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Touchstone 2026

Every December I choose a touchstone word for the new year. It’s a single word to serve as my lighthouse for the year. It’s a more expansive, playful alternative to SMART goals, vision boards, strategic plans, and New Year’s resolutions. 


Last year was “gardener”. This year will be… (keep reading to find out!)

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STORY: Touchstone for 2026

READ MORE: Ways to find your own touchstone word of the year

BOOK STUFF: We’re reading Reset by Dan Heath – zoom meeting is TODAY at 4PM PST if you are not yet registered to join us, do that HERE!

GOING FURTHER: There are THREE events coming your way:



STORY: Touchstone for 2026

Every year around the holidays I choose a touchstone for the new year– a single word to serve as my intention for the year. Jason Fox calls it a fuzzy contextual beacon.  I think of it as a lighthouse or guidepost, a North Star set by a wiser, better, future version of you that can guide your wanderings and growth this year. Rather than an actionable, measurable goal (the “What”), an intention is the feeling or style one adopts in accomplishing those goals (the “How”). 


Let’s clarify some terminology. Goals are specific outcomes you want to achieve: write a book, get it published, change jobs, generate $X in revenue. Neuroscientist Elliot Berkman says, “a goal is a detour from the path of least resistance… [They] are usually things we want but have difficulty achieving, even when we know they are achievable.” Often, but not always, there’s a time frame and a way to measure progress. Your goal is the destination you are heading to, with sub-goal mile markers along the way. 

The thing is, goals only get you so far. Goals are analytical, intellectual things, situated in the executive control network of the brain. They can be limiting or dispiriting since they are end results that you may or may not achieve. 

In contrast to head-based goals, an intention is a heart-led desire. Qualitative versus quantitative. Being versus doing. Intentions rise from the limbic system, where emotions come from, where the brain’s motivational system lies. My squishy, motivational, aspirational touchstone is a counterbalance to my analytical, hard-nosed, objective SMART goals, strategic plans, and New Year’s resolutions.


There’s great neuroscience and research behind setting intentions:

  • Inspirational intentions are better than easy ones. They elicit positive emotions like excitement, awe, pride, love, or delight. They are more than aspirational things to do; they are an aspirational way of being. The vision of being someone new, a transformed, better version of the you that you are today, activates the mesolimbic dopamine pathway in a positive way, sustaining forward momentum towards your goal.

  • Self-determined intentions are better than what someone else gives you. This isn’t about anyone else’s “you should…” This is about “I want…” The ventromedial prefrontal cortex in your brain lights up like a New Year’s fireworks finale when self-determination, identity, and your core values are involved, but grows quiet when the thing you are aiming towards is someone else’s idea or identity. Your ventromedial prefrontal cortex keeps you going, even when the going gets tough. 

  • Flexible is better than fixed, especially when you are looking at a long-ish time scale like one year. The built-in vague abstractness of a touchstone allows for flexible, rapid, pivoting while staying on target, just when you need it most. The anterior cingulate cortex is the part of your brain where motivation, attention, and cognition meet; when it’s damaged, animals and people struggle to flexibly shift their behavior to match changing environmental circumstances. A flexible, fuzzy intention that can be interpreted many ways offers a way to keep the anterior cingulate cortex active when you need it most.

  • Simple is better than complex. Our working memory, that part of our mind which stores plans for the future, has a severely limited capacity. SMART goals are super effective for organizational planning and strategy, but it’s too much to hold in most people’s working memory as they go about their day-to-day lives. In contrast, a single word touchstone or phrase can be recalled and held simply, easily, and readily anytime anywhere. 


I set an intention every year because it’s the only way I know how to get from the Land of Laziness to a book, or a PhD, or a good relationship, or a successful business, or whatever it is I want. A dear friend of mine said that the thing she loved most about me was my intentionality: “It’s overwhelming and astonishing to see how with good intention and her energy, what can be manifested.” 


In 2021 when my touchstone was “ranger”, I traveled the world while working and homeschooling my kids. 


In 2022 when my touchstone was “bard”, I began writing my book.


In 2023 when my touchstone was "weaver", I found my voice for writing and speaking by weaving together science, leadership, personal growth, and narrative storytelling.


In 2024 when my touchstone was "alchemist", I transformed materials I already had into something new (like my podcast). 


And this past year, 2025 when my touchstone was “gardener”...


How’d it go as a “gardener”?

…I did a bunch of real-world gardening (hands in the dirt stuff) as well as metaphorically in both my business and personal lives. In my blog from a year ago, I talked about the three steps of becoming a "gardener":


1. prepare the soil

2. plant lots of seeds

3. sit back to let sunlight, water, and time do the rest


Soon after we moved into this house, my wonderful husband built me four raised garden beds out of sections of culvert pipe. A few times a year, I spend a lot of time and money, and make a gigantic mess over the course of about a week, getting my garden going. I amend the soil, made thirty-seven trips to the garden store and hardware stores (only slightly exaggerating), and plant lots of seeds and seedlings. Then, I set the automatic watering system and wait to see what grows with a little sunlight and a lot of time. I'm a plant-it-then-forget-it kind of gardener. I hardly do any weeding. I check on things irregularly at best. Yet still every season there’s a bountiful harvest! A few weeks ago, my reward was two giant batches of ratatouille. 


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It’s similar in my business – a plant-it-then-forget-it affair. Three to four times a year, I cover the table, floor, and walls with sticky notes, envisioning new projects and systems for my business. It’s my way of “preparing the soil” – mapping the big picture and setting up good habits, boundaries, and systems to keep things humming. Then, I “plant seeds” – lots of connections made through workshops, speaking, outreach, networking, community gatherings, and social media. From there, I “sit back to let time, water and sunlight do their thing.” This December, I’m reaping the rewards. I’m celebrating several amazing clients who have graduated onto new things while also seeing many new clients take root and burst into the light. 


So what’s your new word for 2025?

My touchstone word for 2025 is Ecosystem.


We often try to solve problems by drilling down to individual components and root causes—looking at individual people, steps, or processes. If you’re interested in the health of the forest, it can make sense to look closely at the impact of one particular invasive insect or one unusually resilient species of tree or one particular nutrient in the soil. That’s a reductionist approach.


Instead, what if we step way back to look at the whole. 


Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as:

Ecosystem (Noun) eco·​sys·​tem ˈē-kō-ˌsi-stəm : the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit


That’s what ecologists do – study natural ecosystems as a whole. However, we can do the same with other systems around us. Pioneering environmental scientist, Donella H. Meadows, was one of the most influential voices in sustainability and popularized the term “systems thinking” with her book Thinking in Systems. She helped extend ecologists’ ways of thinking about complex communities interacting with their environment to social, political, and economic systems.


Systems thinking helps us understand what’s happening by examining how parts interact to create the outcomes we experience. Rather than focusing on events or individuals, it highlights the structures, relationships, and feedback loops that shape behavior over time. 


Three principles around my touchstone


“I encourage fellow Questers to identify three Principles to adopt for a year… If your Word serves as a kind of ‘North Star’, your Principles are like the constellations clustered around it. Your Principles are what you turn to when at a loss as to what to decide or do. Life dishes up plenty of perplexity, ambiguity, paradox and doubt in any given year… Your Principles ought to be simple statements that evoke a certain quality of guidance, which in turn might influence the kinds of decisions you make in the year ahead.”


My three principles this year are questions:


  1. How can I visualize this system? I’ve always been someone who makes sense of things by sketching models on whiteboards or sheets of paper. Lucky me, systems thinking makes heavy use of systems mapping to make the invisible visible. 

  2. What is this system trying to say? Marriage counselors will sometimes use the strategy of asking each spouse to first share their own points of view about an issue (like chores or finances), then to speak from the perspective of “the marriage” – as in, “What would ‘the marriage’ have to say about this issue?” Systems can’t speak for themselves, but when you can look at things from multiple perspectives, the underlying themes emerge.

  3. Where are the leverage points? Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. So if we want different results, we must change the system. Often, very small changes to a complex system can create a cascade of positive effects. I intend to seek out leverage points. 


So what’s your touchstone for the year? If you don’t know, please consider joining me at noon on Thursday, December 11 with my best friend and fellow executive coach Tutti Taygerly for a free online workshop to find your touchstone word for the year.


READ MORE: Resources and videos to help you set an intention.

I started on the “one word” for the year journey because of philosopher-wizard Jason Fox. You should definitely check out all of his incredible resources on how to create an intention for the year.


If intention setting isn’t your cup of tea, consider creating a vision board. It has the same limbic system activation as an intention, but may be better for visual learners.


This article about the neuroscience of goal setting by Elliot Berkman is surprisingly accessible. Check it out!


And if you want a TED talk that explains just how dangerous goals can be, and how an intention (what he calls a Possibility) is so much healthier, watch this by Emmanuel Acho.


BOOK STUFF:

We’re reading RESET: How to Change What's Not Working by Dan Heath and meeting for the last time in 2025, TODAY 4pm PST, December 4th! If you are not yet registered to join us, do that HERE!


GOING FURTHER: Three upcoming events


Set Your Intention for 2026 workshop on December 11

Join Tutti and I on Thursday, December 11 from 12–1 pm PT for our annual Intention Setting Workshop on Zoom. Pack a lunch, pause from the holiday rush, and spend an hour reflecting on who you’re becoming and what qualities will help you thrive in 2026. You’ll choose a “touchstone” a guiding intention word or phrase and learn how to weave it into your life and leadership in the year ahead. Invite friends to see across the screen or gather a small group to join you—just make sure each person registers individually


Redding Locals, join Hope Seth and I for the final Women’s Leadership Collective of the year- our topic… Power, Paradox, and the Courage to Dismantle the Toxic Triangle


Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Time: 5:00–6:30pm (with socializing over drinks and appetizers for 15 minutes before and after)

Location: Art Hunger / IOOF Hall, 1504 Market St


In this month’s Women Leaders Circle, we’ll unpack what power really means through some awesomely cool neuroscience and social psychology about how power affects our brains and relationships.


When our most reactive human tendencies take over, they generate what researchers call the Toxic Triangle—a self-reinforcing loop of domineering leaders, fearful followers, and stressed-out systems. But the leaders who wield power over others rarely last. The ones who leave a lasting impact are those who master power with—the ability to share influence, build trust, and mobilize others toward shared purpose.


We’ll also take a short Leadership Style Assessment to explore how your natural and developing styles can become tools for diffusing power over dynamics and strengthening power with instead.


You’ll walk away with:

  • A clear understanding of what power really is, the different ways it shows up, and where your power might lie.

  • Insight into how our brains and group dynamics can unintentionally reinforce power over systems.

  • Practical tools to dismantle the toxic triangle and create opportunities for collaboration, courage, and influence.


Heroine’s Journey Women’s Leadership Retreat on May 1-4, 2026 is now open for enrollment!

Join us for a transformative, immersive experience designed to help you reconnect with your inner wisdom, deepen your leadership presence, and step into the next chapter of your story with clarity and courage. Early-bird pricing is available through January 30, so apply today if you feel the call to join us in Mendocino this Spring.

 

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