My 2026 Word is ME (And Life Has Already Tested It)

I chose my word of the year 2026 at the end of last year, the way I always do. Quietly, intentionally, with Leonie Dawson’s Goals Workbooks open on the table, a ridiculous number of coloured pens and a cup of coffee going cold beside me.

The word was ME.

It took a lot to accept that that was the word. It felt selfish and navel-gazing, but it was a call to me to finally prioritise myself. After years of building businesses around other people’s needs, of shrinking to fit rooms I was invited into but never quite felt like I belonged in, of being the person who said yes when her body was already screaming no. ME felt like the most radical thing I could choose.

I recorded a YouTube video about it in January, full of intention and gold energy and the specific kind of hope that comes with a new year. I talked about the ritual days I’d named for each day of the week: Magic Mondays, Try New Tuesdays, Wow Me Wednesdays, Talk Thursdays, Freedom Fridays, Sexy Saturdays and Sensual Sundays

I talked about the Trinity Filter my word was leading me to use to make decisions (more on that in a moment). I talked about being done with people pleasing, and done with playing small.

And then life did what life does.

The gap between my word of the year 2026 and the reality

By March, I was running on empty. I was promoting a retreat that didn’t fill. Planning an event. Navigating a season of overwhelm that had been creeping up on me for years, scratching at my brain that I needed to rest.

I had chosen ME as my word, and then proceeded to spend several weeks trying to compress myself into a version of my business that felt smaller than I actually am. Niche content. Tight messaging. A very specific box. I was trying to follow the “gurus” on how to grow a coaching business.

It wasn’t wrong, exactly. But it wasn’t the whole of me either.

It took a Burnout Resources workshop in Leonie’s Unicorn Academy, a 4-day Easter weekend, and a 3-hour reading session in the bath to remind me what I’d actually committed to in January. Not a content strategy. Not a niche. ME.

The whole of me.

What choosing ME actually means (as opposed to what I thought it meant)

When I chose this word, I was thinking about all the parts of ME that needed to find their place. What I ended up doing was focusing on visibility, and centering myself in my business. I wanted to be less apologetic and more present in life, but I only tried to do that in my business. I forgot that I was a whole person and needed all of me to be fulfilled. 

What I didn’t fully account for was how many external things would conspire to make that hard.

A word of the year doesn’t protect you from grief, from overwhelm, from the particular exhaustion of running a business and a household and a creative life simultaneously. It doesn’t stop the retreat from not filling, or the crickets in my inbox and comments, or the season from getting heavier than anyone expected.

What it does is give us something to come back to. A reminder!

When I found myself in that bath on Easter Monday, finally properly still for the first time in months (maybe even years), I thought about what ME actually looked like versus what I’d been doing. And the gap was uncomfortable to look at.

Truly prioritising ME this year, didn’t only apply to my business and what I was putting out into the world. I suddenly realised that if I was going to actually accomplish anything worth looking back on, then I would have to be fully, completely present as my whole self. That being professional and niched just isn’t who I am. I am scattered, and multi-faceted and I have a whole lot to bring to the table that I had been keeping hidden. 

I finally also realised that pushing myself to the point of burnout was the absolute opposite of centering me this year. I needed to have down time, and fun, and the things that help me remember who I am. 

So I bought myself a Lego set, and I ate the chocolate and hot cross buns, and I read smut in the bath for 3 hours. And this week I have come back with so much more energy and groundedness in who I am and what I want to share with the world. 

Yes I am a loss-mom. Yes I am an empowerment coach with a passion for coaching in pregnancy loss spaces. But also: I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a traveller. I am a Lego lover. I enjoy mindless TV. I love cooking shows and sharing food with people I love. I get excited about birds in my garden. There is so much more to ME than just who I have portrayed so far in my business. 

I wrote and published my book, but even that is only a part of who I am. I have so many more books sitting in draft in my head and my iCloud.

The Trinity Filter

The decision-making framework I set for myself for the year of me, involves three versions of me weighing in.

8-year-old Bianca, who was a dreamer and loved being on stage. She found magic in just about everything. She believed in fairies and wanted to become one of two things when she grew up – a guide in Disneyland or a star on the West End in Starlight Express (the only two jobs she knew of that required rollerskating). She’s my gut check. If she’s not lit up, I’m probably heading in the wrong direction.

48-year-old me, the current version, who has capacity constraints and real responsibilities. The perimenopausal woman with a body that gives her honest feedback whether she listens to it or not. She’s my reality check. Also she’s the one who’s here right now, experiencing all of this.

80-year-old Bianca, looking back. Not with judgement or opinions. She’s curious to see what impact I made. She doesn’t care about the metrics. She cares about how the decisions I make today influence who I become. She is the filter that drives me to make future me proud. She is the filter that leads me closer and closer to becoming the person 8 year old me dreamed of being (sans rollerskates).

After the burnout workshop I asked the trinity whether showing up as all of me was the right way to go. All three said yes, unanimously, without hesitation.

That’s rare. When it happens, I pay attention.

What ME looks like from here

I’m not starting over. I’m expanding.

The pregnancy loss work, the grief support, the coaching for people navigating impossible seasons of life, that’s still central. It’s some of the most meaningful work I do and I’m not stepping back from it.

But I’m also a person who still runs a web development business, and has virtual assistance clients. I’m still the person who has vast quantities of knowledge to share about a huge variety of topics. And I am the person celebrating the Artemis II journey and the amazing representation of women in all areas of the coverage. And those parts of me don’t disappear just because they don’t fit a narrow content brief.

The ritual days I set up in January were always about making sure all of me had a home in my week. I just needed the rest of the year to catch up with the intention. And a chance to renew that commitment to myself, to my ritual days, to prioritising all of me.

We’re 3 months in and my word of the year 2026 is still ME.

It’s just that I understand it better now than I did in January.

If any part of this resonated, I’d love to have you in my corner. Lines from Bianca is my weekly newsletter — honest, human, and never polished for the sake of it. It’s where I show up as the whole of me, every Thursday. Sign Up Here