What is Possible in 2026

Save your spot in my next Free Webinar ( Your Year of Change) HERE.

In today’s episode, I walk you through one of my favorite end-of-year practices: asking what is truly possible for you in 2026. This isn’t about surface-level goals or New Year’s resolutions that fade by February. This is about intentionally creating your life—your body, your habits, your mindset, and the woman you are becoming.

I share powerful reflection questions to help you move from consuming information to actually creating change. We talk about how you want to feel in 2026, what you want to create in your body, health, relationships, money, and life, and who you need to become to make those things real. I also explain why big goals matter—not because you must hit them perfectly, but because of the confidence and self-trust you build along the way.

You’ll learn:

• Why focusing on feelings (not just outcomes) creates sustainable change
• How to think bigger than your past results
• The importance of identity, beliefs, and daily intention
• How choosing a Word of the Year can anchor your growth
• Why allowing discomfort is part of real transformation

If you want 2026 to be the year you stop starting over and start living intentionally, this episode is for you.

Courtney

I am currently taking private coaching clients. If you are loving the podcast and would like to speak with me about how I can help you get into your healthiest body and mind (including weight loss, better habit formation, and more JOY!), click HERE to schedule a consultation. We will spend an hour together, and I will help you uncover exactly what needs to change so you can live in the body and live the life you want. Can't wait!

Transcript

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Steve, welcome to modern body, modern life, the podcast for women who want to feel powerful, healthy, strong and confident, inside and out at every age. On this podcast, we talk about becoming a woman who is fully in control of her eating and movement, so weight loss, strength and energy become permanent. We also talk about something bigger, becoming the woman who takes her deepest desire seriously and goes after more in every area of her life. I'm body and life coach Courtney Gray, and I believe you can get in the best shape of your life at any age, and when you do, it becomes a catalyst for everything else, your relationships, your confidence, your joy. Because when you feel like you and your body, all of life gets better. Let's get started. Welcome to the podcast episode 112 what is possible in 2026 every year at the beginning of the year, I do a what is possible for this next year, and it's always one of my favorite podcasts, because although I believe at any moment throughout the year, you can decide to make massive changes in your life, for sure, I always believe there's something magical about a new year. So I'm so happy to be delivering this podcast to you. I'm so happy to be back recording, because I have not recorded a podcast in weeks. I stacked the podcast so it would be there for you every Tuesday morning while I was on the trip of a lifetime with my sister in Thailand. We went to Thailand for two weeks, and it was the trip of a lifetime. We worked at an elephant sanctuary for seven days. Is called the elephant nature park. It was absolutely amazing. If you're on my email list, I gave you the opportunity to reply back to me, and I sent you all the pictures, not all the pictures, but I sent you a collage that I put together of our experience, and it was just so life changing in many ways. Not only was it amazing being around these elephants and knowing that our money and our efforts were going towards creating a better life for these elephants. But I also met women from all over the world, and that was kind of a surprise to me. I knew that there would be other volunteers there, but I didn't realize I was going to be able to get to know and be around so many amazing women from all over. I met women from Colombia, from Ireland, from other parts of the United States. I met women from Mexico and Switzerland. It was just amazing. And a lot of these women were traveling solo, which was a huge inspiration to me. My sister has done a lot of solo traveling, and I haven't done very much solo traveling, so this really inspired me to do in the future, to do more solo traveling. So it was amazing experience. Enrollment is open right now for the January modern Change Group. We start on January 21 this is a small group of women meeting over zoom, so you can be anywhere in the world and join this program. And I'm keeping the group small, so there is a limited space available. You can get all the information about this group. If you head to modern body, modern life.com there is a link where, under work with me, or even on the home page, there's a link to get all the details in your role. And you know, you've been listening to this podcast for a while, but this group is this group coaching program is for women who want to learn how to lose between 10 to 15 pounds by changing the way they eat, changing the way they think, changing the way they process emotion, really changing them so it makes weight loss sustainable. This is not a lose weight quick program. This is a you've tried many times, and mindset has been what is missing? Program, if you love the podcast, you will love this group, and I'd love to have you join me again. Modern body, modern life, calm, and you will find the modern change program all the details and to enroll. And if you love this podcast, I'm hosting a new free, live webinar. It is called your year of change. It's going to be coming up on January 8. If you have been following me, you know that my webinars and my workshops and my master classes have always been free, and this year I'm going to start charging for them. They're, first of all, just so transformational. I put so much effort into them. They're just absolutely so much. It's almost kind of like the podcast on crack, on even more transformation. It's really is so rich of information and transformation. I'm going to start charging for them. I don't know how much yet, but I'm going to start charging a fee for them, but this one is going to be free. So I just wanted to give you a little heads up. If you've loved them in the past, you're going to want to come to this one. It's going to be equally as transfer transformative. I'm going to be teaching you how to create real change, and this means changing you. If you want to change your body and how you eat, you are going to have to change. You, and it all starts with your mindset. I'm going to talk about how to go from consuming to creating, because there's a lot of very intelligent, very successful women out there. You might be one of them where you read the books, listen to the podcast, but you're not really creating changes in your life. I want you to go from a person who listens and reads and has good intentions to getting it done. This is one of the things I will say that I love about myself, is I will think, Huh, I really want to create a really successful podcast, and I will do a lot of consuming meaning. I will read books. I will read blog posts, I will listen to podcasts, I will maybe do a master class or two, or a webinar or two, and then I will do all that, and I will apply it, and I will create the very successful podcast, and not continuing to listen anymore, because I've taken it and I've done it. And I think one of the problems in this Information Age is people are consuming they're saving the recipes on Instagram. They're saving the inspirational quotes, but they don't know how to get themselves to actually be the woman who does the thing. And that is what this webinar is going to teach you. It really is going to teach you also what is missing from most people's quote, unquote plans and New Year's resolutions right now, because I'm telling you, you know, as we are coming into a new year, so many people are like, I'm tired of myself. I'm going to do things differently. Okay, now is my time, and they don't have what it takes to get themselves to do it, and so that's what I want to do. I want to teach you how to change you so you actually make the changes in your life. If you are interested in coming to this free webinar, there will be a link in the show notes. There will also be a link on my website, modern body, modern life.com, and if you follow me on Instagram, there will be a link in my bio as well. Links everywhere, people. Links everywhere, before I dive in to the podcast today. If you haven't listened to last week's podcast episode 111 I would suggest going back and listening to the end of year life audit. I feel like these are a twofer. I feel like they're both really necessary for you to get the biggest bang for your buck. And so last week, what I talked about was doing an end of year life audit, and I gave you a bunch of questions to look back over 2025 and really evaluate how you lived, how you thought, whether you accomplished the things you wanted to accomplish, whether you accomplished the things you wanted to accomplish or not. The reason why that is so important is I see a lot of people doing this, and I even talked about I used to do this as well, is that a lot of people, at the end of the year, they go, Okay, I'm just going to start out doing this, and they just immediately go into kind of almost a half assed creation of how they want to change for the next year, but then what they end up doing without even realizing it is they end up carrying old thoughts and habits and negative emotions and negative thought patterns negative stories into the next year. And that's why so many people don't ever create a life that they love. That's why so many people are living the same life over and over and over again, and kind of going, Oh, well, this is just me, or this is just what's available to me. So I really want you to listen to the end of your life audit. And if you really, really, really want to go from consuming to creating, you will listen to the end of your life audit, and you will actually sit down and answer the questions, and then you will come back, and you will listen to this podcast, and you will actually write down the questions, and you will spend time thinking of them. Some of these questions are going to be probably a little bit easy for you to come up with a few answers, but some of these questions are a little woo, woo. Some of these questions are a little meta. You're going to have to sit, sit there and take time to answer these questions that is going to take you from consuming to creation. And for those of you that are listening right now that are my current clients, I am going to create a digital workbook of all of this for you. So it's going to be a digital workbook of the end of year life audit. And then it's also going to be the same workbook is going to be creating 2026 so that is going to be coming to you very, very soon. In fact, this episode is coming out on Tuesday, so there's a really good chance I've already sent it to you, and then we will discuss it on our call this week. And for those of you who have already signed up for the Modern change program that starts January 21 I'm also going to be giving you a workbook, even though we don't really start till the 21st I want you to be able to do this work right now before we even get started. So if you have signed up and you're already one of the women that is in my January modern change program, I will be emailing you a copy of this digital workbook. I would print it out and spend. Time doing it, you will love it. And for those of you that hear this and they're like, Oh my God, I want that workbook beautiful. It's considered a bonus sign up for the Modern change program. I will be sending this out to you, for you to get a kickstart on evaluating last year and planning for this year. I just completed my life audit and what's possible for 2026 this morning, and it took me about an hour and a half because I love it like I sit there and I'm like, This is so fun. I'm with my blanket, I'm with my coffee, and I am my phone is on, do not disturb. And I just so enjoy sitting there going through these questions, and a lot of these questions I have been asking myself over the years, but this year, I really took a lot of the questions that I have asked and I changed them, and I tweaked them, and this is kind of my updated version of really looking at last year. What did I like? What did I not like? How do I want to do things differently and planning for this year? So let's go, okay, here is the first what is possible in 2026 question for you. How do I want to feel in 2026 stay with me. You might be like what this question is very, very powerful, because here is what I want to share with you, the reason we want anything in our life is because we believe we will feel a certain way in the attainment, in the having of it. So if right now you're saying, I want to lose 30 pounds, but Courtney, you are right. I want to do it sustainably. I love it for you, there is a feeling that you think you will have in reaching that 30 pounds down. What is that feeling? If you're thinking, Yes, I want a lot of different things, and that's and I'm going to say this, let me let a little caveat to all of this. When we are talking about what is possible in 2026 you might say I want to lose 30 pounds, but I really want you to come up with what else you want for your life. This. This is so much more than weight loss. You know it is right. It's a feeling. What else do you want? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to have a stronger relationship? Do you want to have more sex? Do you want to have more adventures? Do you want to organize your house? Do you want to feel like you can stop eating it after dinner, and just feel at peace, like, what else do you want for your life? And as I go through these questions, I'll give you some of my answers, kind of like how I did in the other podcast, just to kind of inspire you, especially if the answers are a little more Woo, you might be like, Okay, so when you think about all the different things you want, what are the feelings you will have when you get that thing? And so I made a huge list of what I want for 2026 and here are some of the feelings that I came up with. So I made a huge list of what I want which I'm going to have you do that in a minute, but I wanted to start with the feelings first, because I wanted you to know that in the end, we all want to feel a certain way, and if that's true, which I believe it is, then we can get that feeling a lot of different ways. So if you're thinking, I really want to lose 30 pounds, and I know if I lose 30 pounds without dieting, but doing it in a sustainable way, if I do it by becoming a woman who feels in control of her eating. If you think about that and you think, I'm going to feel peaceful, amazing, but you can feel peaceful even without that. There are other ways to get to peace. So you want to make sure, okay, if we can get to peace other ways. Is that? How you want to do it? It probably is. If I know you, I know it probably is, but it's important for you to realize that not only can you get to peace other ways, not only can you get to sufficiency and love and pride, other ways, you want to make sure you're feeling that way in the attainment of everything you're trying to do. Meaning again, to the example of 30 pounds, if you want to lose 30 pounds in a sustainable way in 2026 and you know, in the end, you're going to feel peaceful. You want to create peace throughout the process of losing that weight. Now that doesn't mean the whole process is going to be shits and gigs. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It means you want to keep going back to thinking, does this feel peaceful? How can I create more peace? Because what's going to happen is, if you create 30 pounds down in 2026 from stress and anxiety and shame and mental whipping and dieting and not enoughness, when you get to 30 pounds down, you might have a really hard time feeling peaceful. So if you want to feel peaceful in the end, we need to create peace along the journey of getting there. If you're saying, if you're like me, and you want to create more money and 2026 I love making money. So 2026 one of the things I want is more money. But I and I know that when I create this more money, I am going to feel even more secure. So I need to create this money not from fear and from selfishness and from just wanting to buy all the things out of like this, like, oh, like, I have to keep up with the Joneses. If I know I want security, I need to create it feeling secure already. So that's why I started with how do you want to feel? First is the way we feel matters, and everything we want makes us feel a certain way. So we need to focus on that as we go forward in 2026 trying to achieve all the things we want to achieve. That's why it matters. Here's the second question, which projects, clients, friends, habits you can add to this give me the most joy. So I'm going to say it again, because you can add to this list for me I came up with which projects, clients, friends habits, maybe vacations habits is the, probably the biggest one, though, for people give me the most joy. And the other way you can look at this is which projects, clients, friends habits, make me suffer the most or give me the most anxiety, or give me the most angst. It just really lets us know, Okay, where am I at in my life? What brings me the most joy? What do I want to create more of? What do I want to get rid of? Now I am using the word joy just because I think it's a great word, but you might say which projects, clients, friends, habits, give me the most love or give me the most peace, or give me the most satisfaction, or give me the most connection. So of all those things, whatever word resonates with you, it really is great to get clear on what in your life you want more of. And that leads us to the question of the hour. What do I want to create in 2026 when you're thinking of what you want to create in 2026 I would give yourself at least a half hour to sit and just do a huge brainstorm. And I want you to consider your body, your health, money, if you care at all about money and how you use it, creating more of it, whatever your relationship to it, experiences, feelings, relationships, and you can add on to this list. What do I want to create in 2026 now, here's what I had to do when I start doing this work, even though I'm a very positive person, even though I'm a very expansive person, even though I'm a good at thinking big, what happens to me might happen to you is I get a little okay, like what happened last year? What do I think is possible? One year is not a lot of time. I start getting doubtful. I start thinking about my past in terms of my future, I start limiting myself. So one of the first things you can do is you could just put on a piece of paper. This is my 2026 brainstorm, and you can just start listing everything that is possible for you, even sometimes some things you don't want to do. So just start with a big brainstorm and realize it's okay that you're having doubt. It's okay that you're like, I'm not sure how I'm going to do this. And just write a big brainstorm. If anything were possible, what do I want to create? Don't filter yourself. In fact, this might be one of those beautiful times to keep writing, even if you have to say, I don't know what I want, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. Wait this. I might want this. I might want this. To really brainstorm possibilities for 2026 and here is what happens. And again I told you this morning, this happened to me. When I start even this brainstorm, I start going backwards. I think, how much money, how much revenue did I bring in 2025 how many workouts did I did? Oh, a week in 2025 how much protein was I eating? How many times did I food prep? I start thinking about all these parts of my life that I might want to dial in even more, that I might want to create even more for myself, and I start analyzing what I did in the past in order to make a plan for the future. But we don't want to do this. So on the one hand, it's natural that we do it. We go back to the past to believe what is possible for the future. Very natural. We don't necessarily want to do this. So in this brainstorm, notice you go back like if you are probably thinking about weight loss for 2026 you probably will think back to the time when you had the biggest success with weight loss and what you did, you might be like, Okay, two years ago, I lost 17 pounds on whole 30. Totally normal that your brain goes back there. But what do we want for the future? What do we want different if anything's possible. And the perfect example of this is like you might say, Okay, I lost 17 pounds on whole 32 years ago, but I don't want to do whole 30 again. I don't want to do another diet, because I ended up gaining that weight back. And so then your brain might negotiate with you and say, well, it's not going to be possible for me to lose 30 pounds without dieting if I only lost 17 pounds with dieting, and what we want to do with that is say, but what if it is possible? What if I could actually lose 30 pounds this year, even though I've never done it before, even though I really don't know how that's possible, even though in the past, I've given up. That's where we want you to stay. We want your brain to come up with all the reasons why it's probably not possible, but yet, you're going to say, but what if it is? So? I have many clients that want to make more money this year than they did last year. If I say to them right now, what do you want to create in 2026 they might say, well, I want to make more money. They might go back to last year. They might say, Okay, last year, I made 150,000 in 2026 I'd love to make 250,000 but I don't even know how I'm going to do time. How I'm going to make time for that. Okay, so let's put $250,000 down, if that's what you want. Let's not question it too much. Let's not try to figure out how we're going to do it too much. Let's think big and think maybe it's possible that is good enough. It's okay that your brain goes to the past. It's totally normal. But we want to go to the future, because if we're always looking towards the past to figure out what's possible for the future. We're never going to make very big strides. We're going to be living the same year over and over and over, or we're going to be just doing incremental changes, like small changes, like, oh, okay, I made 150,000 for last year. So this year I'll do 170 Well, what wouldn't it be amazing to do 151 year and 250 is it possible? Yeah, we know it's possible. How we might not know, and can that be okay? Maybe you say, I really want to get strong. I've been telling myself I want to get stronger, but I keep not doing it. Write it down, I want to get stronger. And what does that really mean? Can we can we dive even deeper? What is getting stronger mean? You want to get on the floor and get up off the floor very easily. You want to be able to carry 75% of your body weight. I don't know if you've heard that a lot, but I've heard a lot of people like Peter Attia, who I absolutely love, who is so handsome, by the way, talk about how, if you're a woman, at any age, you should be able to carry, and it's called a farmer's carry, so in both hands, you should be able to carry, I think it's for a minute, 75% of your body weight. And if you're like, I've never done that my life. I can't do that. Last year, I just started lifting weights, and I'm lifting five pound weights. You might think that's not possible, but it is possible, and so let's put it down on the list, and then let's work our way towards it. How fun is that? So what do you want to create in 2026 can you think big for yourself, even if you've never done it in the past? I'm always trying to say, am I thinking big enough? When my sister and I were in Thailand, we spent hours and hours talking about our lives, and I kept saying to her, am I thinking big enough, Kelly, am I thinking big enough? And she laughed. She goes, Yes, I think you're good. I think you're good. Okay, okay, I want to think big. Allow yourself to think big, because here's what I will tell you, if you put something big on your creation list for 2026 and you go all in on it, and you get even halfway there at the end of the year, are you going to be mad at yourself for not reaching the goal? I really don't think you are, especially if you are in my world, and I'm telling you, telling you to not shame yourself, to evaluate and to be proud of yourself. No, you're probably going to get even farther than you ever have if you tell yourself you want to get stronger than ever, and you tell yourself you want to carry 75% of your body weight for a minute in a farmer's carry, and you end up getting to 30% of your body weight, far heavier than you've ever done before. You're not going to be kicking yourself at the end of the year. You're going to be so proud of yourself. And now, at the end of 2026 you're going to go, now's my year to do 75 or now is my year to do 50% when we have big goals, we change ourselves in the process, and we accomplish more than we ever would have by having the big goal. So often, when people think of the changes they want to make, or goals or New Year's resolutions, one of the things that keeps them from thinking big is that they worry that they're going to be disappointed if they don't. Achieve the goal. And I have two ways of thinking about this. First of all, so what? So what if you're disappointed? We are so adverse to feeling any negative emotion. So what if we are disappointed? So that's my first thing, okay, you might be disappointed. So what you can handle it? You're a tough lady. And then secondly, is it possible, though, in the attainment of it, you are going to get so much farther by having the goal, then you would have gotten not having the goal. And the most beautiful thing about having a goal is not the attainment of it. It is the changes you make in you, the woman you become on the way to achieving it. And I'll tell you. And I've said this before in the podcast. I used to hear this from Brooke Castillo and Stacey Bateman and Tanya Lee and all these people I love. And I would think bullshit. I would think about my money goal and my body goal and my eating goal, all these things, and they would say, it's really not about the goal, it's who you become in the process. And I'd be like bullshit. But you know what? I believe that so much now it really is true. Because if you become a woman that creates big goals, even gets halfway there and at the end of the year, thinks, Hell Yeah, fuck yeah, let's go and you prove to yourself you can do bigger things than you ever thought possible, even if you don't achieve it, you're creating confidence. You're creating a new self concept. You're doing more with your life than most people ever allow themselves to do, all because you allowed yourself to dream big. So I believe that to be true. Now it is not necessarily about the goal. It is who you become along the way. So I urge you to give yourself time when you're creating this list. I urge you to allow your brain to go back to the past. It's all right, but continue to go back to the future and say, If anything were possible, if I wasn't worried about disappointed being disappointed in myself, if anything were possible, if life is meant to be lived, if this is my one life, if I could become a woman that was consistent, really write down, you know, what do I want to create in 2026 and I worded that very specifically. I love the thought of, what do I want to create in 2026 because I want you to know that you're a creator. This is more than just a goal. It's more than just a New Year's resolution. It's you believing that you're a creator. You believing that you have what it takes to create your life. So that is a very intentional way that I framed that question. The next question for you is, who do I need to become to create this? Now I'm going to say it again, because this sounds woo, woo. If you've been with me for a while, this question won't be too woo, woo. But if you're new to me, you might be like, What the hell is she talking about? Who do I need to become to create this? When you think about someone who, for example, going back to our wants to lose 30 pounds without dieting in a sustainable way, in order to get that done, you're going to need to become a woman that does things differently. You're going to need to think differently. You're going to need to prepare differently. You're going to need to focus yourself like in a world where there's so much coming at us in terms of social media and families and requests and so much coming out as you're going to need to prepare yourself and be able to focus yourself and live with intention. You're going to need to be on to yourself when you start believing the excuses your brain gives you. And so when I say, Who do you need to become? These are the things you're going to write down. I need to become a woman who can focus myself every day. I'm going to need to become a woman who can remind myself that I don't know, for a lot of people, they'll create a goal or a New Year's resolution, and that's it. They hardly ever think about it again. After a few weeks, it literally goes out of their mind. It's interesting. Actually, it goes out of their mind in some respects, because they forget really what they wanted to do. But yet, the lack of having this creation in their life stays with them again. Example, you want to lose 30 pounds. This might be your goal. You might do this work with me. You might come to my webinar and you might say, okay, yes, this is my plan. But unless you change you and you focus every single day on making this change, you're going to forget, but you're not going to forget the feelings you have now of being 30 pounds heavier than you'd like to you're not going to forget. You're not going to be void of going into your closet and being frustrated every time you put your pants on. So we don't forget all that we just kind of forget. We forget that this matters so much to us we need to remind ourselves every single day. You would think that because we're living in a body or living a life that doesn't fully feel aligned with us, you would think that every single day we would go back to our Word of the Year, which I'm going to have you choose in a minute. It, or we go back to the changes we want to make and becoming, you know, thinking about the woman we want to become. But that's not how it works. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, we just live in the misery of not being where we want to be. So I'll tell you right now, you need to become a woman that intentionally decides every single day what she wants, and re decides every single day. I'm always urging my clients to get up even 15 minutes earlier in the morning and journal even for 15 minutes and say, This is what I'm doing. This is why I want it. This is what I want to believe. Because if you don't choose that intentionally. In the morning, your day gets away from you, and all of a sudden, you're living your life for all these other people. You're living your life from the past. You're living your life from old thoughts and old habits, and we're not being intentional. So you need to become a woman that creates something different in 2026 Who do you need to become? And then the next question, what do I need to believe to become this woman and create this in my life? Again, what do I need to believe to become this woman and start creating this in my life? All these things that you want. I'm going to give you an example, because I think it'll help. Because, again, this is a little woo example. One of the things I want to create is the habit of working out more consistently, even if the weather's bad, even if I'm on vacation, even if it's 6pm even if I have house guests, all these things, right? If I want to be the woman who works out, gets my workout in, even if it's a walk, even if it's a quick run, even if it's 20 minutes of yoga in a hotel room, I want to do that even more consistently. Now I'm pretty consistent, but I'm like, there's a next level for me. So that's something too. Is if you're pretty good at eating, or if you're pretty good at working out, or if you already make good money, that doesn't mean you have to settle you can go to your own next level here. So that's one of the things I want. And so when I answer these questions for myself, I think I need to become a woman who believes that movement is a non negotiable, who believes that I can put myself first and this part of my life, this goal that I want for myself, even if we have house guests, even if it's raining, even if I'm on vacation, even if the workout room in the hotel is horrible, that I can still say this, this is the woman I am. I put this as a priority. So what do you need to believe to become the woman and create this change in your life. What do you need to believe? And one of the ways you can do this is you can go to her in your mind, if you can envision yourself having accomplished this thing that you want or all the different things that you want. I'm hoping you're not just creating one change. You're creating a bunch of them. And when you think about the woman and you envision her, What is she thinking? So in the past, if you were the type of woman that that you kind of got caught up in the whole I don't have time, if you think about you in the body you want to be in, with the habits every day that you want to be having as habits, What is she thinking? Is she thinking I don't have time, but yet, she scrolls on Tiktok for an hour. Is she thinking I don't know what to eat, as she's eating takeout again, What is she thinking? And let's do the opposite of that, because I have to believe she's thinking, I have time for this. This is important. I think I told you on a podcast in the past when I thought, okay, Courtney, what are you thinking when you've achieved this goal? What are you thinking when you've become the woman that just does this as part of her routine? And I thought, I'm thinking this fucking matters. Because one of the things I've told myself in the past, one of the stories that didn't serve me in the past is that this really doesn't matter, and this is really common for women who only have a little bit of weight to lose. This is really common for women who are already working out. It's really common for women who are already making good money, or maybe women who don't have to work because they have a partner that supports them, we get in this. Does it really matter? So I decided to start thinking this fucking matters. And every morning I would write down, this is what I want, and it fucking matters to me. So what do you need to believe? Maybe you want to believe this fucking matters. Take it. I gift it to you. It's a great thing to think and then I want you to create a powerful word of the year that you can focus on to remind you of what you want to create. What is a powerful word of the year that you can focus on all year, that just kind of brings you back to this work. If you've never created a word of the year before, I really want to highly suggest it. It's so fun. So I'm going to tell you why it matters. Because life is going to get busy and you're going to have all this stuff written down, but you're going to be running around, doing all the things, having people ask things of you, emergencies are going to come up, hardships are going to come up. But if you have one word that anchors you to what you want to create in 2026 it will be something you can focus on. Maybe you want to put this word as your screensaver. Maybe you want to put this word as a sticky note on your computer. Maybe you want to put this word as like a task in your phone and have it chime every day at 10am and it reminds you of what we're doing. A few years ago, I chose the word adventurous because I really wanted to create more adventure in my life. I traveled more and traveled solo that year than I ever have in my whole life. It was so fun, and I'll tell you, if I had just decided I really want to travel more this year, that would have been great. But when I decided that my word was adventurous and I put it in my phone, that's the way I did. I put it in my phone. Is I am adventurous? In my phone, it chimed every day around 10 o'clock, it brought me back to what I really wanted to do. So then when someone said something like, Hey, do you want to go here? Hey, do you want to or all of a sudden, I had a weekend and I had some free time, I remembered, I want to be adventurous. This is something I want to create my year. Last year, my word was connected for 2025, connected. And to me, that word meant connected to my future self, connected to my past self, connected to universal energy, connected to my purpose, connected to love, connected to my true desires. And it served me so well in 2025 every time I started thinking, I don't know what to do. I don't know which decision is, is right, I would think I need to connect. And sometimes I would meditate. Sometimes I would do breath work. Sometimes I would just take a minute, and I would think, okay, if I'm really thinking about what I truly want and love and my clients and my kids and and in what really matters to me, what is the decision I want to make. Now, when I would connect to everything, I got so much clarity. And I've never done this before, but because that word served me so well, we asked last year in terms of achieving so many of my goals, achieving the way I wanted to feel, and just so much growth for me, I'm actually choosing the word again connected. It just served me so well. And I've been thinking about other words, and I'm like, no, no, that. That is the word we got to keep going. It's, you know, I'm a big believer. And if it's working, let's keep going. If something has worked in the past, let's give it a go again. And so that is my word of the year again, connected. And I'm going to, I don't even actually have to put it in my phone, because I'm so aligned and intentional with it, I'm going to give you one more question to ask yourself. And remember, if you are one of my current clients, or if you are going to be one of my future clients signed up in January modern change program, you're going to get a workbook with these questions, plus all the other questions that there's other questions as well. I just didn't want to do a two hour Podcast. I'm not Joe Rogan, so there's other questions as well. It's going to be a beautiful workbook email to you that you can print off. But for those of you listening to the podcast, the last question I have for you is, what negative emotions will I have to allow myself to feel to create all of this in 2026 let me say it again. What negative emotions will I have to allow myself to feel in order to create this in 2026 now sometimes you might think that I'm contradicting myself, because I asked you in the beginning to decide how you wanted to feel, what positive emotions you wanted to feel, and now I'm asking you to decide in advance what negative emotions you will allow yourself to feel. And here is why, on the one hand, we want to think about all the positive feelings, emotions that we want to every day create. You know, I actually don't even think that I told you what positive emotions I decided I wanted to feel. So let me tell you really quickly. I think I got off track. Maybe I did tell you, but I'm going to tell you again. Here's the positive emotions I want to feel in 2025 connected, expansive, adventurous, because it works so well in 2024 excited, amazed, empowered. So those in the beginning when I asked you, like, how do you want to feel? Those are how I want to feel. And if you are having a hard time coming up with positive emotions, you literally can Google positive emotions, and it will give you a list of 100 positive emotions. And I would look over that list and think, oh yeah, I want to feel joyful, oh yeah. I want to feel empowered, amazing, confident, amazing, like, whatever it is. But. Now I'm asking you to come up with a list of negative emotions that you will allow yourself to feel in order to create what you want to create in 2026 so what the hell am I talking about? You're like Courtney. Is it positive? Is there a negative? It really is both. So while you're every day saying, I want to feel connected, I want to feel empowered, I want to feel adventurous, in order to achieve big things, you are also going to have to allow yourself to feel negative emotions. You're going to have to allow yourself to feel the discomfort of feeling doubt and insecurity and anxiety and guilt frustration. So you're going to have to allow yourself to feel these things. What does that mean if all of a sudden you decide you want to join my modern change program and you want to lose 15 pounds, 10 pounds, 20 pounds, whatever it is, there is going to be frustration. You are going to have to allow frustration if you are going to stop people pleasing, if that's a big thing for you and your old this year, I want to stop people pleasing, you are going to allow yourself to feel some guilt. Now, of course, you want to generate the positive feelings as well, but you're going to have to allow yourself to feel a little guilt. And by claiming ahead of time, these are the negative emotions I think are going to come up for me, and I am willing to feel them in pursuit of having an amazing 2026 that is so powerful, because then all of a sudden when you start feeling kind of yucky, and you go, Oh my God. What am I feeling? I'm feeling a little guilty. You can go, yeah, Courtney said I was going to have to feel this way. Okay. I'm feeling feeling this way. You might then say, is there another way to think and feel about this? How can I manage my mind around this? But for so many people, they don't do this work ahead of time, so then all of a sudden, when they're trying not to people please, and then they start feeling guilty. They don't even know what to do with themselves, so they just give in, and they eat whatever it is so they don't feel guilty, and they say whatever they say, so they don't feel guilty. Or all of a sudden they start feeling frustration, and they're like, I'm just trying to be positive. I don't want to be frustrated. Life's too short to live. And they eat all the things and they don't go to the gym. So if we know ahead of time, these are the beautiful positive feelings I want to feel this year and at the same time, these are also the negative feelings I'm willing to feel in order to create a more amazing body and life for myself. If we can do that, you're in a really good space. Okay, it's a big month, right? I've got this podcast which is there for you. I've got my free workshop coming up. I've got enrollment is open for my coaching program, modern change. So if you have any questions about anything, feel free to shoot me an email or a DM, and I'm here for you have a great Tuesday for information on how we can work together. Head to modern body, modern life.com, to schedule a consultation with me. I'm currently coaching women privately, and I offer group coaching programs you.