We are now in the year 2026
Many people are quietly – or not so quietly – looking for change. A deeper change. Not a new planner, not a refreshed routine, not another promise made in the hopeful glow of January. Real change.
My husband Cody and I talked about writing this article together because this moment feels familiar to so many of us. A new year arrives, full of possibility, yet the same internal scenes keep replaying. So here we go.
What images do you nurture in your mind with persistence? What stories loop in the background of your day? Are you repeating the same tired scenes – different calendar, same script? And that raises an important question: What if the story doesn’t change because the inner scene hasn’t?
When you deliberately pay attention, you gain access to a powerful tool – an ally capable of real transformation. Awareness changes everything. Without it, we live on autopilot, replaying yesterday while hoping tomorrow somehow turns out different.
Every January, we talk about New Year’s resolutions. And every year, we watch most of them quietly dissolve by February. Not because people lack discipline or desire, but because behavior doesn’t change until identity does. We try to edit the surface while leaving the root untouched.
Change – real, lasting change – is tough
Let’s be honest about that. Permanent change can feel ominous because it asks something of us. It asks us to release what is familiar, even when what’s familiar is uncomfortable. There is a pathway forward, but it doesn’t begin out there.
Think of it this way: the world outside you acts as a giant mirror of collective thoughts and emotions. But your inner world holds a far more intimate mirror – one that reflects your private thoughts, habitual reactions, and deeply held beliefs. Your thoughts speak constantly. Your senses chatter all day long. Yet it’s not the words you say that shape your experience – it’s the feelings you carry behind them.
The universe responds to the heart, not the lips
We often say we want change, but rarely pause to ask a harder question: What am I willing to give up within myself to achieve it? What beliefs, excuses, resentments, identities, or old stories are you protecting – even as they cost you peace?
Inner peace and tranquility aren’t found by escaping the world. They are created by redesigning the inner space from which you meet it. This is where you become the writer, director, and producer of the movie you are living.
And yes – this takes work. It requires vigilance. It asks you to notice when you’re drifting back into old scenes and gently, firmly choose again. But here’s the good news: it gets easier. Awareness strengthens. Old patterns lose their grip. New ways of thinking become familiar territory.
The more intentionally you write and rewrite your inner narrative, the more aligned your outer life becomes. You begin responding instead of reacting. Choosing instead of defaulting. Creating instead of repeating.
The outer world will continue to do what it has always done. Uncertainty will remain. Change will accelerate. Big shifts are coming. But your inner world – that’s where your real power lives. That’s the one place where you are not a victim of circumstance, where choice still exists, where courage quietly takes root.
So as this new year begins, ask yourself with honesty and compassion: Am I willing to stop rehearsing the past? Am I ready to create something new?
Because the moment you change the scene within, the story ahead cannot help but follow.
