And so it begins — the new year. For me, it brings excitement and opportunity (even if I am battling a little illness at the moment 
). Last year was a year of recovery and growth, it was time spent prioritising my mental health and learning what I actually wanted from life. Sometimes that is the best goal to have for the year.
People can often overwhelm themselves with lofty goals when the new year rolls around. While this can sometimes yield great results, for most of us this isn’t the way to go about our resolutions.
For example, I decided I won’t have any resolutions this year. Because 2026 for me is a year to LEARN.
Last year was about getting back on my feet, getting a rhythm going, and learning the limitations of my body. However, despite now having lofty ambitions for the future, I am trying to be self-aware that this will be a year where a F- up, and I will do it a lot! So by not setting myself goals predicated on success, I allow myself to embrace failure with curiosity.
It is this curiosity I think a lot of us should adopt as part of our daily life. For me, this often looks like the following:
Me: Tinkering away at something, vibing to some music
Me: tests project
Project: fails miserably and looks like it could spontaneously blow up or somethin’
Me: “Huh…… That wasn’t supposed to happen”
The takeaway from this is I immediately look into why it happened, so I can refine, retry, fail, refine, retry, fail…….. Until eventually, Eureka. Success.
That’s it, that’s my formula for the new year. Nothing fancy. Nothing dramatic. Just learning (and learning to mess up), failing, and learning again. If I can approach every day with curiosity over frustration, 2026 will be a success.
So here’s to 2026: a year of learning, messing up, laughing about it, and trying again. I think that’s a pretty good way to live.
Image: City of Ballarat (via ballarat.vic.gov.au)
Andrew Arney, GradIEAust 