The Year I Couldn’t Set Goals

—and What Changed Everything

There has never been a year in my adult life when I couldn’t set goals.

I’m a list-maker. A vision-setter. A woman who knows how to decide what she wants and go after it with everything she has. I’ve never met a goal I wasn’t willing to work for. Hard. Relentlessly. With clarity and conviction.

And then there was that year.

I remember it plain as day—the quiet panic of sitting down to plan for the year ahead and realizing… I had nothing. No goals. No excitement. No pull toward “next.” Just a deep, unsettling fog where certainty usually lived.

I wasn’t burned out in the way we casually toss that word around. I wasn’t unmotivated. I wasn’t lost. But I was tired in a way that made goal-setting feel hollow. Heavy. Almost irresponsible.

I didn’t need another to-do list.
I didn’t need a better planner.
And I definitely didn’t need to force clarity that wasn’t there.

What I needed—though I didn’t yet have language for it—was permission to pause and ask a different question.

So I reached out to my spiritual mentor, Jeanne, and told her the truth: I don’t know how to set goals right now. And I don’t want to pretend that I do.

Instead of pushing me forward, she invited me to look back.

We planned a quiet retreat at my house—just the two of us—and spent time doing a year-in-review of the year I had just lived.

What gave me life?
What drained me?
What felt nourishing and true?
What felt heavy or misaligned?
What did I want more of?
What did I never want to repeat?

There was no rush. No performance. No pressure to make it productive.

And in that space, she introduced me to a concept that has quietly transformed the way I curate my life:

Life-giving essentials.

Not goals.
Not resolutions.
Not habits to optimize or achieve.

Essentials.

The few things that are absolutely critical for me to be the best version of myself—the version that feels grounded, generous, creative, and alive. The things that fill my reservoir instead of draining it.

That year, instead of chasing outcomes, I chose to protect what gives me life.

I’ve done this exercise every year since. Three years now. And it has changed everything—TRANSFORMED my life. Seriously.

So as I step into 2026—a year that already feels like a threshold—I want to share my five life-giving essentials. Not as a prescription. Not as a formula. But as an invitation to consider what yours might be.

My Five Life-Giving Essentials for 2026

1. To honor and heal my body so I can feel strong, whole, and fully alive.

This isn’t about shrinking or hustling or “getting back” to anything.
It’s about listening. Nourishing. Strengthening. Resting.
It’s about partnership with my body instead of control over it.

2. To create dedicated, meaningful, and undistracted time with my core four (Matt, Dixon, Thackston and me).

My husband and my boys are not a backdrop to my life—they are my life. This season requires intention, presence, and margin so that time together feels connective, not rushed.

3. To make space for creativity, beauty, and simple pleasures as a regular rhythm—not a reward.

This one has surprised me with how much it gives back. Creativity isn’t something I earn after being productive. It’s something that keeps me human.

4. To cultivate everyday hospitality—gathering, serving, and loving people well in both small moments and special ones.

Hospitality isn’t just dinner parties. It’s warmth. Attention. The way we welcome people into our spaces and lives.

5. To step fully and unapologetically into this new season of leadership, vision, and business with confidence and joy.

No shrinking. No apologizing. No delaying what I’ve been prepared for.

Why Creativity, Beauty, and Simple Pleasures?

For most of my life, creativity was something I postponed. Something I saved for after the work was done. A reward for productivity. But here’s what I’ve learned: when creativity is treated as optional, it slowly disappears. And when it disappears, so does joy.

This year, creativity doesn’t live on the sidelines of my life. It lives in the margins and the moments. It looks like fresh flowers on the kitchen counter—not because someone’s coming over, but because I’m here. You may remember my trips to the farmers’ market every Saturday last summer.

It looks like reading books purely for pleasure. No highlighter. No agenda. No takeaway other than enjoyment. It looks like lingering at the table after dinner. Lighting a candle on a random Tuesday. Making space for beauty simply because it feeds my spirit.

These are not indulgences. They are nourishment.

When I make room for beauty, I show up better everywhere else. More present. More patient. More generous. More myself. And that’s the thing about life-giving essentials—they don’t add weight to your life. They remove it.

They don’t become another box to check.
They become a lens through which you make decisions.

This Is Not Another Thing to Achieve

I want to be clear about something: life-giving essentials are not another burden.

They are not goals you fail if you don’t perfectly execute.
They are not rules to live up to.
They are not one more thing to manage.

They are what allow you to live from a full reservoir instead of running on fumes.

They help you decide what gets a yes—and what gets a no.
They give you language for alignment.
They offer permission to protect what matters most.

And maybe most importantly, they honor the truth that seasons change—and what gives you life in one season may look different in the next. As you think about the year ahead, maybe the question isn’t What do I want to accomplish? Maybe it’s What do I need in order to feel alive?

That question changed my life.

And it might just change yours, too.

With love,
Heather

PS: If you want to connect with Jeanne to have her walk you through her Life-Giving Essentials Practice or for spiritual mentorship, please let me know. It would be my honor to connect you. She is a treasure and gift in my life!