It’s January 01, the start of a new year, and the time for every person on planet Earth to start rebuilding themselves – for the next entire three days! Like everyone else, I’m setting my goals for 2026 — but unlike the perfectly curated lists on the internet, this one is honest, chaotic, and very real.
Here’s the thing. I have played this game before, and I know I fail like I’m a woman in the United States of America running for presidential elections, and here’s another thing – women still continue to run for election in America, given their track record and that’s exactly what I’m going to do – repeat my mistakes, only this time without repeating my self sabotages (one can only hope). So, to start the year strong, my strategy is simple: hard-launch my goals so I can’t back out later. This may look like content for the reader, but really? It’s just me holding myself accountable.
Education Goals for 2026
I have to be honest, this has never been on my goal list before last year. After my graduation, I was perfectly comfortable with my degree. I always knew I would want to study further, but I just wasn’t ready for it back then. I gave my B-School exams last year for the very first time and I think I now know where I stand academically (ha! That’s a lie. I have XAT coming up in 3 days, and I have no clue how I am going to do). That being said, I want my biggest focus for this year to be getting into a tier-1 B-School, by 2027.
Language Goals — Marathi & Spanish
For someone that’s as much a sucker for languages as I am, I sure have not been able to fully learn a new language in the last how many ever years that I have been trying for. I have lived in Maharashtra since 2008 and I still can’t speak Marathi, and knowing that hurts my ego, like a lot. So this year, my language goal is to at least learn Marathi enough to be able to understand the native speakers properly. As for Spanish, I have been at B1 language level since before Jesus was around, so I would like to grow the hell up and finally move past being a Spanish ‘learner’. If someone ever finds out how long it took me to learn this language, they’d think I am related to Rahul Gandhi, but no – I just have a unique learning disability called being painstakingly lazy. I just want to be able to move onto the next language next year, please.
Starting My YouTube Channel in 2026
I have been putting this one off since 2019. I had an excuse every step of the way – at first, I thought my parents wouldn’t allow, so I never asked. Then when I did get to bring it up, and they were cool with it, I was too shy to do anything in the house because I still stay with them, and now it’s me not having the right equipment and the right setup I think I need – the truth is, I know I will never have everything I ‘think’ I need to start the channel, until I start the channel. So this year, faceless or not, I am starting a YouTube channel.
Writing & Publishing My First Book
I know my friends are reading this, rolling their eyes at the number of books that should have been published by now. The thing is, I am creative – but like I said, I have a learning disability called being fucking lazy, and the second I figure out the entire plot to a story in my head – the thrill of the story goes away and I cannot write the plot any longer. But this year, fiction or non-fiction, this criminal mastermind is releasing her own book.
Launching a Small Business — My Plan for 2026
I know nothing about businesses, but I do know that I am too creative to be married to a job and not have affairs. I want to have an affair, and I want to know what that side of the world is, so before the end of this year, I need to start a cute little business, even if I only have like 10 customers. So, I guess my goal this year is to
- Learn about small businesses, and how to start one.
- Build connections to help me start and promote my business.
- Use my everyday life to get my first 10 customers.
Sounds easy. Now all I have to do is – everything.
Social Media — Making My Life Instagrammable
I swear, every year, I have like a set number of posts that I want to post on my instagram, but like everything else, I am never able to get to it. I personally believe it’s because I have a boring, un-instagrammable life, and while that’s completely true – my life is what I make it to be. And for someone that has her own aesthetic – I am clearly not living up to my potential. So, this year, I choose to make my life instagrammable.
Reading 60 Books in 2026
I love reading, but just like we have established twice earlier in this rant – I am lazy. My commute to and from work everyday is around five hours. What do I do in these hours besides sitting in one spot and staring out the window? I listen to music. All five hours. And besides ruining my ears, this also makes me feel extremely guilty and unfulfilled later. So, today I set a target of finishing sixty books, of no specific genre, during the course of this year. That’s five books in a month and would need me to finish a book in approximately six days. It is impossible but then again, that’s the whole reason we are announcing it like this here, now aren’t we?
Getting My Finances Together (Finally)
I have this whole “I’m just a girl” thing going on with my money right now, and I am smart enough to understand that I can’t pull a Vijay Mallya so that has to stop. Which means I need to log in my expenses and control them. Last year, I spent so much money on skincare I didn’t need at the moment (Even though I’m glad I bought it because now I can be chill about my skincare for at least a few months), on cute stationery that I absolutely didn’t need (but don’t regret buying), and on – and I need you to read this properly – action figures of Rapunzel. So yeah, this year, we are getting our financial shit together. No more eating out, buying cute shit and buying skincare when I don’t need it. Again, this will never work if I add never buying clothes – so we stick with realistic goals only.
Rebuilding My Voice — Voice Training Journey
When I was younger, I could sing well – up until grade 8. Then, as I grew older, I decided trying to act like a man made people take me seriously – and in this very geniusly thought process, I lost my voice completely. I need it back, because now I not only don’t sound good, – the fact that I don’t sound good has made me extremely conscious to the point where I purposely mispronounce words to make it look like I am intentionally being weird and funny. And that’s not who I want to be for the rest of my life so this year, I aim at making my voice better and stronger.
My Creative Hobbies for 2026
I am artistic. I can pick up any form of creativity if I really give a quarter of my heart to it. It doesn’t even have to be full dedication. Just a small uninterested effort. I learnt how to make Rangoli, simply because my mom made me do it once a year for 2-3 years. Once a year – now think about what I can be if I put my entire heart to it? Yes, that’s right. I can be Leonardo Da Vinci’s grandma. So that’s who I’m gonna be. I have been putting off sewing and crocheting because I have a wandering brain that can’t focus and I want to change that, just as much as I want to learn those two forms of art.
The Rest of My Goals (A Chaotic Girl’s List)
And, the list continues, with bigger and smaller goals, but if I start listing all of them down – this will never end (I also aim to be ambidextrous by the end of this year, you can never know for sure with VIRUS and me lol). And to accomplish these, I have come up with another marvellous strategy – habit tracking and reporting my progress here on my blog. I also made my own habit tracker, so check that out here.
Last year (Again, literally yesterday), I went a little overboard with the whole planning thing and created a bunch of printables, calendars and planners for myself. So if you’re an aesthetic girly and want to check that out, follow me on my social media!
Anyway, these are my goals for 2026 – unfiltered, unapologetic, and hopefully achievable. Thank you for staying this long. I hope you liked reading through my goals for the year. I’d love to know what are your aspirations for this year, and how you plan on achieving them – there’s nothing like too much inspiration, now is there?
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