This year has been a whoosh of changes in the market and online space. Wouldn’t you agree?

I also feel like 2026 is my year to level up to my next self in business and life.

In this blog post I’m going to share what I do almost daily to embody my next-level self and what you can too to achieve everything you want in business and life in 2026 and beyond. Ready?

By the way, if you’re new here, I’m Sarah, a marketing and systems strategist. I mainly work with estheticians and wellness founders to uplevel their online presence through crafting strategic marketing ecosystems. If you want to learn more about how I can help you step into your dream online presence you can explore my services here.

Start with a values alignment test

I don’t know about you, but I love a good personality quiz. Remember the Cosmo magazine quizzes that determined random things like what season you were?! This isn’t quite the same thing, but it is a chance to uncover a few pieces of yourself that will help you understand yourself a bit more.

What if I don’t know what I value?

I’ve been there.

My story started when I was a post-graduate waking up at 4 am, making minmium wage wondering if this was it for me. You can read more about my story here.

At that time I felt like a failure because I got the master’s degree and still couldn’t get a job. That’s when I said enough was enough and started taking steps towards embodying my next-level self. For me, it started with reading a lot of self-development books.

I highly suggest reading to help you learn more about yourself, purpose, and vision, but if you want a short, actionable step right now I’d take a values alignment test.

I love this one from The New Happy account. I took it when I was first uncovering my values. It basically will help you figure out what’s important to you– basically the things that you find so important that without them you wouldn’t feel like you.

Set a vision for your future-self identity

Ever since I flipped my entire life upside down and starting intentionally working on living like my next-level self, I have worked with a coach. Whether that has been focused on fitness, life, business, or behavior change– a coach has fundamentally changed my life and mindset for the better. I cannot recommend having a coach at some point in your life if you truly want to step into your next-level self.

But before you go off hiring a coach at this moment, I think setting a vision for who your future-self is is incredibly important.

How to go about setting a future-self vision

One way you can think about setting a future-self vision is identifying one-three people you admire online. Really take a moment to think about who she is.

Do you admire her because she is wealthy? Fit? Has something you’d like to achieve? Be super specific what it is that you admire about her.

If you go this route, study her. How does she spend her days? What does she share online? What’s her daily routines? Take it all in and step into doing the things that she does. (Not in a copycat way, but in a if she can do it, I can do it type of way.)

After observing these women, I’d write down four positive characteristics to describe her. We’ll come back to these in a bit.

Option two is to ask yourself some questions and develop your future-self that way. Someone who you’re striving towards. I personally think working in quarters throughout the year is the easiest way to do this. So, envision you’re 12 weeks from now. What does the future version of yourself have, do, and feel.

1. What does she have in 12 weeks from now? Think about the tangible things as well as the words that come up for you. Maybe it’s calm, clarity, or more clients. Write that down.
2. What does she do differently 12 weeks from now? Pretend you could wave a magic wand and that thing that’s on your heart, the first thought that pops into your head before you dismiss it away, came true what is it? Write that down.
3. Lastly, how does she feel 12 weeks from now? Think of some words that describe her day. If you need some help thinking of positive characteristics here’s a list of positive adjectives to pick from. Go with the ones that you’re first drawn to.

Now you should have a direction of your values and your vision. Next, we need to combine them together to be able to make this a tangible goal that you can embody, otherwise it’ll stay theoretical and twelve weeks will pass and you’ll be wondering why you still haven’t stepped into this next-level version of yourself. (Speaking from experience!)

Align your values and your vision

Ok, by now you should have your values list and your future-self vision created. It’s time to put them together.

Personally, I love writing my alignment statement as myself in 3rd person. It’d sound something like this:

Next-level Sarah is calm, organized, health-conscious, presence. She meditates daily to feel calm. She cleans her house on a regular basis to feel organized. She prioritizes movement and whole foods to feel healthy, and she puts her phone away after 5 pm to feel present with her family.

Now it’s your turn! Here’s the framework you can follow to write your alignment statement:

Next-level [your name] is [pick value 1], [value 2], [value 3], and [value 4]. She [action you do that embodies value 1], [action 2 that goes with value 2], [action 3 that goes with value 3], and [action 4 that goes with value 4].

The first time you do this it’s likely going to feel weird, but go with it. It gets easier the more you do it. And future-self thinking has been a critical anchor point in my own self-development journey. (Plus there’s research that supports this super cool concept!)

Step into HER through consistent, daily action

Now everything sounds good in theory, but how does someone put this into consistent, daily action? That’s where we have to get real about habits.

I’m no habit researcher, but this is what has worked for me. You can backwards map how you want to feel into what you actually do. Your habits become your “guiding posts” as I like to call them.

ps they can also be done weekly instead of daily if that helps.

Take each of your values and actions and break it down into one singular thing. That’s it. So let’s use my example from above.

1. She meditates to feel calm

Before you get any ideas to come out with super ambitious daily habits I want you to pause.

Think about your real life right now. When have you successfully done the habit you’re aiming for in the past? When have you gotten close? Be very real and honest with yourself before signing up for habits that won’t actually help you embody your next-level self.

For example, I know that meditating/ journaling before bed hasn’t worked for me in the past. I tend to forget to do it. However, I do know I’ve successfully meditated in the mornings. Great. I’d start there. And putting a time limit on myself honestly just weighs me down so I’m not putting one! Simple as that.

The outcome of my first habit is: I meditate in the mornings to feel calm

Go ahead and repeat this process with each value and action statement you drafted until you have 4 clear daily or weekly habits that you will do to embody your next-level self.

Repeat until it becomes your reality

I highly recommend a habit tracker to see the progress you make on embodying your next-level self. Since I’m a tech nerd, I made mine in Notion, but a plain piece of paper with a table chart on it would work equally as well. Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be!

Also, please don’t ignore using a habit tracker. Our minds are wired to seek out negativity, and when assessing our own habits, goals, etc. we have a bias towards that. Using a habit tracker will literally show you legit data that either confirms or dismantles the thoughts you have about whether or not you’re hitting your goals.

Don’t forget to reassess periodically

I’d say running with these habits, values, and actions for about 12 weeks is a good length of time. Trust me, you will be amazed by the progress you can accomplish in that amount of time. Then I’d recommend re-evaluating and doing the exercise again.

You can absolutely change your life and uplevel to your next-level self by the end of 2026 and beyond. I know because I’ve done it before.

As always, I’m rooting for you!

And, if you want to stay connected and hear about the things I’m working on to uplevel myself subscribe to get my personal emails. It’s where I dive into the nitty-gritty of my life and business. I’d love to have you join in! Best of luck in stepping into your next-level self, you got this!

-Sarah

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