What To Do When Your New Year Starts Off Wrong

I had grand plans for closing the book on 2025 and moving into 2026 with intention. Travel plans, professional plans, personal plans — all of it. Instead I’ve spent the last two weeks alternately on the couch, the doctor’s office, and even a rocking Saturday night in the ER dealing with a vague health crisis that I still have no clear path to solving. 

There are all sorts of reasons why you may not be feeling the joy and anticipation of a new year. So instead of some trite inspirational post about how we “should” be harnessing the new year, I want to talk about what to do when it feels impossible to start the new year off on the right foot.

What did I do? Well first I wallowed. As someone who takes good care of themselves and probably would have said I was in the best shape of my life just a few weeks ago, it felt simultaneously unfair and cruel that my body would betray me so spectacularly during the most magical time of the year. So yeah, I threw myself a pity party. But as I watched everyone around me ring in the new year with varying levels of excitement and dread, I decided to take this time to reflect and adjust rather than allow myself to be dragged further down into the void. 

There are all sorts of reasons why your new year might not have felt as hopeful or festive as you expected. So whether you’re dealing with health anxiety like I am or simply not able to rally the “New Year” energy this time around, I want to offer some practical tips to get through it and into 2026 with even a tiny smidgen of optimism. 

So without further ado, my guide to welcoming the new year when you’d really rather not: 

1. First, I want you to ignore anyone’s advice (or social media posts) that doesn’t align with where you are right now. Release any guilt that you should be feeling happy for friends who went on amazing trips while you were stuck at home. Or who got engaged while you’re reeling from a breakup. Or who are posting their 2026 bingo cards full of exciting new goals while yours is simply to wake up each morning. 

Scroll past their stories. Social media is not how we truly connect with our friends anyway. Unfollow influencers who are trying to sell you some plan to hit the ground running in 2026. If it serves you better, you can even delete social media altogether. Whatever feels right. But what I want to make sure you’re doing is avoiding the subconscious comparison that comes from seeing what others choose to post while you feel like you don’t have something equally exciting to tell the world. And I’ll just hammer that bit home a bit: remember that everything you see on social media was a decision — and people generally opt to share the things that they believe paint themselves and their lives in the best light. You hereby have permission to ignore it all if it’s making you feel even worse than you already do. 

2. Next, remember that the new year can start whenever tf you want it to. I saw a post yesterday (that I chose to pause and read, because I’m being intentional about my consumption right now) that highlighted that the Chinese New Year isn’t until mid-February. And at that time we will transition from the year of the Snake to harness the energy of the Horse. The Snake symbolizes a shedding — of things that don’t serve us, people who drain us of energy, and anything else that we want to let go of as we step into the next era (or year) of our lives. While the strength of the Horse will hopefully embody a strength, maybe even a rebuilding of a solid foundation for what’s to come. Well, frankly. I’m not ready to ride the Horse yet. So I choose to think about mid-February as my new date to harness the transformative energy of a new beginning. January 1st didn’t work out for me, so I’m going to see if that new date can. And if it doesn’t, there is always the following day. Every day (hell, every hour) is a chance to start fresh. You don’t need the turn of the calendar to give you permission to change your life and step into the light. That being said…

3. We can also accept that there is a palpable energy when everyone in the world is talking about the fresh start of a new year. As much as I do believe that beginnings are possible every day, I also acknowledge that I felt some FOMO that I was unable to harness the collective spirit that surrounded me on New Years Eve. I went to a party that night in the hopes that surrounding myself with people would help imbue me with some of the excitement that I was having so much difficulty grasping on my own. But I felt so physically weak I had to ask people to sit with me and catch up because I was unable to stand for long periods. And I ended up leaving before midnight because I just couldn’t face being surrounded by the joy of the New Year countdown when I had no optimism in that moment about what the next year would hold for me. 

Which brings me to…

4. It’s okay to not have a grand plan about what’s in store for you in 2026. I consider myself to be a pragmatically spiritual person. And as such, I love exercises like creating a vision board and goal setting as ways to harness intentional energy when entering a new chapter of my life. Whether or not you believe in manifestation (which I personally think is a clever rebranding of confirmation bias), putting in the effort to create a visual representation of your goals has tangible value. You have to decide what will be represented, how it will show up visually, not to mention how you’re going to display it (many people use digital means but I’m an analog girlie — I make a physical board then take a picture of key parts of it to use as my phone background so a part of it is always with me). 

But what happens when you suddenly aren’t excited about any of your goals anymore? Or you don’t have the energy to think far enough ahead to identify sprawling year-long objectives that you can work towards for the next twelve months? 

I really struggled with this. But I had to tell myself it was okay. Okay to worry that my grand plans might be derailed. Okay to quash my intention to make my vision board on January 1st and wait until I had the physical energy and emotional wherewithal to do it right. Okay to accept that maybe instead of plans for all of 2026, maybe I could just think about what I want to accomplish this month (figure out what’s going on with my health) or even this week (not go back to the ER). 

Which gets me to…

5. Focus on what you can. That collective New Year energy I referenced before can be exciting and seductive when you’re in the right headspace. But when you’re not, it can quickly become downright toxic. When things feel particularly bleak, it can be hard to find even a single thing to get excited about, but I promise they’re there…the crisp air on your face when you force yourself to walk outside, even just around the block…a new book that draws you in, or an old favorite you picked up off the shelf to reread out of comfort…taking an everything shower and visualizing the negatively washing off your shoulders. 

Sometimes it can feel downright magical to see the tiny joys surrounding us when we’re too down on ourselves to really look. And other times it can just be too hard to see clearly. Which brings me to my final point. 

6. Sometimes it’s okay to lean into the suffering. 

In fact, sometimes it can even serve us. I was talking with my dad the other day (okay I was crying to him on the phone) and he mentioned a podcast he had just listened to where the host (I want to say it was Ezra Klein, but tbh I’m not a huge podcast listener — a resolution for another day) talked about certain Buddhist principles that might serve us in the new year. I admit I don’t know a lot about Buddhism, but he described a duality between how we treat joy versus how we handle suffering. According to my dad’s recounting, the host made the point that as easy as it is to lean into the joyful moments of life, it’s just as important to embrace the negative ones. Not to wallow like I was doing, but instead to harness the power of the discomfort so that you have the chance to turn it into something greater. 

Plenty of you might hate that thought, but if you do — especially if you do — I challenge you to take a few seconds to really think about it. What possibilities could come out of this period of hardship? 

I planned to start the new year making sure the first 50 pages of my third (!!!) novel were in good enough shape for a first reader to take a look. I was going to write you all an article about the evolution of the Democratic Party and how we can look forward to midterms with optimism but also some concrete action steps. Instead? I’m sitting on the couch praying that something scary isn’t lurking just around the corner from me. But during that time I decided to write this article instead — and I really hope at least a few of you really needed to hear this right now. And I’m growing closer with the friends who have shown themselves to be more supportive than I ever could have imagined during this tumultuous time. In the space of this unexpected adversity, I’ve been able to find some genuine pockets of joy (ok they’re like those tiny pockets on jeans that really only hold a single chapstick, but still). And moreover some real opportunities to contemplate what’s possible. 

I challenge you to do what you can, however it works for you. And to ignore the noise of anyone that isn’t serving you right now. Even if it’s me ;-) but if you made it this far, know how proud I am of you for even taking the time to contemplate what this next day, week, month, or year might hold for you.