2026 is coming up quickly. It feels like yesterday I was finishing my first semester of college and reeling in the new year. I can’t believe it’s gonna be a new year again, already. Every year, I love to make a little list of goals and see how many of them I can accomplish in one year. So, here are my goals for the year 2026:
- Get a Job
I am currently a full-time student as well as the VP of a club but unfortunately, I don’t get paid for anything. Next year, I would love to make some money in a part-time or seasonal job. I prefer it to be career related, but any job will do.
- Cook More/ Prioritize Clean Eating
This year I had a very “all or nothing” mindset. For months, I was getting take-out for every meal and then the next couple of months, I was cooking and not getting any takeout at all. I would like to be more balanced next year. My goal is to go grocery shopping once a week and cook 5-6 days out of the week. I also want to drink 8 cups of water which I already do (most of the time), so it shouldn’t be hard.
- Get Better Sleep
Another balance issue. Sometimes, I’ll go to bed at 10pm and be well-rested and other times I’ll stay up until 3am and not get more than 4 hours of sleep for weeks straight. I’d like to get a calm 8 hours of sleep most nights and wake up relatively early (which won’t be hard because I have a 9am class 4 out of 5 days of the week). I’d also like to limit my screen time before bed and after waking up because it overstimulates your brain when you’re constantly looking at a screen, especially before and after sleeping.
- Screen Time
This brings me to my next point, my screen time. My screen time was starting to be 10 hours a day and I just think that’s insane. So, I want to have less than 4 hours of screen time a day. I already started working towards this goal by adding a 2 hour limit on TikTok, 1 hour limit on Instagram and 45 minute limit on snapchat. I also set my phone to have mostly every app (other than certain contacts’ texts or calls) to shut down from 11:30PM – 8AM to help with my sleep goal.
- Physical Activtity
I hate working out. I hate going to the gym, I hate at-home workouts and I hate workout classes. I have tried almost every way of working out and just cannot find anything I enjoy. However, I love to walk. I find it to be the easiest and most peaceful form of exercise. My goal next year is to get 10k steps a day. I also started working toward this one already. For the past week, I have gotten 10k or more steps a day (including a 17k step day in the city!).
- Get Back Into Reading
I used to love reading, but this year I only read 2 books. My goal for 2026 is to read one book a month. Another rule to this is that I can’t buy a new book until I finish all of the unread books on my shelf because I have a terrible habit of buying and not reading!
- Implement a Positive Mindset
I’ve been working on this one for a few years now and every year I get better with it. Next year, I really wanna focus on negative self-talk. I tend to be very hard on myself so next year I want to keep it more positive. I also want to remind myself that I can only control what I do and how I react to things, and not overly dwell on things that other people have done.
- Be More Creative
It can be really hard for me to tap into my creative side when I’m in school so I really want to try to make time for my hobbies. Of course there is writing. There is also reading, baking, scrapbooking, taking pictures, etc. I also want to try out some new hobbies such as crocheting and getting more into social media content creation.
- Academics
This is a goal for me every year. I always aspire to get straight A’s. I also want to learn as much as I can. So my goal is to continue this for another year.
- Spend More Time with the People You Love
My last goal is another one that I have every year. I want to spend more time with my family, my friends, my boyfriend and all of my loved ones.
Those are my top 10 goals for 2026! I can’t wait to see where this upcoming year takes me and to see how many of these goals I achieve.