Because I'm always looking at how we can simplify things.
Speaker A:For my clients, we often ask way, way, way too much of ourselves, and this is a great way of clearing a bit of space for what we want more of.
Speaker A:And this for me, is always an important part of the process.
Speaker A:We can't just add and pile more stuff on top.
Speaker A:We have to be very mindful, very intentional about how we clear the space to bring more of what we want into our lives.
Speaker A:So what are the physical, the emotional things that you're carrying right now that you can let go of?
Speaker A:You know, it could be about delegating a couple of jobs to your other half because you know that you're carrying a lot of that mental load in your lives.
Speaker A:It could be something that you're no longer going to say to yourself or about yourself.
Speaker A:It could be a not so ideal habit that you're going to gently let go of.
Speaker A:It could be a boundary that needs to put into place it could be other people's expectations.
Speaker A:It's eliminating something that allows you to then reclaim your time or reclaim your energy or reclaim your boundaries.
Speaker A:And don't try and choose five things because it's not gonna happen.
Speaker A:Choose one thing to start with.
Speaker A:You can start with one and over the weeks you can start thinking about others, but you don't wanna do too much all at once.
Speaker A:But yeah, eliminating, eliminating, eliminating something that's draining you or keeping you stuck in those old patterns.
Speaker A:That's step number one.
Speaker A:Step number two, D is deepen.
Speaker A:So this is about deepening habits, routines, practices that already support you.
Speaker A:So this goes back a little bit to what I was saying before.
Speaker A:We often don't recognise the things we're already doing really well.
Speaker A:So recognising what you're doing well, recognising what's already supporting you and asking yourself if there's an element of that that you need to recommit to, or a way you can deepen that practice, or a way that you can upgrade that to make it work even better for you.
Speaker A:So for example, at bedtime maybe you're like, I could add a five minute meditation before I go to sleep, or I can do some journaling just to get these thoughts out of my head before I go to sleep.
Speaker A:Or I'm scrolling at the moment when I go to bed, I am going to, you know, I've got a good routine in other ways, but this is one thing that I'm doing that is not so ideal.
Speaker A:So how am I going to change that?
Speaker A:So looking at what are those habits, what are those routines you've already got and upgrading them, making them work even harder for you, making them even better for you.
Speaker A:So that's the D, the I is the integrate.
Speaker A:So this is about bringing in one shift that supports your nervous system and your wellbeing.
Speaker A:Because positive change comes from a place where nervous system is being nurtured and cared for.
Speaker A:That for me, is the best possible basis for making those long lasting changes.
Speaker A:So check in and make sure that whatever you choose here is aligned with the woman you're becoming, is aligned with that North Star that you're using to guide you this year.
Speaker A:It could be a story you're telling yourself that is making you feel rubbish about yourself at moment.
Speaker A:It could be adding in a meditation practice, it could be taking yourself out for a 15 minute walk every day.
Speaker A:So what's one thing you could integrate?
Speaker A:And then the final one is T, which is thrive.
Speaker A:And this is choosing one way that you're going to expand, you're going to upgrade, you're going to rise up this season again.
Speaker A:What are you stepping into?
Speaker A:What is that woman doing?
Speaker A:Start doing those things.
Speaker A:And this is not in a pressure led way.
Speaker A:So for example, you know what can happen is when we look at future self we're like, oh well she's eating amazing nourishing food and she's not having snacks.
Speaker A:So then you start telling yourself, oh right, well she doesn't have snacks so I'm not allowing snacks anymore.
Speaker A:We don't want that because that becomes very pressure based.
Speaker A:Instead we want to be thinking like her because the reason she's not snacking is not because she told herself she couldn't snack anymore.
Speaker A:It's because she is focusing on her meals and making them really nourishing which means that they balance her blood sugar better which means that she's not craving other foods in between times.
Speaker A:And secondly, she's probably also reconnected with her body.
Speaker A:She's probably already got that closer relationship with her body which is allowing her to make those better choices.
Speaker A:It's not a forced choice, it's not something she's doing to herself.
Speaker A:It's a way that she's learnt to live with herself.
Speaker A:So don't just assume, oh right, it's because she suddenly is super disciplined and she's not doing those things.
Speaker A:No, she has very likely taken a different route to that.
Speaker A:She is very likely doing it.
Speaker A:She's created a better environment for herself.
Speaker A:So who is that woman?
Speaker A:What's she doing but also thinking about and how is she doing it?
Speaker A:She's never doing it from pressure.
Speaker A:So what that then does, once you set your goals like that is that you're leading with identity.
Speaker A:You're leading with what you want to step into.
Speaker A:Because once you identify that identity, that's going to drive your behaviour.
Speaker A:Because what we often do is we try and create identity out of forcing certain behaviours on ourselves, certain behaviors that may not fully aligned with us, but when we go identity first, that is going to create something that feels a lot more aligned for us.
Speaker A:So I'm going to give you a quick example actually before we finish up today.
Speaker A:So let's say you decided that your North Star this year was peaceful and you decide that you are stepping into being a woman who is at peace with herself, at peace with her body, at peace with her life.
Speaker A:So firstly you're going to eliminate a pattern where you constantly tell yourself you have to prove yourself to the outside world even though you know it's detrimental to your peace.
Speaker A:So that's eliminating that pattern.
Speaker A:You're going to deepen your meditation practice.
Speaker A:You know you're doing it, but you've been paying a bit of lip service to it.
Speaker A:You're going through the motions.
Speaker A:You're not really showing up consistently for it.
Speaker A:So you're going to deepen that.
Speaker A:You're going to integrate a better bedtime routine, because at the moment, you know you're scrolling 30 minutes before bed and it's creating anxiety around your body and that is destroying your peace and your sleep.
Speaker A:So you're going to integrate a better bedtime routine and then you're going to thrive by deciding that you're going to move your body in a way that feels good this year.
Speaker A:You're going to stop forcing those long cardio sessions on yourself that you hate and that you can't be consistent with because you don't enjoy them.
Speaker A:And you're going to choose something that feels more nourishing.
Speaker A:You're going to choose something that allows you to connect with your body rather than forcing it to do something that it doesn't want to do.
Speaker A:So that's just an example.
Speaker A:Now you build your own.
Speaker A:So what are the upgrades that you're going to make?
Speaker A:What is that identity you're stepping into?
Speaker A: you start to move from there,: Speaker A:So have a bit of fun with that.
Speaker A:Let me know what you choose over on Instagram.
Speaker A:Lfeditwithalex.
Speaker A:And of course, if you would love some help to create this upgraded version of you where you can actually feel at home in your body, where you trust that your body is telling you the right things, and where you can find more personal peace with yourself and your choices so that you can make the best possible choices for yourself.
Speaker A:Then we will do all of that inside the body you'll love living in.
Speaker A:If you just head over to the website, you can find out more and sign up.
Speaker A:I will pop the link in the show notes as well.
Speaker A:But for now, I'm gonna love you and leave you and I'll see you back here again next time.
Speaker A:Thank you as always for joining me.
Speaker A:If this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to to hear it and come connect with me on Instagram at Life Edit with Alex for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.
