20 Non-Resolutions for 2026

What I want to do—or stop doing—in the new year

This isn’t a list of New Year’s resolutions.

I don’t believe in those. They may work for some people, but in my experience they tend to turn into performance, punishment, or something I justify quitting by mid-February.

These are more like goals. Guardrails, if you will—things I want to do more of, do less of, or stop doing altogether. Yes, that’s different than a resolution. No, I’m not interested in debating the semantics.

1. Keep moving my body. Every damn day.
Thanks to losing weight and joining F45 last year, I’m about to turn 46 and feel stronger and healthier than I have in a long time. Maybe ever. In 2026, I want to keep staying active and keep weight training—to get stronger and maintain my weight.

2. But don’t let exercise become my whole personality.
After significant weight loss, the line between maintenance and fanaticism gets blurry fast. I know this because I live on that line. I think about it constantly. In 2026, I want to find a level of dedication that’s sustainable and be kinder to myself on the days I skip the gym.

3. Learn to cook more and do so at a higher level.
A few years ago, I lived on takeout and pre-made meals. Then I started making actual food. Lazy food, yes. But food that came out of my kitchen. Last year, I officially moved beyond the microwave and actually started using the oven and stove like an adult. Now I own an air fryer, an Instant Pot, and a Dutch oven, which feels like a point of no return. I still don’t enjoy cooking, and I probably never will. But in 2026, I want to get more creative with recipes, even if meal prep is still a chore. Very open to recipe suggestions, with the important caveat that I do not enjoy cooking. Like, at all.

4. Read 100 books.
Last year my Goodreads goal was 80. I read 85, although three of those were rereads, which I don’t really count because I’m weirdly intense about things like that (we’ll get to that later). Still, 100 feels doable—not aspirational, just a slight stretch. Ideally, my TBR pile becomes less of an avalanche and more of a manageable situation.

5. Be more thoughtful about what I’m reading.
I’m in a handful of book clubs—usually rotating between two and four a month. If I’m reading roughly a book a week (I am a slow reader), that doesn’t leave much room for my own choices. In 2026, I want to be more strategic about which meetings I attend. If it’s a book I’m genuinely not interested in, I can skip that month. No one is going to arrest me.

6. Read more classics.
Between majoring in English, teaching high school lit for five years, and being a massive nerd, I’ve read most of the obvious ones. But there’s still a handful of classics I’ve never gotten to and want to finally read—Catch-22, Anna Karenina, Great Expectations, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Madame Bovary among others. I also have a growing list of more contemporary classics I want to make time for, like Midnight’s Children and pretty much anything by Zadie Smith.

7. Watch more movies.
I used to watch movies all the time. I genuinely love movies. At some point, I stopped. In 2025, I watched ten movies. Ten! That’s depressing. Part of it is that there aren’t a ton of great movies anymore, and part of it is that everything is over two hours long. This is my boomer complaint. If you can’t tell a complete story in 90 minutes and it’s not written by Tolkien, I have issues. In 2026, I want to watch one or two new-to-me movies a month and remember why I liked movies in the first place.

8. Catch up on the TV I’ve been letting pile up.
There is so much TV I want to watch that I haven’t seen yet. Instead, I open a streaming app, stare at the menu, feel overwhelmed, close it, and put on trash reality TV. The growing to-watch list has become its own barrier—there’s so much there that I don’t want to start anything at all.

9. Stop making rules about how I’m “allowed” to watch TV.
This is where my tendency to be weirdly intense really shows up. I make rules about TV watching that no one asked for. I can’t start a new show until I finish the ones I’ve already started. I can’t watch the thing I’m excited about because it’s “out of order.” According to who? Absolutely no one. The TV chronology police are not coming for me. This is also why I can’t do habit trackers. In 2026, I want to stop turning leisure into a system and just watch the damn show I want to watch.

10. Travel more.
I’ve taken exactly one (1) vacation since the pandemic. It was my first post-COVID trip, and halfway through, I got COVID. You can’t make that up. We also had to leave a day early because we drove from Florida to Gatlinburg and a hurricane was coming. The universe was feeling very committed to the bit. Shortly after that, I got laid off, and travel stopped being a thing altogether. In 2026, I want to actually go places. I’m starting with a cruise for my birthday later this month, and I’d like that to be the beginning—with fewer cosmic jokes this time.

11. Stop impulse-buying dumb shit on Amazon.
I have a habit of thinking, oh, I need that, and then having it delivered to my door 36 hours later by a system built to make me never pause for a single second. It’s too easy. It’s too fast. It’s often suspiciously inexpensive. It’s also horrific. I hate supporting a company that has perfected frictionless consumption while its founder builds himself a real-life Bond villain arc. I also hate how good it’s made me at participating in this particular capitalist nightmare. In 2026, I want to slow down. Let the thought sit. Decide if I actually need the thing. And if I do, figure out whether I can buy it locally instead of immediately feeding the machine again.

12. Be nicer to myself.
This is a constant work in progress. I have bottomless empathy for other people (well—for most people), but when it comes to me, the standards are unhinged. I should be able to do the thing, do all the things, do them faster than anyone else, and do them perfectly. Every day. Possibly twice. I don’t think I’ll ever stop being a perfectionist, but I do want to be kinder to myself on the days I don’t meet my own impossible expectations. Less self-flagellation. More self care.

13. Rewatch and reread things I already love.
There are books and movies and shows I want to return to, but I don’t let myself because I feel like I should always be consuming something new. Like enjoyment only counts if it’s productive (are we sensing a theme here?). In 2026, I want to revisit things without guilt (let The Vampire Diaries rewatch begin!).

14. Learn how to stay informed (sanely).
It’d be nice to figure out what’s going on in the world without spiraling into a pit of doom and rage.

15. Go to the damn doctor.
Since being laid off, I’ve been on an ACA plan (I refuse to call it Obamacare). I was paying over $500 a month for insurance that exactly zero doctors seemed to accept. It was less “healthcare” and more “please don’t let me die unexpectedly.” Between the deductible and the limited options, I barely saw a doctor for over a year. I didn’t even bother with vision or dental, which feels responsible in a very specific, deeply American way. At the very end of 2025—literally December—I finally moved onto a plan through my contracting agency. It costs half as much, and doctors actually take it. In 2026, I plan to make all the appointments.

16. Leave the house more.
I work from home, which makes it dangerously easy to go days without going anywhere that isn’t Target. Or sometimes, without going out at all. Errands don’t count. Appointments don’t count. I want to leave the house for actual places—coffee, a bookstore, literally anything that doesn’t involve buying paper towels. I actually enjoy driving, and I don’t get to do it very often. In 2026, I want more leisure excursions and fewer supply runs, because it’s healthier to regularly leave the physical and mental confines of my house.

17. Be worse at responding immediately.
Texts. Emails. The endless psychic pressure of Microsoft Teams. I am extremely good at replying quickly, and it turns out this has not improved my life in any meaningful way. It’s not that I’m a people-pleaser—I’m just extremely Type A and love the dopamine hit I get from crossing things off a list. An empty inbox feels productive. The problem is, it isn’t. An empty inbox doesn’t mean you’re done—it just means you’ve made yourself available for more. In 2026, I want to get better at prioritizing instead of reacting.

18. Rest without needing to earn it.
That’s it. Just rest.

19. Let good days be good without upgrading them.
One productive day does not need to become a new baseline. One good week does not need to turn into a permanent expectation. I have a habit of taking momentum and immediately turning it into pressure—raising the bar the second I clear it. In 2026, I want to let good days stay good, and allow myself to do other things slowly, imperfectly, and without trying to extract maximum value from them.

20. Stay open to surprise.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m a planner. A list maker. A routine-based organizer. I like knowing what’s coming and having a system for it. I also have a habit of vetoing things in advance if they don’t quite fit—into the plan, the schedule, the version of the day I already decided on. In 2026, I want to do that less. Leave a little more room for things I didn’t pre-approve.