Jess Everyday Life

We have three months left in 2026. Three months, And instead of looking at the calendar and thinking, Well, this year is basically over, what if we looked at these final months differently? What if we stopped waiting for January 1?  You have roughly 90 days to change the trajectory of this year and walk into 2027 differently.  That doesn’t mean you need to completely reinvent yourself. Maybe you don’t want a massive identity overhaul. Maybe there are simply a few areas of your life that you know need attention.  Maybe it’s your finances, your health, your relationship with God, your home, your relationships, your habits, your phone use (I think everyone could work on this), your sleep, or maybe you are ready for a complete reset. Maybe you’re tired of hearing yourself make the same excuses. Maybe you know you’ve been living below what you’re capable of, and you’re ready to become the person God is calling you to be.  Whatever that looks like for you, why wait until January?  Give God these next three months. Surrender them and then get to work.

Start With God

Before planners, routines, workouts, budgets, decluttering challenges or morning routines, this has become the most important part for me.  I want to give these next three months to God.  As a Christ follower, I don’t want another self-improvement project where I am the center of everything. I don’t want material things, social media, other people or the world’s definition of success determining where I’m going.  I want God to lead it.  I can tell Him what I want, tell Him the desires of my heart and I can make plans and dream huge dreams.  But ultimately, I want to be willing to say: Lord, if You have something different and better for me, lead me there.  And something interesting started happening as I began cleaning out different areas of my life.  Things I once thought were important suddenly didn’t feel nearly as important.  Saved posts I thought I needed, things I thought I might buy someday, content I thought I needed to consume and stuff I had been holding onto.  When I started keeping my eyes on God, it became easier to say I don’t need all this.  There was something incredibly freeing about it.

1. Do a Ruthless Digital Clean out

One of the first things I did was a massive digital clean out.  And when I say massive, I mean ruthless.  I went through my social media accounts and unfollowed accounts that no longer inspired me, helped me, taught me something meaningful or aligned with the direction I want my life to go.  I went through Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, my saved posts, my likes. All of it!  Because tell me I’m not the only one with approximately 47,382 recipes saved that I am absolutely, definitely, totally going to make someday.  We save outfits we’re going to buy, recipes we’re going to make, houses we’re going to decorate, workouts we’re going to try, products we’re going to purchase and then half of it disappears into the digital abyss.  I started deleting it and it felt SO GOOD.  I wanted my digital world to reflect the season I’m entering rather than every version of myself I’ve ever been.  Then I turned to my phone itself.  I rearranged apps, I removed things I didn’t need, I made the things that actually matter easier to access and tried to make my phone work for me instead of against me.  And then there are photos.  Godspeed. 😂  I personally make this easier by occasionally searching my photos by today’s date and cleaning out unnecessary pictures from that date in previous years. It keeps me from eventually facing 70,000 screenshots in one terrifying afternoon.  The point isn’t digital minimalism for the sake of saying you’re a minimalist. It’s intentionality.

Ask yourself: Does my digital environment support the person I’m trying to become?

2. Deep Clean Your Physical Environment

Next came a huge fall deep clean.  My environment affects me tremendously. I love a clean home, but I’ve also realized something:  I don’t want to spend my life maintaining stuff.  Every object we own eventually asks something of us. It needs to be stored, organized, moved, dusted, cleaned or maintained.  Obviously I’m not suggesting throwing everything you own into a dumpster and living in a room with one chair.  I love decorating, I love seasonal things, I love making a home beautiful.  But there’s a difference between having things you genuinely love and use and having closets, cabinets and rooms filled with things you’re keeping simply because you’ve always kept them.  I want my home to support my life, not become another full-time job.  And this connects to something bigger for me.  I want my time to mean something.  That doesn’t mean maximizing every second of every day, rest matters, lazy days exist and sometimes lying on the couch watching your favorite show is exactly what you’re going to do, and that’s okay.  I’m talking about eliminating unnecessary friction.  If simplifying one room means I spend 15 fewer minutes picking it up every day, that’s time I can spend reading with my kids, outside, cooking something I love, reading my Bible, going for a walk or simply being present.  That’s worth it for me.

3. Get Everything Out of Your Head

This one is HUGE.  Do a brain dump.  Not a cute one.  Not an Instagram-worthy one.  Not one where you need seven highlighters and perfect handwriting.  Get a piece of paper and dump EVERYTHING out of your brain.  Appointments, things you need to buy, a cabinet you need to organize, someone you need to call, an idea you don’t want to forget, a bill you need to check, a book you want to read, something you need to research, that random thing you’ve been telling yourself for six weeks that you’ll remember.  Write It Down.

There is actually research behind this idea. Psychologists use the term cognitive offloading for using external tools, like writing something down, setting a reminder or using a calendar to reduce the cognitive demands of keeping information internally. Research has found that people use external reminders more as memory demands increase and that those reminders can improve performance on the things they’ve offloaded. (PubMed Central (PMC))

I like to think of it as closing tabs.  You know when your computer has 37 tabs open and suddenly you’re wondering why everything feels chaotic?  That’s what your brain can feel like.  Your notebook can hold the reminder. Your calendar can hold the appointment. Your planner can hold the task.  Your brain doesn’t have to be the storage unit for your entire life.

4. Decide Who You’re Becoming

Now comes my favorite part.  Planning.  I LOVE planning.  Unfortunately, I also love planning to plan.  Anyone else? 😂  I can create the world’s greatest plan and then occasionally forget about the tiny inconvenient detail called actually doing it.  But planning still matters because you need direction.  

So ask yourself: Who do I want to be when I wake up on January 1, 2027?

Not just: What do I want to have?

Ask: Who do I want to BE?

Maybe you want to be someone who keeps promises to herself.  Someone who wakes up when she says she will.  Someone who opens her Bible before opening social media.  Someone who manages money wisely.  Someone who takes care of her body.  Someone who keeps a peaceful home.  Someone who is present with her children.  Someone who doesn’t automatically reach for her phone whenever life gets quiet.  Someone who speaks kindly to herself.  Someone who follows through.  Write her down.  Be ridiculously detailed if you want.  And if you don’t know exactly who that person is yet?  That’s okay too.  Start with what you do know.

5. Build Habits, Don’t Wait for Motivation

Here’s where I want to correct something I’ve heard approximately a million times: It does not universally take 21 days to form a habit.

One influential study followed people building real life eating, drinking and activity habits over 12 weeks. Among participants whose habit-development pattern fit the model, the median was around 66 days to reach a high level of automaticity, but individuals varied enormously from 18 to 254 days. Missing one opportunity also didn’t materially derail the habit-formation process. (Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010.) (Wiley Online Library)

I LOVE this for two reasons.  First, three months is actually a meaningful amount of time.  Second, missing one day doesn’t mean you’ve ruined everything.  Read that again! You don’t need January 1, you don’t need Monday and if you mess up Wednesday, you don’t need to wait until next Monday to become a functioning human again.  Just continue and imagine practicing a new routine consistently for most of the next 90 days.  Imagine where you could be by January.

6. Take Care of Your Body

This is one of my biggest priorities.  My faith is my foundation, and part of the life I want to build on that foundation is taking good care of the body I’ve been given.

Regular physical activity isn’t just about changing how your body looks. It supports physical and mental health, and research links regular activity with benefits for sleep, anxiety, cardiovascular health, brain health and reduced risk of several chronic diseases.  But you don’t have to go from zero to living in a gym tomorrow.  Walk, lift weights, stretch, find exercise you actually enjoy, build a routine you can repeat, the goal isn’t punishment, It’s stewardship.

7. Eat Food That Makes You Feel Good

Food is another huge one for me.  You know when people say, You only live once!  Exactly.  I only live once.  I want to feel good while I’m doing it.  Eating well doesn’t mean living on plain chicken and lettuce while staring sadly through the bakery window.  Whole, nutrient dense foods can be delicious.  Season your food and cook meals you genuinely look forward to.  Learn new recipes, bake things, eat foods that nourish you and taste amazing.  And yes, there can still be room for treats.  This isn’t about becoming afraid of food.  It’s about discovering how incredible it feels when the majority of what you’re eating actually supports your body.

8. Fix Your Sleep

Please stop treating sleep like the thing you do after you’ve finished everything important.  Sleep IS one of the important things.  Healthy sleep supports physical health and emotional well-being, and most adults need at least seven hours per night. (CDC)  Use these next three months to experiment with creating a bedroom and nighttime routine that actually encourages sleep.  Dim the lights, make your room comfortable, create a bedtime, and if technology is wrecking your evenings, get the damn technology out of your bedroom.  Your bedroom doesn’t need to be another entertainment center.

9. Get Serious About Your Finances

Maybe this is your entire 90-day reset.  You don’t need to change seventeen areas of your life simultaneously.  Maybe January 1 you simply want to be able to say: I finally know where my money is going. Start tracking it, create a budget, look at your debt. look at subscriptions, start learning, read a personal-finance book, find a financial podcast you enjoy and check your budget regularly.  Learn where every dollar is going rather than wondering where all your money went at the end of the month.  Ninety days of paying attention to your money can teach you an enormous amount about your habits.

10. Invest in Relationships and Community

I miss community.  Real community.  Not followers.  Not likes.  Not knowing what someone you haven’t spoken to since high school ate for breakfast because Instagram showed you.  Actual relationships.  I think we’ve become incredibly accustomed to living in our own little worlds. Phones make it possible to be surrounded by people while barely interacting with anyone.  So use these months to invest in people.  Call someone, invite someone over, have dinner together, and put your phone down when someone is talking.  Strengthen the relationships that matter and pay attention to who has access to your life.  You don’t need 50 close friends.  You need genuine relationships with people you trust, people who love you and people who encourage you toward the person you’re trying to become.

11. Pay Attention to the Way You Speak to Yourself

Affirmations are going to be controversial depending on who you ask.  Personally?  I use them.  But I don’t view affirmations as magic words that force the universe to hand me whatever I repeat enough times.  For me, they’re partly about becoming conscious of what I’m repeatedly telling myself.

If you’re constantly saying:

I’m lazy.

I’m terrible with money.

I never follow through.

I’ll never change.

I’m such a mess.

…those statements become the direction of your day.

One book that made me think differently about this was Into the Magic Shop by James R. Doty. What stuck with me wasn’t simply the material things in his story it was the larger idea of attention, intention and the stories we continually rehearse in our minds.

So maybe your affirmation isn’t:

I’m a completely different person overnight.

Maybe it’s:

I am becoming someone who follows through.

I can do hard things.

I treat my body with respect.

I am learning to manage money wisely.

I choose thoughts that move me forward instead of constantly tearing myself down.

And for me personally:

I trust God with where He’s leading me.

What Could You Change in Three Months?

Maybe you’re reading this thinking, Okay, but I don’t need an entire life overhaul.  Perfect, Don’t do one.

Pick something.

You could spend the next three months working on your:

• faith and relationship with God
• physical health
• strength and fitness
• nutrition
• sleep
• finances
• home and environment
• digital habits
• relationships
• marriage
• parenting
• career or business
• organization
• reading and learning
• morning routine
• evening routine
• screen time
• confidence
• self-talk
• time management
• creativity
• hobbies
• generosity
• community
• ability to actually rest

Or maybe your transformation is even simpler:

1. Clean your car and keep it clean.
2. Redo your bedroom so it feels peaceful.
3. Stop sleeping next to your phone.
4. Read ten pages every night.
5. Walk every morning.
6. Make dinner at home more often.
7. Start tracking your spending.
8. Delete the apps that consume hours of your life.
9. Call your mom more.
10. Read your Bible every morning.
11. Drink your water.
12. Go outside.

You don’t need a dramatic before-and-after picture for your life to be changing, small changes count.  January 1 Isn’t coming to save us.  I love a fresh year, new planners, new goals and I love that feeling when January 1 arrives and everything feels fresh and possible, but January 1 isn’t magic.  The person you wake up as on January 1 is being shaped RIGHT NOW. That’s what excites me most about these final months of 2026.  I don’t know exactly what 2027 will bring.  I don’t know exactly where God is going to lead me but for once, I don’t need to know every detail.  I want to spend these months surrendering more, simplifying more, taking care of myself, being present with the people I love, strengthening my routines, removing things that no longer belong in my life and becoming more intentional about the woman I’m becoming. Not perfectly, not overnight and definitely not because some arbitrary calendar date says I should have my life together.  But little by little, day by day, and choice by choice.  We still have time, don’t write off the rest of 2026 because January is getting closer.  Give these months everything you’ve got.  Give your plans to God.  Clear out the noise, decide what matters, start building the habits and when January 1 arrives, don’t just walk into another year with another list of resolutions.

Walk into 2027 differently.

A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things.

Proverbs 18:9

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