Achieving Your Goals in 2026: Massive vs Micro Decisions.

Helen Pleic
Dec 31, 2025
7 min read

The Best Way To Achieve Your Goals in 2026 Is To End 2025 Without Rushing But With Respect.

As we close out each year, there is a strong push for the next one to be bigger and better. The transition from 2025 into 2026 is no different. This year there is more external change, distraction, and advice than ever.

AI, social platforms, advertising, and the latest neuroscience and coaching advice are framed around comparison, goals, plans, and upgrades. The focus is on what is next.

But all of it skips something very essential.

As humans, not every year is meant to look the same.

Some years are about growth. Some years are about learning new skills or repeating old ones until they integrate. Some focus heavily on business or career, health, or relationships. And some years are simply about getting through.

There is no better kind of year. There is no hierarchy.

A year only needs to be right for you which makes your internal state good.

At this time of year, business narratives push people to reflect now, commit now.

Before you commit to anything, there has to be space. Time space in your life. Mental and emotional space inside of you.

You cannot keep adding to a full cup or put more clothes into an already full wardrobe. You either empty the existing container or make the container bigger. Either way, this is not about your outside world or goals its starts with your inner capacity and internal state.

Nothing new can build when there is no space for new.

What undermines growth more than anything else is failing to intentionally close what is already in motion, off course or is coming to its natural end.

This is different to forgetting or suppressing. Most of us move through time while old events, behaviours, and emotions continue to back up and take up space without being acknowledged.

Before building what comes next, it helps to pause, assess where you truly are internally, and allow this year to fully complete.

Where You Actually Are Right Now Matters More Than Where You Are Going

Most people do not see the complete truth of where they are. They overstate or understate. They swing between overly positive or overly negative.

When people reflect honestly, they usually land in one of a few places:

Life may be moving forward and feeling aligned.
Life may be stable, but effortful.
Or life may be getting harder, with very little reprieve.

Each of these situations creates an internal state. Each carries a win or a cost.

Sometimes the cost is obvious.

Other times, it is delayed.

Often, the most expensive place to be is not seeing the truth.

Not celebrating when there is a lot to celebrate. Not acknowledging the reality of coping, managing, and holding everything together while saying, “I am fine.”

This is where people stay busy and stalled. Feeling functional and capable, tired and unfulfilled.

What changes that trajectory is not a new goal for next year.

It is pausing long enough to recognise where you actually are and allowing it to be completed, learned from, and acknowledged.

The Strongest Step That Is Missed. Completion

One of the strongest patterns I have seen across years of client work is this.

Progress follows completion.

Rushing into the next goal is not completion and it is not respectful to you. Completion is when something genuinely feels done. It is satisfying. There are no looping thoughts.

We reach milestones or survive difficult chapters and move on too quickly. We never fully close them. This creates unfinished stories and emotional residue within the psyche.

Completion is not just mental.

It is emotional, physical, and neurological.

When something truly completes, energy frees up. Focus returns. Excitement becomes available again.

Completion sounds simple.

“This year is complete.”

“That story is completely over.”

“I am complete.”

Sometimes it lands immediately. Most of the time it needs repetition over a day or quietly over a week to register.

Not forcing it.

Just checking in until the system believes it.

Without completion, the mind keeps rewinding. It searches for a different ending. It pulls old material into new beginnings and takes them off course. No amount of motivation overrides this.

This is why many people struggle to fully commit when starting something new. Not all internal stories are heading in the same direction. Some are quietly pulling them off course.

Real completion restores the energy and focus to change. Nothing else does.

Why You Are Not Failing at Change and Why Habit Books Fall Short

Most habit books present one process for change.

They are often written by authors with strong resources and assume access to supportive communities and stable environments. What is often ignored is how change actually happens during periods of high stress, in unsupportive environments, or when early life confusion triggers internal sabotage.

As the new year approaches, business pushes change as big resolutions, massive overhauls and significant resource commitments.

Then, if it does not work the first time. You didn't do it properly which is why you failed.

But real, lasting change usually happens in one of two ways. Both are valid.

Massive Decisive Change and Micro Change

Neither is always the right way.

What works is knowing how to flex each style based on your circumstances so you can manage expectations and stay steady on the path of change.

Decisive Change

There are moments when naming things clearly and often is exactly what is needed. This kind of change targets identity. Who you are becoming now.

It works when you are ready to make a clean internal shift because you are finally done.

Decisive change, done well, can take days or weeks and includes three steps.

Step 1: “I am no longer a person who.”

You write down all the behaviours, patterns, and people you are no longer available for. These are the automatic responses you currently say yes to that you want to stop. The things you default to even when you know they no longer serve you.

You read this three times a day. Morning. Middle of the day. Night.

Step 2: “I am a person who.”

You write down your achievements from early life to now. You write down the positive characteristics, values, and strengths you respect about yourself.

This is the acknowledgement of who you already are. This is the step most people skip or do superficially, without deep internal coherence.

Step 3: “I am a person who is becoming.”

You write down the behaviours, choices, and ways of being you are now choosing. The things you are saying yes to and taking action on.

There is a clear sequence:

You register what you are stopping.
You acknowledge who you already are.
You move forward into who you are becoming.

For this to work, you choose the timeframe. Three days. Nine days. Or three weeks. You work through this cycle with consistency.

When decisive change feels like too much or when you are exhausted by goals failing, micro change is often more sustainable.

Micro Change

Micro change is not about massive absolute decisions or actions. If you have change fatigue even a 1% better each day can feel like it is too much.

This is when you work within a range. One that you set. One that you can stick to. Normally 0.1% to 1%.

Absolutes create pressure and make failure easy to define. Relative change allows flexibility based on energy and capacity.

A 0.1% shift in a challenging moment often does more than a 1% shift in an easy one.

Micro changes might look like this:

Smiling more in everyday interactions.
Reducing phone visibility during conversations.
Clarifying one sentence instead of pushing through or reacting.
Taking an extra breath to remind your body it is safe.
Taking an extra sip of water.
Spending ten fewer minutes on social media.
One less drink when you are socialising.
One healthier meal every 2 days.

A simple filter begins to work quietly in the background.

“How can I make this slightly better right now?”

Over time, it is the accumulation of moments throughout the day that creates change. Everything becomes available to improve, not just one area. This creates a new thinking rule that is used in every moment which is how small sustainable change is made.

Pace, Creativity, and Why Going Too Fast Blocks Change

Many people are not failing because they lack discipline. They are failing because they are moving too fast and losing creativity at the same time.

We live in a world that rewards speed and convenience. This does not allow the mind and body to process habit change.

AI summarises information. Algorithms flatten nuance. Without realising it, people feel unrested and stop questioning, exploring, and thinking creatively.

This has consequences that rarely get talked about, especially in relation to identity and habit change.

At age five, ninety eight percent of children test at creative genius levels.

By adulthood, that drops to around two percent.

Not because creativity disappears, but because the environment stops allowing it.

Creativity is an inherent human capacity. Look at any child who feels safe to play. Creativity is play. It is the ability to try things emotionally and mentally without threat or judgement. This internal capacity is required for habit change.

In modern life, boredom is eliminated. Imagination turns into overthinking.

Stillness has been replaced by technology. Boredom, which is required for creativity and internal capacity, has been engineered out.

Forcing Change or Influencing Change

There are two ways to approach change:

You can force it.
Or you can influence it.

Forcing relies on pressure.

Influencing works through direction.

This is the difference between rigid and flexible.

Do you want to be fixed and strict in your approach or more adaptive.

Do you want it to be more process change driven or creative.

Forcing change can feel like rejection or failure if it doesn't happening quickly.

Influencing change can be subtle and sustainable.

Conclusion: A Different Way to End a Year so You Can Start a New Year

The trend of choosing a theme word for year, can be powerful when you choose the right work. There is one word that works for every year is Complete.

Not perfect. Not resolved. Not figured out. Just Complete.

Sometimes it is enough to look through your photos, messages, and projects and say.

“This is complete.”