How to Reset 2026 Money Goals After a Bumpy Start

Quick note before you listen: Whether you’re navigating changing lifestyles or looking to revise your 2026 goals that have already stalled, this conversation is full of practical tips, honest perspective, and strategies to move you closer to your money goals without burnout or shame.

Join my free workshop, Know Your Numbers: The January Reset — a 90-minute session to create a realistic money plan for 2026.

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Transcript

Brittani Ball (00:00.942)
So I know that it's not just me that even in late January, it might feel that we're nowhere near the goals that we had planned to start meeting at the beginning of the month.

Also like why, why did this new month and new year have to start on a Thursday? That kind of sets us back, because you know it's not the beginning of the week. It doesn't have that new week, new year, fresh start energy that like a Sunday or Monday gives, heck even a Tuesday. So if you're like me, you kind of fell off of your goals right away. It is not that I'm not like achieving what I want to, but I realized that there is some recalibration that needs to have within my planning and within my execution in order to have.

more realistic goals for the year that is starting to shape up. And just to make sure that like, it's not that I'm lowering my expectations, but I'm adjusting now that I have more information, now that I have more wisdom, so to speak, and I've actually lived through like this idealistic plan that I tried to do that did not come together. I'm now taking that as scientific data to change things up and move forward. So the whole...

campaign, so to speak, that has led me to this decision to create a radical and like overhyped and very drawn out plan was because I fell off of my business for several months. I got a new job in June of 2025. So yes, I do still have a full-time career outside of this business. And I felt like I really needed to do well in this job. put all this pressure on myself to really perform and to really deliver. And it was my first job in office in person again, since literally 2021.

So it took for me to physically adapt and get used to it, but also for me to actually mentally transition to this new space to learn this new company and to have the mental fortitude to navigate this new role on a day-to-day basis, three days a week in office. And because of that, I took the intentional time to step away from the business and step away from my mission and goals to bring money mindset, tools, and strategies to you all.

Brittani Ball (02:20.865)
And I will have to say I apologize because this is something that's super important to me that I want to continue to do long term. And stepping away from it allowed me to really think about the direction I wanted to take it in and how I can recalibrate. We envision reposition the brand so that it's more helpful to you all. So after taking that time off, I actually spent that time pretty much abandoning all money mindset tips, all

Intuitive spending, intentional, emotionally regulated spending, and I went kind of crazy. I came into some money around the time I switched my jobs, and I just made poor decisions that really leaned into instant gratification, allowing myself to let down all of my internal filters and guardrails and other things I had in place that stopped me from being so consumerism focused and stopped me from spending money unnecessarily. I just let all of that go to the wayside, and I began to...

spend more money than save or pay down debt and it just became really a money mindset nightmare. And so at the end of all of that I decided that I wanted to reconnect to my money and reconnect to my money mindset principles that was going to help me get to a place where I felt confident with my strategies and what I was doing on a daily basis. Things that were aligned with my overarching money goals and not just instant gratification. And that gave me a little bit of a boost, a little bit of confidence and

where I was at, even if that did include some additional debt. I also had to battle some medical things last year that ended up putting me into medical debt as well. So just addressing all of that, battling all of that, allowed me to recognize that I had some things to work on. So once I decided that I wanted to take a cold heart, look at my money again, and then turn it into...

a opportunity. thought, why not bring this to you guys kind of as my reintroduction to the fold, but also to just share that this journey is real. This process is real and it takes some self coaching. It takes some community. takes some coaching from others who have been down that road, experts who have lived that experience and learned some strategies and all that. And why not me? Why not now? Why not you? Why not now? And all of this is kind of connected to my 2025 goals as well and kind of recalibrating those.

Brittani Ball (04:33.986)
So in re-looking at my money, I was able to kind of follow the process of budgeting that I use, but also tweaking some of my mindset, money mindset, tactics and approaches based off some new tools that I gained late last year. And taking those and flipping everything in my money life on its head and allowing myself to see myself and where I fell off and where I kind of disregarded some of the things I used to do in the past.

and decide what do I want to do differently to still have fun with my money, to still make room for more savings, to be more intentional, and to structure things in a way that allows me to reach big goals that are tied to some type of monetary commitment as well. So I did that. I took a look at my money. I took a look at my emotional baggage I brought into this. I really had to spend some time processing and coming to terms with all the money that I spent versus paying down debt or saving or investing properly.

And it took me a while to realize that it was okay. Like the decisions that I made were fine in that moment. In a way, it's what I needed. I had been living in a place of very like lean resources somewhat intentionally for a while. And so when I finally had this opportunity to just really splurge on myself, not necessarily invest or like go hardcore with doing something that I fully in line with, but just

being able to spend on myself and show myself love in areas that I hadn't recently. So I'm the kind of person who has this like weird internal rhythm I guess where I start new projects or set new goals and start to lay the groundwork and all of that for the new year in October. And I guess that's not weird because it's the start of the fourth quarter so at that point I should be executed on things that I want to do in the fourth quarter. Whether that be personal or business, I know I'm talking like very business focused but this was personal and business and...

As I was thinking through those things in October and like really coming up with the finalized plan in November and then starting to execute in December to make sure I was like liking where I was at and how things were going. I quickly realized that my plans were too ambitious and I was spread too thin. And so when the start of January came, I was a little bit scattered, a little bit out of sorts because I hadn't had a plan that I felt good about that I could start executing come January one or even January fourth. And I didn't know that there was some time I was gonna take off for.

Brittani Ball (06:57.576)
trip that was in the second week of January but like that was accounted for in the idealistic plan. But when I took a step back took a step back and thought about how this all came to be I realized I was kind of falling into some bad habits I had in the past. I really wanted to do things from like an intuitive flowy feel but I was also consuming like a lot of information a lot of ideas and approaches from different people across the internet and how they address their new year and I'm like if that sounds like a good

idea I'm gonna try it and then I started trying to like patchwork all these ideas into one another when I really just needed to find something simple and easy easily executable. I have put together a podcast in the past that has helped me a lot and this just kind of helps me in my core operations for my business and my personal life. I really like following some of the key elements of the 12-week year which is a book and then also building a second brain which is also a book but also a framework a way to organize your personal and business life.

And those things have really helped me along the way as far as creating an execution tracker and really scoring yourself on a weekly basis, taking that from the 12 week year and realizing once you dip below a certain percentage of completed tasks, you're highly likely to not reach the goal because you're not completing the things that are the needle movers. And then also from building the second brain, just learning how to intentionally take in a lot of information and taking intentional notes and really distilling those down into actionable things you can refer to later, something that can be.

iterated or just be revisited to help you in another situation. But most particularly, I use his calendar, I'm sorry, not calendar, but folder organizing system. always put in whatever I'm using, whether it's on my phone or my iCloud or my Google Drive. Yes, I use both. I'm so scattered all over the place, but I'm always going to have like a projects, resources, areas and archive folder and like all of my things are going to be organized that way. And I really like his concept of intermediate packets by

working on bigger projects in smaller chunks that allow you to still make progress even if you don't have a lot of time. So those are two things I talked about in previous episodes and they're things that I still try to keep within my planning. But more recently I've been trying to do more quarterly based planning. So we're looking at this quarter, I started thinking to myself, wow, well part of the quarter is already gone, like how am gonna set goals and how am gonna create execution tasks when I'm gonna waste all this time recalibrating. But the truth is...

Brittani Ball (09:14.51)
When you start to do something and how it connects to the beginning of the year is not as important as you just taking that first step and feeling confident, fully aligned with your ideas and then just executing it, just do it again. So that's what I shift my focus to. And I kind of looked at this time, the latter half of January, as like a recalibration period, finding areas in which I can be more simplified and very like straightforward.

no distractions in my goals and in my personal finances and how I address them. I do not need to buy something new for myself every week. And that sounds kind of crazy because it might seem trivial, but in my spending spree days, I was spending several hundred dollars with orders on a weekly basis and justifying it with getting used to my new living arrangement and not living arrangement, but my career arrangement and having to commute into an office as an excuse.

Those are not excuses. Yes, there were things I need to do to invest in this new lifestyle, but I had done those things early on. Of course I had my plan, my different options. At a certain point I abandoned the plan. So here I am. But, you know, like I said, rectified that situation and kind of come to terms with what has happened. But coming back to recalibrating my goals, just taking a look at like, what is the seed idea? What is the core thing that I really wanted to accomplish for the year or for that quarter and how I can...

break that down into the simplest tasks needed to do that. And so when I started to look at things differently in that regard, it all came clear into picture and I'm like, okay, I think I can actually juggle this in-person job. I've been there for more than six months now. I can juggle this in-person job, have my personal life that I manage and then like continuing to get better at every day. And then on top of that layering in my business, that won't be overly complicated, but hopefully it'll be more effective than it was before. So that's the goal. I think it's something that can be borrowed and iterated in.

adjusted to your lifestyle as well if you feel like you're in the same position. I know there are other people like this where you just know that like that plan that you came up with at end of December and beginning of January is just too much. You were doing too much when you came up with that plan and now you just need to figure out how to recalibrate and how to recenter yourself in a way that you are confident in that idea of being successful, of reaching that goal with a very simple plan. And if it is monetary focus.

Brittani Ball (11:35.426)
What are those like pinpoint things that you need to do to reach that goal? And I'm here to help you. I just want you to know that I'm actually leading a workshop session. So we're going to actually be implementing some of these tasks, some of these tips, some of the steps that I took within my own money in a session. I know this only a couple of days away, so I apologize if you're listening to this late, but I have something for you too. So stick around. But on January 25th, which is a Sunday, Sunday evening at 6 PM central time.

we will be walking through together in hopefully a 90 minute session. I know I'm a yapper, but when it comes to these environments and these settings, I tend to stay to the point and we don't have too many questions, bring all your questions, of course. But I'm always happy to answer those, but we normally get through those, you know, in a reasonable amount of time and we'll have about 90 minutes to go through where you're at, getting a snapshot of your finances and where you need to go.

in order to reach these next goals without being overly ambitious, overly zealous, and if you're like me, the overly planning type, but getting some things on paper that will allow you to start to make progress immediately. Small progress too, you know? I'm not promising that you'll save $1,000 in a month, but I am promising that you'll start making steps towards that $1,000 savings if that's what you want. If, you know, more realistically, three months or six months, depending on what your lifestyle is.

So this is gonna be a really great workshop if you are someone who just kind of feels lost right now, whether you are an over planner like me or not, if you feel lost right now, this gives you a bit of structure to take a look at your money and figure out what steps I need to take next. Like I have this general idea or I have this very specific idea and I don't know what to do, you wanna be in this workshop. So it is January 25th, 6 p.m. Central time. So if you look up Chicago time, same time zone as that. And it will be recorded, but you do have to register for the event in order to get the replay.

so that you can see what we walk through in your own time. The replay may be available for a short time, I'm not exactly sure yet, so you know, just govern yourselves accordingly. Make the room on your schedule to at least watch that recording within a week of the session. And then also like, you know, even though we're not putting this unnecessary pressure on ourselves with January being the start of the new month, but the quicker you get to it and the more you start making progress, the longer...

Brittani Ball (13:54.188)
Runway you have to reach your goals. Like the quicker out of the procrastination or overthinking phase you'll get out of because you've completed this and you can just start making progress and stop being, you know, in your head. Also, you want some drama that we bring to our personal lives. So yeah, getting out of that will be fueled by you taking fast action. In addition to that session with us walking through these important things, we'll...

I'm sorry, us walking through these important things will also have a couple of resources. So you'll have a workbook that kind of guides you through and they're essentially the best templates of my money mindset or money, intentional money management planner. I'm changing the name from budget planner. So I was tripped up a little bit, but some of the best worksheets out of that budget planner that like, I just cannot live without and they're the most impactful and insightful. And those are what you'll get in your workbook. And if you want to get the full planner, there'll be a discount that I'm offering at the end of the session.

but yeah, you'll get that as a resource. have a couple other resources that I plan to share just so that you can really feel to the fire and making informed decisions and decisions that help you move fast in the direction that you wanna go. And yeah, it's just gonna be a great time. You can send questions ahead of time or even afterwards and I'll be happy to answer them. It's gonna be great. So go to the link in the show notes where I have the sign up page and get into that session. Like I said, if you can't stand live, get into that session for.

the replay access, if nothing else. Even if you're listening to this after that, I want you to know that you can still sign up for that webinar to get the replay, but you have to register, okay? I hope that this really helps you and motivates you and invigorates you for what's to come in this year. I'm super excited for what's to come. After I did this process for myself, I just felt this weight lift. I felt so good. I had so much more clarity and I have a plan.

I have a plan to move forward and it's not something where it's like, am I going to get all this stuff done or am going to lose motivation after three weeks? That's not going to happen. That's not going to happen because we're going to put some things into place to make sure it doesn't happen. And they're very low, low, low barrier. So yes, I'm going to see you in that workshop and I'll talk to you in the next episode.