Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons

139. How to Set Yourselves Up for 2026: Positioning Yourself to Win

• Jason and Lauren Vallotton

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In this episode, Jason and Lauren Vallotton invite listeners into a practical and intentional conversation about preparing for the year ahead. As 2026 approaches, they challenge couples and families to move beyond vague hopes and instead position themselves to win through clarity, reflection, and aligned action. This episode is about slowing down long enough to ask the right questions—and taking ownership of what truly matters.

In This Episode:
  • Why having a clear plan is essential for long-term success
  • How to assess whether you—and your family—are actually set up for success
  • The importance of defining a target before trying to hit it
  • Why reflection on the past year is a necessary step before planning the next one
  • How intentional, dedicated time with a spouse creates alignment and shared vision
  • Why time is the greatest investment families make—and the importance of knowing where it’s going
  • The value of shared calendars and shared expectations
  • How identifying the one thing to do this week can create meaningful momentum

Key Questions Jason and Lauren Encourage Listeners to Ask:
  • Are we living reactively, or are we intentionally aiming at something?
  • Where is most of our time going—and does that reflect our priorities?
  • What kind of family culture are we building right now?
  • What is the one practical step that can be taken this week to move forward?

Episode Takeaway:
  Jason and Lauren believe that success doesn’t happen accidentally—it’s the result of clarity, alignment, and intentional investment. This episode helps listeners reflect on where they’ve been, assess where they are, and take a meaningful step toward building a healthier, more connected 2026.

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SPEAKER_02:

We're the valutins and we are passionate about people.

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Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.

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But that's not always what comes easiest.

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We know this because of our wide range of personal experience as well as our years of working with people.

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So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family, and parenting to encourage, entertain, and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome back, everyone, to dates, mates, and babies with the Valitons. Guys, it's fantastic to be with you all.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure is.

SPEAKER_01:

We are um just loving the new year, loving jumping in. And we wanted to kind of pull you guys in today to a bit of what we've done and also talk through how to set yourselves up for success in 2026. I did a podcast the other day on the Braveco podcast talking about positioning yourself to win. And so this theme, this topic has been on my mind a lot. Um, Lauren and I spent a chunk of time this year just just taking time at the very, very beginning of the year to get away together, just each other, and look at where are we going, what are the big things on our calendar, what are the themes for this year that we're feeling like God's pressing into. And who are we running with? I mean, just kind of looking at our life and making sure that we don't just roll into a whole new year with the same mindset and the same goals that we had last year. And I know just by nature, probably my my worst um default, I guess, preset would just be like not to plan, just to kind of do. But I think as I'm growing older, as I've been married to Lauren for longer, um, as I'm running more things like Braveco and helping to lead our church, the more I'm seeing the benefit of really having a clear plan. And even this idea of setting myself up to win, and sitting down and going, do I have myself set up for success? Is my family set up for success? And so we want to just kind of crack into that, give you guys some tips, um, talk about what we're doing, and then also help you to really reflect on your life and maybe take a look at 2025 and think through like, did we win there? If not, how come?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I think it's a really worthwhile conversation. You know, on one hand, January 1st is just another day. It's the day after December 31st. And so everything that was happening, the momentum of 2025, the pain of 2025, the winds of 2025, none of that really stops. It's not like when the calendar stops on December 31st, you have a complete clean slate. That's actually not how it works, right? We know that. So sometimes I think, you know, unless you're just really into New Year's resolutions for fun, I think I could make a pretty good argument for like just live well, right? Like, just live well. It doesn't matter that it's now a new year or not. But on the other hand, I think that as a society, there's reasons why we build things around rhythm. We're wired as humans to have rhythm in our lives. So truthfully, having a calendar year come about every 12 months is quite helpful because it provides us, our brains, kind of an off-ramp and an on-ramp in areas where we want to make adjustments. I'm kind of like, let's take advantage of the fact that the entire world is adjusting right now. And what better time than to jump on the train of like making positive change? So I think when it comes to marriage, relationships, even just your own internal well-being, taking some time to A, really assess what your past season was like, where you felt like you were winning, where you felt like you you wished you had seen more growth, those are all that's those are worthwhile ways to spend some time at the beginning of a new year. And then, and then two, setting aside time to build vision and goals around some of those growth areas or some of the priorities that you know God has for you in that season. That's what we have positioned ourselves to do with more intentionality in recent years than in the past.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you really can't hit any target that you're not directly aiming at. And this year, um I have helped a lot of couples in marriage counseling where the thing that I've had them do is to go, what is the one target that you're aiming at?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What's the one thing this week that you know that you need to do in order to move the ball forward? Whether that's check my triggers or whatever. So in marriage counseling, I always try to have them look at one target because we don't really hit all multiple targets very well. And so for this, for anyone who's listening to this podcast and you look back at 2025 and you go, How did I do? That's the first question. How did I do? Like you need to really reflect and stop and go, how did we do in 2025? Was were we successful with hitting our goals? Did we not have any goals? So did I just go through 2025 and not even not not make a when I say goals, I especially for husband and wife, did you guys make a specific plan where you're moving together and you know our goal is to hit this, and then once we hit this, this is the next step. If you haven't had any of those, we'll talk about it in a second, but reflecting because feedback is the mother of learning. And so if you aren't reflecting back at all on how did we do what do I need to grow in, what do we need to take inventory of and move the ball forward, then you're really shooting in the dark. And so to me, the very first step is to reflect a little bit. Spend some dedicated time with your spouse to really look and ask the question, how did we do? How do we do with the kids? How do we do with our finances? How do we do with our plans for the year? From there, we can start to talk about what it looks like to move forward.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I think when we're when we're inviting you to reflect, this might seem obvious, but it's kind of funny. You know, you get on social media at the beginning of a new year and you're gonna see all these, you know, memes with funny quotes about how people are like sliding into the new year disheveled and memes where it's you know, like 2025 felt like I was put into the washing machine and you know, whatever, wrung out. I think we have to be careful that, you know, as we're reflecting on a past year, sure, there are circumstances that impacted your year, for better or for worse. And that's worth reflecting too, right? If there's pain to process or if there's something to celebrate, that's fantastic. I think the question, how did I do, is different than what happened in 2025. And I only say that because if we're willing to take a lot of radical ownership over how we operated inside of any circumstance that came up in this past year, then we'll have what it takes to make some positive change. And because we can't control circumstances and we can only control how we are inside of them, you know, regardless of circumstance, you're setting yourself up to win in a bigger way than you won last year, you know. And so I think being willing to take a look at, even if you went through a really hard year, maybe relationally even last year was really difficult. You know, we have friends and close and people close in our lives who 2025 was really challenging on a lot of relational fronts. And you know what? Each one of those relationship dynamics in each one of those, there's ownership to take on all parts. And growth is absolutely possible if we're willing to take an honest look at that. So I just want to kind of highlight that because I think sometimes in a need with a need to like laugh off the ridiculousness of what happened in the past or like, wow, that was a lot, we can kind of bypass some of the personal ownership that actually empowers change.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's true. For me, the next step really is you have to know where your time's going. And if you don't know where your time's going, then you don't actually own your time. And time's the one thing that you can't make any more of, and you can't get back. So that's really where you're investing. If you think about like an actual investment, your time is your best and biggest investment that you have. And so I love for couples to have a shared calendar. I only love that because that's what we've done for a long time now, babe. And you really set us up for that. But a shared like Google Calendar is gold, it allows you to look and go. I know for starters where all the big rocks, right? So a big rock for me would be a Braveco conference, um, or a ride of passage, or we're going next week to her dad's in South Carolina. Like those are big rocks that they're there, just big chunks of time that are already set. Sit down and first lay out all the big rocks. That way you have a plan for the whole year for for those. You can see them clearly, and it allows you to know where your gaps are. From there, you're gonna take a look at what's the what's the most important thing that I want to accomplish. Maybe it's quarter by quarter. Um and for and so when you start to do that, like for instance, Lauren has a book launch that she's doing, which we're gonna talk a lot about in the in the next couple months. But she's finished her book. Um, they're doing some of the finalizing of the cover work and all that. So in this first quarter, we're starting to put into our calendar um things like Lauren being able to get some time to go and finalize cover work. Um, we're also um partnering her with uh uh a person that's gonna help her uh do the launch. And just there's just all these little details. If we didn't have the big blocks and big rocks inside of our calendar, then all of a sudden we're she's entering into all of these different uh things that it takes to launch a book without really knowing what we're doing. And so now that her stuff is, we can start to look at the goal is to get her book launched by X date, then we can put all those things in the calendar. I also have those for myself as well, because we're launching a rite of passage for young men, uh fathers and sons in Jacksonville, Florida, February 28th. So that's a that's a shameless plug right there. And so I also have a whole bunch of not just daily tasks, but I have some. I'm going to Jacksonville, Florida this next week, and I'm going to New York just on a little tour. And so those things have to get added in.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

If we don't have a very detailed schedule of Q1, what does our Q1 look like in our calendar? There's no way that we could really be successful at launching a rite of passage, at launching Lauren's uh book, and then also, you know, the kids back to school. All those things have to be very specifically detailed into your calendar. And here's the truth: I used to feel like the calendar was this biggest burden. I was like, oh, I don't want to put things into the calendar. I literally used to feel so much anxiety because of I'm not very gifted when it comes to the clerical, administrative, but a calendar actually set me free.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

The ability to look at my calendar, how kind of how we lay ours out, you have a color for yours, I have a color for mine, and then we have a color for the kids. It's the same color for each kid. We don't mix it up by different colors. I had a friend ask me the other day. So my color, it shows up as yellow on mine. And it's really nice because in a day, day to day, I can look and see what the kids are doing, and I can see my full calendar.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And so I'm always at a place or almost always at a place where I can be ready to help. I can see when Lauren's gonna go work out, I can see when the kids need to be picked up. Our world isn't chaotic. I know where my time is going, why it's going there. And those are things that we've agreed upon. And so I think that this never sounds very like, oh my gosh, revolutionary. This is the difference between you creating an ecosystem of health, creating momentum in your life, and hitting the targets that you really feel like are important to you in your life.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the calendar is something that Jay wasn't accustomed to, and it did take a little bit of time for him to get used to using the calendar. And it requires kind of that skilled discipline of, you know, making sure that you're referring to it, maybe setting alarms on your phone to remind you to take a look at the calendar in the morning and in the evening so that you're set up well for the next day. But really, these shared calendars have been game changers for us. It helps me to feel like I'm not alone in the details of things, and it helps Jay feel like he knows how he can win by pitching in. You know, it's really easy when you have full busy lives to kind of start running parallel to your spouse. And I think if I could give anybody a goal for 2026, it would be to up the teamwork game in your marriage dynamic. Because, gosh, if you can get really good at being a team and crack the code that works for you so that your needs are getting met in your team dynamic and you're really playing well together rather than just running parallel races, I really think that that just it really elevates the level of emotional connection that you have possible inside of your marriage. So this has been a huge priority for us.

SPEAKER_01:

So one of the things when we went to Chico um to get away just for uh like a day and a half for Lauren and I, we sat down, we put in all the big rocks, and then we started to look at um just Q1, like what's coming up and really focus on those, getting helping to give each other ideas, um, making some space in the calendar was a big thing. And so we kind of came home with like we're ready to go for quarter one. She's like, please don't add anything else to the calendar without asking me. And um, but then from there, the next thing that we did before we pulled into our driveway is we had our next meeting planned for uh quarter two.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And so again, just making sure that we don't miss the most important meeting of our life, which is the meeting with your spouse where you're deciding what your life's gonna be and look like, and a chance to reflect and look back at your targets and then make sure that you're you're headed to the right place. And so I think for married couples, these are non-negotiables. Okay, now if you're single and you're listening to this, you're this is still the same for you. Just because you don't have a spouse that you're um you know working with, you should be working with somebody, uh, an expert or yourself to go, how did I do? Did I hit where I wanted to go? What are the adjustments? Where do I want to invest my time? Yeah, what do I have to do to be really successful in quarter one of 2026? And how am I gonna execute that? Those things are really gonna set you up for success. And we can also do this in every area of our life. So you can sit down and go, how did I do in my spiritual walk with God? Did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? Am I growing? Am I um am I excited about what God's doing in my life? You know, this this was the first year that I really felt called to, I feel like really press in. And so we started off the year. Um, we our church does a week-long fast, and I just really felt to fast in a different way than I have uh normally. And I also, like yesterday, I met with a group of intercessors just for Braveco to pray for us. Like I assessed, I feel a call, a pull to go deeper spiritually, and then created a plan to do that and just started executing it. And again, you can do that with relationships, right? Who am I spending time with? Is it helping? Who am I missing in my life? Like, do I love how my relationships are going, who I have in my life, are they moving me forward or are they not? And begin to, if you if you feel like I don't love how my relationships are, then you can make a plan for change. You can get into your calendar and you can actually schedule some time. We just don't really do much of value that we don't plan.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. One of the things I've found along those lines, even with my friends, right? Because you've got your marriage dynamics, not all of you are married, but with my friends, my closest friends, we have discovered we have to plan our year together about five months at a time. Four, five months at a time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh probably four. So uh every Christmas, my small group goes away for one night and we celebrate Christmas together and usually do a whole round of like affirmations about um each other for the year. And then we always take some time to plan for the coming year. And for us, what that looked like is making sure that our bi-weekly small group dates are on the calendar, looking ahead and figuring out what Wednesdays are we all free. And then what we do is once a month, we like to get our families together for what we call small group family dinner on a Sunday afternoon. So four months at a time, we're planning these family dinners and we're sketching out our small group weeks. And we find that if we just do that almost like a semester at a time, we're so much more likely to keep our small group consistent than if we wait till that week to decide if we all have the same free time. So, you know. Take this measure of intentionality, this planning skill, this calendar skill into all the different areas of your life this new year, and I bet you would see some radical change in intentionality and productivity and in actually meeting some of these goals.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome, y'all. Well, hopefully this helps you a bunch. Um, we are excited about this new year. Again, we got some really cool things. Lauren's book, our rite of passage. Men, if you are wanting a way to welcome your son into manhood, uh, we have a ton of fathers and sons, churches, leaders. We're all gonna meet in Jacksonville, Florida, February 28th at the Sea Mark Ranch. It's a 30-hour event. We're gonna break a wild horse. Super Bowl champion Steve Weatherford's gonna be there, um, as well as my dad. It's gonna be a really, really powerful event. We've created a partnership with Spartan Races, and so all the young men are gonna run that 3.1 mile uh Spartan race, and then we're gonna have an opportunity, a chance to welcome our young men into manhood, into responsibility, into purpose. And uh it's gonna be a phenomenal time. Did I say we're gonna break a wild horse as well? Okay, yeah. Todd Pierce, one of my best friends, is gonna uh break a wild horse. If you've never seen that before, it is phenomenal, it's so powerful. And then after the Spartan race, we give every father and son our seven-week curriculum so that you can continue the journey of discipleship for your son. So you can go to braveco.org to check all that out. Have an incredible week. We will see you next week on dates and we'll be able to do that.