LIGHTING FIRES IN 2026 and beyond: Part 1

As we step into 2026, I want to offer you something better than resolutions: a fire. Not a metaphorical spark that burns out by February, but a real, sustainable flame built the same way humans have built fires for thousands of years, slowly, intentionally, and with the right materials. A fire we can take sparks and embers from to start new fires.

Building fires and building habits have much in common. To build a successful fire we need to gather resources (wood, kindling, twigs, tinder, source of ignition), and the same is true of habits (we need a goal, we need steps to reach that, we need actions we can take). This blog series is going to focus on building habits and helping you light a fire under 2026, and finish with a bonfire of success.

Choose where to start it:

Fires need a place where they won’t go out. You don’t light a fire in a puddle. Same for a habit. There’s also no point starting a regular morning workout routine if you don’t have the time in the morning to spend 20-30minutes exercising right now. Where in your day could your planned habits? What normal routines you have that can be the anchor for your new behaviour. This is the best kind of ground to build you habit fire on.

Lay down tinder for a spark:

Habits require us to be able to perform an action, place it appropriately in our day for success, and it needs to be an action that is very doable, as easy as possible to complete. I and clients I work with have tried to light logs first, booking 6am PT sessions, buying a home gym, going on a massive calorie deficit. If we start with twigs, everything changes. The easy actions you can take are the twigs and tinder you put down first. Something like doing two push ups in the morning when you get out of bed. Packing your gym gear out the night before. Planning your lunches for the week when you do your shopping list. Checking you have a drink bottle is full before you leave the house. Those almost insignificant actions are your tinder. Light them, give them oxygen and they are become the foundation of your fire.

Add oxygen: Celebration

Like a fire needs oxygen, a habit needs celebration. This is the air for a fire that allows it to burn well, not smoulder, or go out, a habit needs you to celebrate its completion. This sets off dopamine and other feel-good chemicals in our brain, and these allow the habit pathway to fire a bit faster, and a bit stronger. Neurons that fire together wire together, and so the more often we celebrate, the more we feed the habit to be stronger and easier to complete next time. But what is the celebration you need to do?

Picking your celebration: This is a fun little task to do. Imagine you’ve just won a hard boardgame against your nemesis or scored a goal in your favourite sport to win the game, or maybe just had won an argument by email with your boss. What is it you do in the moment of realising you’ve succeeded? Do you raise your hands in the air? Do you yell out YES to the world (or yourself in your head), do you just nod and move on? What is it? That thing that first pops into your mind is your celebration. If you do it right now, yeah like right now, you should find yourself smiling, feeling lighter, or even like there’s a little bit of ‘shine’ on your soul. That’s your celebration. When I did this for myself, and with clients, it’s often something that feels a little silly at first, and it lights up your face, and mood. That silly thing you do that makes you smile, that makes the world feel just a tiny bit lighter, is the thing you want. If you have more than one great, pick one and test it, then try another. Take the one that always makes you feel good.

This might be the most important part of the entire post. That shine can bring you up on a hard day, that shine is the oxygen of your habit fire. The more you remember to use that with a habit, the faster it will set off neurons, the faster that habit will lock in.

Test Your First Sparks:

Take these things and practice starting some habit fires, make tiny actions, those are your sparks. Try testing out some celebrations (a bit like how hard to fan the fire to start or blow on it). Try some different twigs and tinder, it could be doing 2 squats after going to the bathroom (celebrate), loading your gym bag the night before (celebrate it), putting your walking shoes by the door (celebrate it). There doesn’t need to be anything more. Just do the tiny easy thing and celebrate it. Next week we will talk about adding sticks to your little fire, makings some bigger changes and progress.

Before you go: If you want a bit more than tinder and sticks before the next post, you can grab my fitness habit builder program here. It uses these same principles to build a regular habit of working out. It has gym and non-gym options, so you do it nearly anywhere.