How to Set Intentions to Manifest Your Dreams in 2026

The new year is a prime time to dig deep within ourselves and set soulful intentions. But let’s be real—conventional New Year’s resolutions can leave you feeling pressured and defeated. Resolutions focus on the result, not the process.

This year, we’re throwing out the self-criticism and all-or-nothing thinking. Instead, we’re focusing on self-compassion and nurturing daily practices that help us live in alignment with our values. By embracing these intention-setting rituals, you’ll set your spirit on a path to peace.

Let’s point your personal compass toward growth, learning, and healing. Read on to learn how to set intentions and watch them come to fruition.

WHAT ARE INTENTIONS, ANYWAY?

You may be surprised when we say this but brace yourself: intentions and goals are not the same thing. Goals can be helpful, sure, but intentions? They embrace the seasons of your life. Your intentions meet you where you’re at, instead of pushing you toward “perfection.”

Think of intentions more like this: they are mirrors that reflect what is important to you in this season of your life. What matters to you a lot in one season might not resonate in the next; that’s okay! But with intention-setting, you’re allowing both things to be true.

Here are a few examples:

• If you are in a season of life where your career is really important to you, your intention might be to spend more time building your business.
• If your social sphere is bringing you joy, you might invest more time and energy on meaningful connections with your friends and loved ones.

When you’re setting mindful intentions, you want to be gentle with yourself (and trust the process).

4 BIG BENEFITS OF SETTING INTENTIONS

Setting intentions can have a profound impact on your mental health and overall well-being. Here are some key benefits:

• Renewed focus: When you put a name to your intentions and what matters to you, you may experience a wave of enthusiasm and vigor to concentrate on your goals.
• Deeper self-awareness: Regular reflection on what matters to you can help you determine if you’re living in alignment with your values and goals
• Stronger emotional regulation skills: Setting intentions requires a level of detachment from the outcome, encouraging you to practice self-compassion when goals get side-tracked or take more time to achieve
• Alignment with your values: When you live with intention and in alignment with what matters to you, the parts of your life that do not align with your purpose may naturally shift and fall away.

HOW TO SET INTENTIONS IN 5 STEPS

Setting intentions can be a profound and soul-nurturing practice that allows us to better align with our deepest desires and dreams. It’s a way to make a heartfelt commitment to create positive change in our lives.

Here are five powerful ways you can begin this journey of intention-setting to usher in a year of self-empowerment, growth, and soulful transformation in 2026:

1. PRACTICE SELF-REFLECTION

Take some time to review the past year. What were your triumphs, lessons, and moments of self-discovery? Acknowledge your growth and challenges as they have shaped you into who you are today.

2. CONNECT WITH YOUR HEART

Find a quiet space to sit in stillness and connect with your heart. Light your favorite candle and breathe deeply, admiring its subtle sage and oat milk fragrance. Take regular moments like this to connect to your mind and body. Let your intuition be your guide.

Remember: you don’t have to go through the process of personal development alone. Share your intentions with friends or a support group who can encourage and uplift your heart.

Surrounding yourself with positive energy can be incredibly empowering. Listen to affirming meditations, embrace a few moments of stillness each day, or pick up a nourishing movement practice like yoga.

3. DEFINE YOUR INTENTIONS

Your intentions should be specific and heartfelt. Instead of saying, “I want to change XYZ about myself,” you might say, “I intend to nurture this part of me with extra love and strive to make choices that support my goals.”

4. EMBRACE AFFIRMATIONS

Incorporate positive affirmations into your daily routine to reinforce your intentions. These can help you stay aligned with your goals and cultivate a positive mindset. Making your intentions into reality is a lot harder if your relationship with yourself comes last.

Surrounding yourself with affirmations does more than help redefine your inner dialogue. A 2016 study recorded increased brain activity when participants used self-affirmations, specifically in areas of the brain related to self-concept and our rewards system.

Here are a few self-affirmation tactics we love:

• Try placing affirmations on your bathroom mirror, for instance, to nurture a habit of being kind to yourself every day.
• Say three nice things about yourself to yourself each day when you wake up.
• Watch YouTube videos or listen to affirmational meditations.

5. JOURNAL OR MAKE A VISION BOARD

Try writing down your intentions or visualize them by creating a vision board. Use an inspiration platform like Pinterest to create a digital mood board that captures your intentions, or you can create a physical vision board on paper or by dotting a wall with sticky notes. Collect images, words, and symbols that represent your desires. Display it somewhere you’ll see it every day to keep your intentions at the front of your mind.

EXAMPLES OF INTENTIONS

Intentions look a little different for everyone—there’s no wrong way to go about it—but here are a few examples encompassing different areas of life:

• I make a conscious effort to take good care of myself — mentally, physically, and emotionally.
• I invest energy and time in my relationships with my friends and family.
• What matters to me in this season of life is:
• I actively seek out new experiences and opportunities.
• I keep all the promises I make to myself.
• My word of the year is:

COMMON MISTAKES WHEN SETTING INTENTIONS

BEING TOO VAGUE

If your intentions aren’t specific enough, they’ll be very hard to stick to. Intentions can be the foundation of a goal, a baby step designed to help you build new habits.

If your intention is to become generally more physically fit, that leads to natural questions like “why?” and “how”? Connecting to your why is a huge part of intention setting. A better way to set an intention like this would be to break it into achievable, specific themes:

• Your intention: Move my body
• Your why: To feel energized and strong
• Your how: By walking and riding my bike

Add frequency into the mix — i.e. doing the “how” 3 times a week — you’ve set an intention that you can use to build habits and, in time, make progress toward your goal.

FOCUSING ON OUTCOMES

Intentions are about the present moment and the journey you embark upon, not the end result.

In his best-selling book Atomic Habits, writer James Clear writes: “Many people begin the process of changing their habits by focusing on what they want to achieve. This leads us to outcome-based habits. The alternative is to build identity-based habits. With this approach, we start by focusing on who we wish to become.”

Consider “become physically fit” versus “move my body” as intentions. The first is outcome-based. The latter is identity-based. Becoming a person who moves their body has nothing to do with outcomes like weight loss or running a marathon. It’s a mission statement you can carry on with practicing throughout your life.

NEGLECTING SELF-REFLECTION

Setting intentions is not a one-and-done process. Like keeping a budget financially, your intentions should be regularly revisited to make them fit into your life today.

Understand that true, sustainable change takes time. Be patient with yourself and your progress. Every step forward is a step in the right direction.

Setting intentions doesn’t stop in February. It’s all about meaningful, lifelong shifts in habits and how we speak to ourselves. Your intentions and your dreams matter, even on the days when things feel impossibly hard.

As you navigate your path, you may encounter obstacles or moments of self-doubt. Embrace these challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.