My 2026 rebrand

A new year is a new chance to make positive steps towards becoming the person that you want to be. It’s also the year that I enter a new decade and I feel like this is a chance to evolve Pokemon style into my next form.

So, here are all of the ways in which I intend to rebrand myself, glow up and generally just be better in 2026.

Career

I want to be more efficient next year. I feel like I’ve taken my foot off the gas a bit with a lot of changes going on at work but this coming year I want to get back to pushing things forward more actively and creating space for me to pursue things that interest me the most (rather than simply trying to juggle things I have to get done).

I think what I need to do is to be more strict about carving out time for certain things and ensuring that I have focus time for certain things. I just need to work out the best system for doing that.

Finances

I have a six year plan for our finances that officially starts in 2026. I started planning it in Summer of this year. Officially it’s a ten year plan that could be done in six, but ten allows us a bit more grace. It would mean that the plan would hopefully end as I turn 50 – Project 50. That plan addresses longer term financial and life goals. It sets out what we need to save each year in order to achieve what we want to. As I mapped out the plan around six months ago we have already made some progress towards the overall plan, which is great. Annoyingly our mortgage payments go up by around £400 a month from 31 December as our low 1.6% rate jumps up, but we have known for a while that that was going to be likely to happen.

I also want to get back to better budgeting. I used to be super-organised about where my money went each payday. I used to have a spreadsheet with a full breakdown and used to colour in individual rows as I made payments out to the accounts they needed to be in. I want to get back to that because it used to make me much better at budgeting for treats but also bigger one-off expenses like holidays and things like home insurance (which we pay once a year rather than monthly).

I also want to try and make sure that my money has a positive impact so this year I want to make sure that at least 1% of my gross salary goes to charity. I’ve picked a small charity that operates in Tower Hamlets (my London borough) and in other areas to support with a monthly direct debit – the Alexandra Rose Charity. They work with local community centre to give people access to their choice of fresh fruit and vegetables by offering vouchers that give families in need the ability to exchange them with local market traders and independent grocers so that people can buy their choice of fruit and vegetables and also support the local economy. With inflation and the cost of living increasing, access to healthy fresh food is becoming increasingly difficult for many. My hope is that each year I will be able to increase my annual charitable giving.

Physical health

Right, so this is finally going to be the year that I actually get serious about dropping the Covid weight I gained. It’s been far too long now, there’s no excuse for it other than my own lack of discipline and it’s only going to get harder to shift it as I get older, so this year, it’s got to be gone.

That means, I need to establish a proper exercise routine and commit to it. I used to go to the gym at least twice a week and although things are all a bit trickier now I’m not in the office all week every week (which made it easy to pop to a class or for a run en-route home), there’s no reason why I can’t get my arse outside and do an outdoor run if I don’t go to the gym after work one of my in-office days (especially as I now have a running jacket).

I also need to eat better. Less mindless snacking. I probably also need to get back into my old routine of a mid-morning breakfast and then a late lunch.

My aims are to:

• Drink 2 litres of water a day (half a litre before work or at least before my first cup of tea)
• Exercise at least twice a week
• Lose 2 stone this year

I know what I need to do. In the words of the young people, I just need to ‘lock-in’.

Intellectual development

Ahead of our trip to Japan in November, I’ve signed up for a beginners Japanese class with City Lit. I am hoping to not rely entirely upon Google Translate when we visit, good as it is and as necessary as it may be. It’s always helpful to have a bit of vocabulary or a few phrases when you visit somewhere and, unlike Western Europe, where we either have some knowledge or we can make a good try based on similarities to other languages, we can’t guess at Japanese. I’m hoping that many years of having watched Ghibli films with subtitles, I will have at least attuned my ear somewhat to the rhythm and cadence of the language so I’m not starting from absolutely nothing. It’ll be good to study again, especially as it’s for fun rather than a need to pass an exam.

Beauty/self-care

40 is approaching for those of us 1986 girlies. And I have been feeling it, hard.

I have always been pretty lucky with my skin. I was never spotty, I never had to do anything special with my skin, it tolerates a lot. I was the sort of person that probably rarely removed my make-up properly before bed throughout my 20s (and let’s face it, a good proportion of my 30s). I’m also pretty pale and not a big summer person (hayfever in June and generally a preference for not being overly warm) so despite not really ever having much of an SPF regime when in the UK, I’ve never spent hours in the sun deliberately and so I don’t really have visible sun damage.

But, I am starting to see my age. I can see the static lines on my forehead, I’ve been feeling dull and grey and generally I just need to get some life and brightness back into my face so I’m happy with what I see in the mirror.

I started buying things during the Black Friday sales (including a red light mask) and want to continue to establish and stick to a skincare regime that helps me to glow. I’m also considering a few tweakments (I have budgeted a bit each month as a ‘tweakment pot’) to tackle some of my more longstanding issues – dark circles and downturned mouth corners.

Lifestyle/habits

2026 is the year I become less of a Messy Bessie. I feel like I’m one of those people that is just a little bit all over the place when I want to be glossy and put together. I’m the sort of person that probably has a bag that contains pens, hand sanitiser, concealer, tampons etc, but can I find what I want when I need it? No. My fridge always has one half-eaten mouldy yoghurt in it and my desk is usually covered in all sorts of papers. In 2026 I want to be more put together. I want to make sure that everything has a place and that I spend time paring things back, making sure that everything is where it should be and that I generally exude a less chaotic vibe.

Along with probably everyone else it seems (at least on my Instagram feed), I want to consume less but buy better. I feel like it’s about time that I own grown-up things that will stand the test of time.