2026 In + Out: What We’re Carrying Forward
…and what we’re done tolerating.
It’s everyone’s favorite week of the year. The week where we collectively put our burdens down, even if just for a moment. I hope you’re resting. Completely zoned out. Binging your favorite shows (i’m obsessed with The Studio on Apple TV+). Eating whatever your heart desires. Laughing uncontrollably with the people you love. Looking one another in the eyes and reminding yourselves of what actually matters.
Because we’ve all been carrying a lot.
2025 will go down in the record books. As if we needed another year etched into history. We thought the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 were the worst of it. Then came the aftermath and recovery of 2022 and 2023. I don’t think any of us imagined 2025 would feel heavier than five years ago. And yet, here we are.
I know many of us are looking for a reprieve and a pause from the weight of it all. And that makes sense. But history tells us something else. Every generation inherits a set of systems that shape how we see ourselves, relate to each other, how we work, and what we believe is possible. And we’ve been one of the most interesting sets of circumstances in human history.
Most people will spend their lives trying adapting to those systems, trying to succeed inside of them. But some of us feel the tension. We sense that the way things are isn’t the way they are meant to be.
That tension is our invitation. We can either be frustrated by it or embrace it. And if you’re part of this community, you already know which kind of people we are. We are living in a moment that demands a different kind of fortitude and resilience.
And for those of us who take our lives, our calling, and our assignments seriously, these are the mindsets, moves, and behaviors we’re carrying forward into 2026 — and the ones we’re no longer willing to tolerate.
IN: Understanding the gift of pain
OUT: Interpreting pain as proof we’re powerless
Most of us were conditioned to see pain as a problem to eliminate or a sign that something has gone wrong. The instinct is to avoid it, numb it, or rush past it as quickly as possible. But pain is one of the most honest signals we ever receive.
Just like pain in the body tells us where healing is needed, pain in our lives points to something unfinished, underdeveloped, or asking to be restored. The mindset shift is learning to stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “Where is this trying to lead me?” The mistake we’ve learned to make is treating pain as evidence of failure, instead of recognizing it as evidence that something meaningful is trying to come through us.
Pain is the doorway to our greatest work. Pain is the prerequisite for power. It’s shaped in the places where we were stretched, disappointed, overlooked, or brought to the end of ourselves. When we understand pain this way, it stops being something to resent and becomes something to learn from. Something to steward.
This is the shift from resenting our pain to becoming responsible for what it produces. We’re choosing to not linger in it longer than we need to, but instead learn from it. And in learning, we gain the ability to recognize, care for, and walk with others through the very places we once needed help ourselves.
IN: A self-leadership ethic
OUT: Waiting for our leaders to figure it out
No one is coming to save us. We can learn from everyone. But we can’t let everyone lead us.
We’re living in a moment where the old scripts no longer work. We are waking up faster than the structures designed to hold them. And one of the most visible breakdowns across all of it is leadership. We are in an epidemic of terrible leadership. We keep placing people in positions of authority who were never trained, equipped, or meant to lead us well. And in a world where work is still done through people, our inability to lead each other with care, clarity, and conviction has real consequences.
Waiting for better leaders to rise keeps us passive. If we want a new world, we have to become the kind of people who can sustain it. People who lead differently. Build differently. Relate differently. And that begins with self-leadership.
At its core, self-leadership is the development of the mindsets, practices, and internal conditions required to lead ourselves in service of something bigger than us. It is not hyper-individualism, self-help or self-absorption. It’s the capacity to move with clarity, responsibility, and alignment even when there is no script to follow and no one handing out permission.
There is no leader or system that can tell us why we’re here or what we’re here to do. We have to learn to lead ourselves in a world that would prefer us to stay dependent. We don’t need someone to hand us the answers. We need the context to trust ourselves. The truth is, we are way more capable than we’ve been allowed to believe.
IN: Creators telling the radical truth of the journey
OUT: Influencers who romanticize the journey
The most radical thing any of us can do right now is tell the radical truth about our experience.
We’re done with polish masquerading as wisdom. We are SO over influencers hiding behind an illusion that bears little resemblance to real life or real work. As we move into 2026, we all have to be way more honest about the cost of what this takes. We have to be willing to really show ourselves actually doing the work.
We’re at a crossroads where we can no longer afford to hide behind aesthetics or aspiration. Life is hard. Our futures are at risk. And glamorizing the journey isn’t helping any of us.
If we want to build something that lasts, we have to be willing to name what it actually takes. Because no one is coming to save us. And pretending otherwise only delays the work.
The creators we will be drawn to are the ones willing to tell the truth about the doubt, the discipline, and the detours it takes to build something meaningful. We won’t pretend the path is easy. We will make it legible and offer real context by showing what’s possible by illuminating what it actually requires. And in doing so, we give people permission to stay in the work long enough to start seeing results that build conviction.
IN: Potency
OUT: Popularity
Somewhere along the way, we started confusing being seen with actually making an impact. Some of us chased attention. Or became obsessed with numbers and metrics. We tried to be everywhere at once and wanted to be in every room. And a lot of us ended up spread thin, tired, and wondering why none of it felt as meaningful as we hoped.
We’re moving differently now.
Potency isn’t about being visible all the time. It’s not trying to keep up with every trend or jump on every opportunity. It’s slower than that. Quieter. More intentional. And honestly, it takes more courage. Because it means caring less about being liked and more about being true.
This year, we’re choosing depth over breadth and substance over signal. We’re going deeper into the thing that’s actually ours instead of trying to do ten things halfway. We’re getting better at our craft and focusing on mastery of ourselves. Clearer about what we believe. More disciplined about when we speak and why.
Popularity fades. We’ve all seen that. But potency lasts. Especially in a moment where trust feels fragile everywhere. So we’re leaving behind the pressure to be everywhere, to be liked by everyone and to constantly perform. The work ahead doesn’t need more noise, it needs something that we can build our lives on, not just look at.
IN: Clarity
OUT: Living in perpetual distraction
We’re not tolerating distraction anymore. Distraction keeps us busy without being present. From the beginning, we were trained to stay occupied. The moment we slow down long enough to think for ourselves, the world rushes in to pull us back out of it.
Distraction is profitable. The less connected we are to our own thoughts, the easier it is for other people to tell us who to be, what to want, and how to measure our life. That’s why the noise never stops. More scrolling, new algorithms, endless alerts, more jarring headlines and opinions. 24/7 noise. The goal isn’t just to capture our attention. It’s to keep us from ever sitting with ourselves long enough to hear what’s true.
But next year we’re choosing clarity.
Clarity requires radical presence. It means turning down the volume long enough to notice what’s actually happening inside us. Clarity comes from paying attention to the patterns in our life. The things we keep circling. The moments when we feel most alive. The work that asks something of us and gives something back. When we’re clear, we move different. We make cleaner decisions and we stop chasing what doesn’t matter.
We don’t have time to be distracted. We have real work to do and real problems to solve.
IN: Proximity to people who elevate our belief and vision
OUT: Proximity to gossip, chronic criticism, and misalignment
We’re not tolerating environments that pull us into a smaller version of ourselves.
This doesn’t mean we stop loving people. We can still be kind. We can still want others to do well. We can still hold respect and care. But we have to be honest about something: we cannot become who we’re meant to become while staying closely tethered to people who constantly pull us backward.
The stakes are too high.
Behind nearly every person who reaches alignment and full expression, there is at least one other person who helped them believe it was possible. It doesn’t take a crowd. It takes one person who is equally committed to your becoming. Someone who mirrors who you are today, not who you used to be. Someone who holds you to that standard when you forget it yourself. Someone who can see clearly when doubt, fear, or fatigue sets in.
Great work doesn’t grow in isolation, but it also doesn’t grow in every environment. It grows in the context and intimacy of relationships. That means we have to be more discerning about who gets proximity. Not everyone can carry the weight of your becoming. Those who gossip, chronically criticize, resent us or live in misalignment aren’t harmless. We are what we consume. They slowly pull us back toward what’s familiar instead of forward into what’s possible.
We will rise to whoever we surround ourselves with. And moving forward, we’re choosing to be intentional about who gets to walk with us.
But this week we rest in front of the fire, let our minds wander and prepare for the best year of our lives. cheers to 2026 being the year when everything changed.
sending you so much love,
m