Crafting My 2026 Vision Board: How I Chose My Word of the Year & Planned My Goals

With every shift to the new year, I start by choosing a word—something spacious enough to grow with me, but strong enough to anchor my decisions. A word that doesn’t demand perfection, but invites honesty. Choosing a word to guide your year can be a powerful way to focus your energy and intentions. For 2026, I settled on the word Aligned. This choice came after reflecting on what I truly want to achieve and how I want to feel throughout the year. Aligning my goals, habits, and passions creates a clear path forward, and building my vision board around this word helped me visualize and commit to that path.

Why I Chose Aligned as My Word of the Year

Your word of the year should largely stem from a feeling you have. However, if you're unsure of what to select, consider looking back on the past year or years to identify how they felt and what changes you want to make moving forward. Envision how you want to feel by the end of 2026.

In previous years, particularly in 2025, I often found myself reacting and responding to the events around me. The year seemed to fly by, and I simply handled tasks as they came. This year, I aim to achieve balance. This involves ensuring that my goals align with what is truly important to me and that my daily habits support these goals. The word Aligned embodies the concept of harmony between my actions and my values. Alignment, for me, is the quiet yes. It’s when my work supports my well-being.When my routines support my creativity.When my ambitions don’t come at the cost of my relationships or my nervous system.

Aligned is:

• Choosing steady consistency over intensity

• Systems over chaos

• Beauty with intention

• Growth that feels sustainable, not frantic
  

It’s living in a way where my days match my values—and my values match my energy. By choosing Aligned, I remind myself to check in regularly: Are my choices supporting my vision? Am I moving in a direction that feels authentic?

Creating Goals Through the Lens of Alignment

Once I had my word, I didn’t ask “What should I achieve?”I asked:

“What areas of my life make me feel most aligned when they’re cared for?” In other words: When am I my best self?

From there, my goals naturally organized themselves into a few key pillars.

Mind & Inner Life

Alignment for me starts internally.

Planning and Morning Pages  

 I fell in love with long form journaling at the end of 2025 with the implementation of morning pages when I read The Artist's Way, and decided wholeheartedly that it would be a habit I'd want to carry into the new year. This practice helps me stay connected to my inner self, wants, needs and emotions.

This past year I started using a TN standard planner beyond my usual A5 rings. I am completely obsessed with my current planner ecosystem and setup. It reflects my personality more accurately than any previous setup I've had. I want to remember to embrace this feeling and be open to trying new things with my planner if they resonate with me but also to nurture and explore this new planner system more fully. To enjoy the act of planning everyday with a system I love that's supporting my dreams.

Reading Goals  

Another goal I make every year is my reading goal (which apparently isn't "cool" to do now - cue eye roll). Reading serves as my escape so I would never say achieving my reading goal is a challenge. However, this year I've added in a little twist. My aim is to read 25 books, with 5 of them being non-fiction. Reading provides me with so much, and I want to embrace it as a means of learning as well as for personal enjoyment.

Planning, journaling and reading are practices that help me stay connected to myself in choosing depth over endless consumption so I’m not just reacting to life, but actively participating in it.

Body & Environment

I can’t feel aligned in a body that’s in pain or a space that doesn’t support me.

Perfect Posture  

 Working from home has all but destroyed my posture. Hello working from the couch - oops. My big health goal this year is to improve my posture and back strength. This isn’t about pushing harder with high intensity workouts—it’s slow and methodical, being proactive with my health, and about caring for my body so I can keep doing what I love to do for years to come.

Work, Creativity & Career

Alignment means doing what matters and doing it well.

Authentic Brand Growth  

 The brand I've built here at EO Edits is so special to me. It's more than just a brand; it's me, personified into a planner shop. This approach keeps me centered, not only on building a brand that truly represents who I am, but constantly reminds me to be grateful for the opportunity to have this little corner of the internet. Leaning into this, I want my career to feel elegant, organized, and creatively fulfilling—not reactive or exhausting.

Financial Growth

I make a similar goal every year: to make more than I did the year before. I'm aiming to strengthen income streams with clear, grounded financial goal to hit yearly, quarterly, and monthly. For me, feeling aligned means feeling financially stable and abundant, to do what I want and live the way I want.

Relationships

A full life isn’t just built—it’s shared.

Alignment here means monthly dates, weekly check-ins, making space for connection, not just coexisting. A relationship where each of us feels supported, connected, and heard.

Play & Creative Exploration

Play is alignment. Art without pressure is alignment. Letting myself explore who I am outside of productivity is alignment.

Hobbies and Joy

I feel the most aligned when I give myself the time to lean into the hobbies and practices that bring me joy. In 2025, I taught myself to crochet and while it sounds like such an insignificant thing, it really reminded me how much happiness I get out of creating just to create. To make beauty out of nothing. For 2026, I want to lean into and make time for hobbies like crochet, painting, journaling, and photography.

Personal Style

I'm starting to feel the urge to try something new, perhaps even a little daring. I've been wanting to get my second ear piercings for some time now, but I haven't gone through with it (I really dislike needles, by the way). However, this year I'm really eager to get it done. A simple, effortless outfit complemented by layers of jewelry truly reflects my style and what could feel more aligned than finding my own personal style?

Translating Alignment Into a Vision Board

Once my word and goals were clear, the vision board came together effortlessly.

Instead of asking “What do I want?”I asked: “What does an aligned life look like?”

So the 2026 vision board is filled with:

• Quiet luxury moments for inspiration

• Journals, stacks of books, and handwritten notes and pages

• Art supplies, skeins of yarn, texture, photography and creative mess

• Subtle reminders to care for my body, long-term

• Encouragement to explore my personal style

• Romantic, grounded moments of connection

• Notes of consistency, not chaos

• Images that symbolize abundance and progress.

• Authenticity and a strong work ethic that goes into my career

It’s affirming.A visual reminder of the life I’m already building, just more intentionally.

Staying Aligned Throughout the Year

For years now I've created my vision board digitally and use it as my phones wallpaper which means I see my goals every single day, multiple times a day. I also print it and keep it in my planners and journals. It’s a constant reminder to stay aligned with my intentions. When I feel distracted or overwhelmed, I look at the board and ask myself if my current actions match what I want to achieve.

I don’t expect every day in 2026 to feel perfectly aligned.That’s not the point. The point is having a compass. A word I can return to when I’m overwhelmed, distracted, or feeling a bit lost.

Whenever I’m unsure, I can ask:

• Does this support my body?

• Does this support my creativity?

• Does this move me closer to a life that feels like mine?

If the answer is yes—I’m aligned.

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If you've gotten this far - thank you!! As a reward, and if you love it, feel free to download he 2026 vision board right here.

2026 vision board.eoedits.pdf

Download PDF • 6.40MB

Here's to a beautiful 2026!

-Emilee