Tools I Am Taking Into 2026
It is a golden time, this bit of the year. Summer, and the sense that most of us are on holiday, and anyone still working (excluding medical professionals and hospo workers – thank you both for your service) is generally operating at half speed, likely in shorts with sand between their jandalled toes.
There is no work for me in January – no one is holding a conference and we gave up on summer comedy tours somewhere around the Delta version of Covid – but you won’t find me complaining. This is where I take a breath, refresh, rebalance and picture what I’d like to happen next.
It’s when I open the file I keep on my phone of wise things I’ve heard people say in the previous year, and things I am beginning to understand. Someone will say something at a hui, or I’ll hear a poem or read a story and think, “Yes! That sounds both useful and true!”
I’ll also accidentally open it at times and type in something meant for my shopping list – “marshmallows for fruit salad”, or “pillowcases 48cm x 74cm” – but who is to say there isn’t wisdom to be found in those things, too.
Here are some ideas, then, that I am taking into this new year – too late for resolutions but in plenty of time to use as tools for building 2026.
First note to myself is a determination to enjoy getting older. It has occurred to me that aging is a kind of journey backwards into a life I have lived before – a life without dependent children or elderly parents to care for. A bit like being in my twenties except I don’t have to decide what I’m going to do with my life because I’ve done at least two thirds of it already.
One of the great things about getting older is you move through some of the nonsense faster – you’ve been around long enough to recognise your old mates Anxiety and Perfectionism when they show up, and recognise the critical voices. You start learning to say , “Oh, you’re here, I know you! Sit down in the corner while I get on with enjoying my day.”
In 2026 I’m going to keep talking about how much I love menopause. Now that we are finally being open and honest about the challenges of peri-menopause and menopause, we must also tell young women that it is not always a horror show, that there can be a lot to love about it.
Without minimising many women’s experiences, I can report it can also be liberating to move into a whole new chapter free of menstrual pain, and without parenting top of our agenda. That we are not obsolete, but recalibrating. Not broken, but rebalancing.
And I am bringing into 2026 my new favourite phrase which is, “This might be great!” As someone who can get sick (literally) with anxiety before I walk out on stage, I’ve learned to stand in the wings and tell myself that, actually, “this might be great”.
Not just side-of-stage – I’m now using that phrase as I step into other things that might scare me – social functions, complex travel arrangements, work Zoom calls… There’s always a chance they might be awesome if you allow for that possibility.
Oh, and one other tip worth sharing – there’s no point buying Christmas cards super early and feeling all smug about being ahead of the game, then forgetting where you put them until Boxing Day.
Here’s to the rest of 2026 - because this might be great!