Create real change: your 3 wishes for 2026

Every year this week, following all the excitement of Christmas, I go into my stillness and do a ritual to mark this special time. This is my chance to reflect on the year ending: its quintessential flavour, its high… and also its low… moments. And then, as the New Year approaches, I turn my head, Janus-like, and create my 3 Wishes for the year to come. I write these 3 Wishes in my journal and these become my personal vision, guiding my choices and actions for that year.

The following December I review these, what worked, what didn’t…and why… and then, once again, I create the next year’s vision with my 3 Wishes and subsequent actions to secure them.

I began this tradition 26 years ago and over the years, as I moved into the rhythm of this ritual, my wishes grew into an incremental visioning and evolved into ultimately finding my purpose, as well as continuing to take me on the most unexpected and extraordinary adventures.

These are not the typical New Year’s Eve resolutions, formed from guilt and with no genuine intent to implement them. These wishes are resonant with fertile energy and are about creating real change in our lives. If you create wishes that are too easy, then you will probably secure them, but you might be settling for just good enough. If you are aiming for something that really matters to you, then be bold and hungry: feeling shy about your wishes is the best indicator that you are on the right track! And these wishes are not exclusively focused on material outcomes. To create true change, we need to, as Ghandi said: ‘be the change you want to see in the world.’ So, we look inwards and ask: ‘How am I getting in my own way? How do I need to change internally to create the external world I wish for?’

I was talking about this concept of achieving real change with my friend, Sue Walter. She contended some people are more capable of real change than others, that this is inherent, not learned behaviour, and that some of us are born with this capacity and others aren’t. I winced at her words: partly because of a long-held belief that we are all capable of change and I react when people get caught in a victim/fixed mindset and say they aren’t capable of changing. And partly because I know how much courage and hard work it takes to choose real change, even if some of us are born with a predisposition for it.

But as Sue developed her premise, I let go of my pre-judgments, opened my mind and actively listened. She said that one can only be born with the ability to truly reflect and this is the essential precursor to the capacity to learn and evolve, i.e. really change. This is the process:

1. We observe the world around us, seeing with an open, non-judgmental eye. I can always tell the babies that have this: there’s a deeply, intense curiosity in their gaze.

2. We then bring inwards what we have witnessed, again without judgement, and allow the necessary time to digest this new data.

3. The next stage is ‘Sense-making’. This is the sifting and filtering process and the first time we use our IQ. Up to this point we have been using our intuitive, instinctual and emotional intelligences. It is at this stage we understand if we have outmoded mindsets and behaviours that are no longer serving us and that it is time to do/be different.

4. The fourth stage is crucial: we can have all the understanding and good intentions but if we don’t take action, it is all wasted, hot air.

Both Sue and I have this ability and it’s no coincidence that our work is involved in creating transformational change, and that my clients are all change-agent leaders.

In his seminal HBR article, ‘Managers and Leaders are they different?’, Abraham Zalesnik writes about this psychological difference and how managers and leaders differ in the field of self-perception and personal fulfillment. Zaleznik refers to the division of personality types made by William James in "The Varieties of Religious Experience". According to James, there are two broad categories of personality types: the ‘once-born’ and the ‘twice-born.’ Those falling under the first category are people whose lives have been peaceful and in a stable flow since birth. Twice-borns, on the other hand, have not had an easy time of it. They have been constantly struggling to bring order into chaos. Managers tend to be once-born: their self-worth stems from maintaining and strengthening existing institutions, in harmony with the surrounding environment. Leaders are twice-born. Their sense of who they are does not depend on their work role, sense of membership, or other social indicators. They are in constant motion, and they seek change and innovation. Their sense of self comes from a feeling of profound separateness from reality as others see it, i.e. they are innate change agents, and this inner drive is what propels them forwards. It is Ulysses and his ‘Hero’s Journey’.

I have been teaching the above to leaders for many years. Sue’s theory of an innate capacity for true change affirms that some of us are simply born this way. But I also know that it’s not as neat as someone being happy and wanting the status quo and another being unhappy and restless. I know many people in very miserable environments who stay very stuck. And what about the many that haven’t been born with this innate gift for change? Does this mean that they are fatalistically doomed to stay stuck, hitting their heads against a brick wall, possibly wanting change but not knowing how to make it happen?

Can they learn to change: learn how to go through the process of observing, digesting inwards, sense-making and then taking subsequent different action? Absolutely! I’ve seen and helped people many, many times and it brings me profound joy to witness someone find the courage and strength to make real change in themselves and their lives. It isn’t easy and they will have a lot of unlearning to do, but, like any new skill it becomes more habitual and familiar with practice.Which is why rituals are so helpful.

This is the framework for creating ‘My 3 Wishes for 2026’:

1.     Write a review of 2025 including your personal as well as your professional life:

a) What were your high moments and what were your low ones?

b) What was the overall flavour/tone of 2025?

c) What are you most proud of about how you responded to this year?

d) Any regrets? 

2.     Now look to 2026: 

a) What’s the overall flavour/tone you really want for 2026? Write a word/phrase.

b) Find/create a visual to capture this.

c) Now create your 3 Wishes for 2026 and the actions that will best ensure they happen.

On top of my individual wishes, I also wish for an overall flavour/tone for the next year, something that captures my 3 individual wishes. For 2026 and in the spirit of making real change, I am going to listen to my own advice below and be very bold and hungry:

‘My title: ‘Our Brightest Light’ was inspired by the Plato quote: ‘We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.’  As I do each time, I pause my writing to look for the right picture to bring me inspiration… I search intuitively not cognitively, knowing that the right image will guide me further into what I really want to communicate. I began with lighthouses, then different forms of light, then plants growing towards the sun. As I dived deeper, I intuitively knew I was playing it safe, still hooked into old self-limiting injunctions of so far but no further. I shook myself, took a deep breath and tapped into my unconscious, creative mind: the image that burst through was the full brilliance and power of the sun. This is what Plato meant: we are not afraid of soft light, where we can be good enough, visible but not too visible. We want to be seen…it’s a fundamental psychological need…but not too seen.

Why are we so afraid of stepping into the brightest incandescent light? Why do so many show such visceral reactions to this concept? Beyond cultural, familial reasons, it could be because we are shy and/or don’t want to be shot at if we stick our heads above the parapet. We might have learned as a young child that speaking our truth and being seen, brought envious attacks and punishment, so we learned early that being seen…really seen…is dangerous and we wisely chose to go so far but not too far. Conversely many high achievers were valued, i.e. conditionally loved, if they performed and shone. But they learned that this shining is often performative not authentic and is done to please others. It ultimately brings a sense of hollowness and unfulfillment, the Imposter Syndrome. They are pretending to be someone they are not or rather, they aren’t being the authentic person they truly are.

These are all valid reasons, yes, but they are another wall, reasons to self-limit and to keep ourselves small so that others won’t feel insecure and attack.’  Our Brightest Light

I wish you all a very happy New Year and my overarching wish for 2026 is: joyous love, great health, fabulous wealth… and huge fun!

Hannah Elizabeth Greenwood