Juliana Moves

If you’ve been around this blog for a while, you know I love a goal. Having something to orient myself around and work towards makes me feel joyful and purposeful. Not to mention, I love this time of year! While jumping into new year resolutions and assuming you’ll suddenly change your life overnight tends to be a bust for people, I still appreciate the positive and hopeful energy people put forth.

I was going to do a 2025 end of year goal wrap up, but I feel like I did a pretty good job with my 2025 goals and don’t feel the need to revisit them again. Some priorities shifted throughout the year, so I didn’t keep with my goals to a tee, and I am totally okay with that. In fact, I expect that’ll happen in 2026 too! It’s not about doing everything perfectly. It’s about commitment and effort.

If you are working on 2026 goals (or new year resolutions, if that’s your jam), I’d love to know them! It inspires me to see people inspired too! 🙂

Without further adieu, here are my 2026 goals – of the SMART and also dumb variety 😉 

Establish a bedtime routine and generally improve sleep hygiene.

My sleep quality fluctuates pretty dramatically, and I can really feel it as I age (lol). When we first moved to VA, I was really good about winding down at night. I made a Sleepytime tea, did yoga, and went to bed. Granted, it was during COVID, so life was all around very different, but it was still a great habit! In the last year or two, I’ve been playing it fast and loose with my sleep hygiene. I was having coffee later in the day and going to bed pretty late. 

I’ve spent the last couple months trying to clean up my act, especially since I started wearing a smart ring and developed a better awareness of my crappy sleep. Now I read before bed and put my phone across the room, but I think I have room to improve on building an actual bedtime routine. I can really tell the difference in my cognition and my overall training recovery when I get better sleep. 

I’m hoping to establish a more consistent actual bed time (and waking time), as well as reestablishing good habits before bed to support deeper and longer sleep.

Commit to training and generally do what I say I’m going to do.

I am excited to refocus on my running in 2026. I have multiple races this spring, culminating in a 100k in April, and I am ready to dive into training! 

I’ve chatted about this before, but I’d been feeling pretty burnt out with running since the Richmond Marathon. I think I always underestimate the mental toll a big training block takes on me, but I also hate taking time off of running, so then I end up in a weird mental place. Physically I felt okay, but my brain and heart didn’t feel 100% in it. Fortunately, I am bouncing back!

A beautiful, sunny run in the mountains was just what the doctor ordered.

Anyway! For this goal, I want to hold myself more accountable to my training. If I say I am going to do more time on the stair stepper to work on vert, I am going to do more stair stepper! If I need to get up early to fit in a run that day, I am going to get up early! (In fact, I want to become more of a morning runner altogether). If I say I need to take an easy day and relax, I want to actually do that and not feel like I have cabin fever!

I think I am a disciplined person and have had success with training blocks in the past, so I am excited to try to level up. 

Put more thought into our finances.

I mean, I am being fiscally responsible most of the time already! But we have some big things we’d like to do (like recast our mortgage! Buy a cabin one day!), and I’d like to make a real effort to consider all the possibilities.  

I’d also really like to get back into the swing of spending tracking, but I have a hard time sitting down to do it. I don’t feel like I need to nitpick all my spending that intensely, but it makes me feel more connected to my money and my spending values.

I became a monthly donor to Partners in Health this year, and I have felt really proud of that financial move. I’m hoping that, with a little more attention and intention, I’ll be able to do more good too.

Talk to more strangers.

I love talking to strangers. I really love it when I am talking to a total rando and it gets weirdly personal or deep. Man, I live for those moments. But in our phone addicted, attention economy, I feel like we are trained to avoid small moments of interaction like this. I find myself taken off guard when someone randomly strikes up conversation with me, even if I end up enjoying it. 

In 2026, I’d love to simply talk to people more. Ask a cashier how their day is going and actually mean it. Compliment people’s clothes. Continue conversations instead of cutting them off and looking at my phone.

We could all use the in person connection, I think.

Put a little more effort into meal planning and prep.

We cook a lot at home, but I have gotten lazy! As the resident meal planner, I’ve been gravitating back to the same handful of meals for many, many months. This isn’t inherently a bad thing! I love having tried and true meals that come together quickly (and make lots of leftovers). But I am a bit bored. I’m really hoping to experiment more and try new recipes next year. For all meals! 

I’d also like to get my breakfast appetite back. I rarely wake up hungry for breakfast, which I find really weird. It makes it hard for me to vary up my breakfasts. Occasionally I wake up ravenous, but those moments are far and few between. If I don’t have an appetite, I usually end up eating a bagel and then end up feeling so hungry later in the day. I’d like to improve upon this!

Finally, I really want to prep more snacks for the week. As I get more and more into training and adventures, I’d love to have nutritious and delicious snacks on hand to support my activity. I’ll let you know what I try!

Love,

JN