Some thoughts on finding clarity…

The new year is fast approaching and so too are the cliched resolutions, new beginnings and habit kickstarters etc. This can be helpful, of course, but only if we approach goals and habits from the right place.

My work tells me, time and time again, that what all of us are searching for—what we all want—is to live authentic lives. But we often see that as a destination to reach.

It isn’t.

Authentic living is a process—it occurs, happens and ensues. Authentic living is, truly, the process of living in a more and more aligned way up until the point of death.

None of us will ever be perfectly authentic. Authenticity as a ‘state’ is unattainable. But refined, authentic living as a ‘mode’ is absolutely achievable. And we can inch closer and closer to it.

So, for 2026, I’d like to invite you to think of your goals not as “things” to accomplish but as guardrails and checkpoints that will help shape you into being more of who you are.

For example, I like academia because I enjoy being transformed by the books that I read and the ways in which my essays force me to be a more astute thinker. I’m not overly concerned with the qualifications—the flimsy pieces of paper—but by who I’ve had to become in order to be the one who gets to hold them.

Perhaps you might like to consider your goals and resolutions of 2026 not as destinations or accomplishments, but as trajectories that will help mould a deeper and more authentic version of you?

Who do you want to become and which goals will help shape you into this person?