7 Lessons I’m Taking With Me into 2026

7 Lessons I’m Taking With Me into 2026

Presence Perspective Purpose

For much of my life, I lived from a deeply ingrained operating system: be responsible, be helpful, be capable.

My inner narrative was subtle but powerful: If I carry more, understand more, and anticipate more, things will stay okay.

For years, that system served me well. Until it didn’t.

2025 was not a year of adding.It was a year of loosening. Letting go of over-functioning. Letting go of certainty. Letting go of the belief that growth comes from effort alone.

I stopped asking, “How do I make this better?”And began asking, “What is trying to emerge here, in me and in the other person?”

When we shift from managing outcomes to meeting reality, something deeper becomes possible.This year reminded me: The most transformative work isn’t about fixing people. It’s about standing with them while something new takes shape.

1. Safety Precedes Change

Insight doesn’t land in a defended nervous system. When people feel rushed, judged, or evaluated, their system contracts. When they feel respected, curiosity opens. Real change happens when the body feels safe enough for the mind to reflect.

2. Growth Is Developmental, Not Moral

Struggle is not a character flaw.Resistance is not stubbornness. Often, people are doing the best they can from their current meaning-making system. When we stop moralizing behavior, compassion replaces frustration, for others and ourselves.

3. Carrying Less Can Be an Act of Leadership

For years, I believed responsibility meant holding more.2025 taught me that leadership sometimes looks like putting things down, so others can step forward, systems can breathe, and life can reorganize. Not everything requires intervention.

4. Boundaries Protect Relationship, Not Distance It

Saying no doesn’t weaken connection, it clarifies it. Clear edges create trust. Diffuse ones create resentment. Boundaries aren’t walls, they’re architecture for sustainability.

5. Inner Work Changes the Outer Game

You can learn new strategies endlessly. But if the assumptions underneath remain untouched, the system snaps back. Lasting change requires changing our relationship to our thinking, not just improving it. That insight never stops being humbling.

6. Most People Are Not Resistant, They Are Overloaded

What we label as avoidance or defensiveness is often exhaustion. When capacity is exceeded, even wise people revert to survival patterns. Curiosity restores dignity where judgment erodes it.

7. Hope Is a Relational Experience

Hope isn’t something we hand to people. It forms between uswhen someone feels seen without being rushed to change. Sometimes the most meaningful thing we offer is our steadiness while someone finds their footing.

2025 didn’t make me sharper, it made me softer and clearer.

I’m stepping into 2026 with fewer answers, better questions, and a deeper commitment to serve, not from control, but from presence.

May the year ahead offer enough safety for growth, enough kindness for rest, and enough presence to remember what matters, especially yourself.

Mary Printz, M.Ed.

Certified Immunity to Change Coach

Emotional Intelligence & Neuroscience-Informed Leadership Coach

For coaching, keynote talks and leadership programs, contact Mary at Mary@MaryPrintz.com or 1-403-866-3806