The decade is more than halfway over, and for some, 2025 may feel like a blur. Twenty-twenty came and went with COVID, and suddenly, the new year is only four months away. Where did these last five years go? How is it August already?

If you’re feeling like life has been less than fulfilling lately, then it’s likely you have not been living with intention. It refers to making conscious choices aligned with your values and goals, rather than drifting mundanely through life with very little sense of solid purpose or awareness of time spent. 

To live with more intention, you should start by setting clear goals, managing stress, and prioritising what truly matters in your life, like health and wellness. Here are some ways to shake things up and live with greater intention in 2026.

It’s easy to get used to your routines. You go to work, clean the house, run errands, and do it all again the next day. But it’s probably become clear to see that being busy is not always the same thing as being productive.  

Organising your day-to-day life around your goals is a great way to live with intention. It becomes easier to live each day with intention when we become aware of what we do throughout the day. You can bring mindfulness into your routines by practising goal-setting and reflecting.  

Reflecting on your goal-setting is actually easier to integrate into your everyday routine than you might expect. A great way to start is simply by committing to using a daily or weekly planner that allows for notetaking and customisation (like this Saint Belford 2026 diary, for instance). This way, you can see plainly what you want to aim for throughout the week, track your progress, and see how your accomplishments build upon each other over the year. 

By keeping track of your daily goals, you can start to reclaim your time and determine what actions contribute to your personal growth and fulfilment. This will make your days feel more fulfilling and allow you to reflect upon your actions and yourself, bringing greater purpose to your actions.

Once you start chronicling your weeks with a planner, you may start to find more free time you didn’t have before. It’s easy to fill these quiet moments with screens and social media, but we’re not trying to simply pass the time in 2026. A good way to live with intention is to put down your phone and fight the urge to go doom-scrolling. Instead, let’s get creative and tackle a new hobby! 

With digital fatigue becoming almost too relatable, intentional hobbies are set to be in vogue in 2026 (and beyond). If you haven’t heard the term “intentional hobby” before, it basically relates to any (typically offline) activities that align with your values and interests to bring a sense of fulfilment. Some examples of intentional hobbies like painting, knitting, pottery, baking, gardening, or anything that encourages you to create something. 

Can intentional hobbies be “online” too? Yes, for instance, dabbling in digital art can definitely be a great intentional hobby, because it’s still inherently creative. Allowing yourself moments to be creative (whether with screens or with old-fashion pen and paper, or even textiles – whatever your canvas may be) will give you something to look forward to that will offer results as you go, something to be proud of and admire your growth through, and something to help keep your life enjoyable and relatively stress-free.

Speaking of staying stress-free, another important step in living with intention is changing our relationship with our cortisol levels. Yes, stress looks different for everyone, and removing stressors is a whole battle in its own right. But half the fight is identifying big stresses impacting us and addressing them with intentionality. It’s difficult to eliminate all stress, but we can stress less by tackling stressful situations healthily. 

As you practice setting your goals throughout the week, try to identify what your biggest stressors are coming up. Be aware of them and give them the space they need. If an important phone call is coming up this week, set aside ample time to prepare and execute. Are you stressed about a deadline coming up soon at work? Rearrange your schedule to let you focus on that task more so you can crush it. 

By aligning your daily and weekly actions more with your goals, you can identify what causes you stress based on what is most important. They become less of a stressor and more of an accomplishment to pursue head-on and tick off your to-do list. 

Stress management is a long-term goal, but when you can see the big picture in front of you, things can start looking smaller, and then you can start to see and appreciate how it may help propel you towards your bigger goals. You can live with intention in 2026 by making stress work for you and preventing it from throwing you off track.

One of the great joys of reclaiming your time with goal setting and conquering stress in your life is an improved understanding of self-worth. Part of this journey of intentional living is a deeper connection to self, which will allow you to better identify and address any shortfalls in your health and wellness.  

The malaise of directionless life can cause you to take yourself for granted, particularly your health. Reclaiming your time for your goals and no longer tiptoeing around what is stressful opens up new opportunities to make healthier choices. 

Make putting yourself first your primary goal for 2026 and make healthy living an integral part of your goals, like with exercise or daily walks. Reach out to friends and family, and be sure to make time in your diary to spend time with them. Find your local wellness spaces and make a new habit out of treating yourself with a visit once a month. 

Intentional living will lead not only to a happier you but ultimately a healthier you. If you make some of these changes leading into the new year and prioritise your health and wellbeing, then in 2026 your life will feel more purposeful and each day will be a gift.

It’s all a domino effect: once you begin setting goals, managing stress, and putting your health first, your life will naturally start to feel more meaningful. Living with intention doesn’t require a massive life overhaul. It starts with small, mindful decisions that build up toward a clearer, more fulfilling daily life. 

As 2026 approaches, take the time to pause, reflect, and ask yourself what you want this next chapter of life to feel like. Life isn’t just something that happens to you. It is yours to mold. So make a life with purpose and clarity and joy, and welcome each moment as part of a life intentionally lived.