6 Empowering Steps to Shed Midlife Baggage in 2026
Embracing a Fresh Start in 2026
As we crack open a new diary for the year ahead, it’s the perfect opportunity to embrace a fresh start. However, the ‘new year, new you’ mantra can often feel overwhelming. For those of us in midlife, false starts can make us feel like failures by February. This year, let’s approach our resolutions differently, inspired by insights from Laura Day, an intuitive healer and author of The Prism.
Laura Day’s Wisdom for a Midlife Reset
Laura Day, who has guided celebrities like Demi Moore and Nicole Kidman through successful midlife resets, shares her wisdom on how to approach the new year with a bang. Her advice is rooted in setting goals and making small, impactful changes.
Setting Goals for the New Year
According to Laura, the most important place to start is by choosing three goals, whether in love, life, or career. These goals should be your focus, and remember, small steps can have a huge impact. “They don’t have to be reasonable because you will create them,” she says. “You’ll be surprised. You will find a way, but you need goals to contextualize that energy and how you take in what your intuition directs you to in the world.”
Steps to Shed Midlife Baggage
If you’re looking for inspiration to reset for 2026 and leave all the midlife baggage behind, here are some wise words from Laura Day to start you off in the right direction:
1. Avoid New Damage
“Put one foot in front of the other and don’t allow any new damage,” Laura advises. “For example, is there a frenemy you find really interesting, but always spend too much money with, or feel worse about yourself afterwards? Step away and don’t let them cause any new damage.”
2. Introduce New Skills
“There are so many masterclasses out there, so lean in and learn,” Laura suggests. “A new beginning in anything requires new skills. It’s not that you can’t do what someone else can do, it’s that you haven’t learned to do it yet. So really embrace those new skills in a way that doesn’t overburden your life. You don’t have to make a million changes. You make a tiny, tiny change and it starts to change everything.”
3. Choose Your Battles
“Is this something I need to engage in?” Laura asks. “What are the things intuition teaches us to take a step back from? Because intuition is perspective.”
4. Create Meaningful Rituals
“Our rituals really define how we experience the world,” Laura explains. “It’s important to make altars and rituals mean what you want them to mean, so that they support you. If your desk is messy, is that mess your creativity and abundance? Or is that mess your hopelessness? The way you eat, if it’s punishing, that’s not a healthy ritual. Eat in a way that’s not punishing. And maybe that is having something yummy for breakfast.”
5. Be Your Own Hero
“Worrying about the past is actually a very easy place to get stuck because you don’t have to do anything,” Laura says. “Make yourself the hero of your own story. That doesn’t mean lie to yourself. If you are harmed, you are harmed, but focus on the ‘Wow, go you. You survived.’ The important part of the story is your strength, it is your initiative, it is your survival, and even your ability to endure for reasons you don’t know.”
6. Find Your Purpose
“People think of mindfulness as meditation, but it means being just present in you in this point in space and time, in this moment where your power is,” Laura explains. “Mindfulness is if your back hurts you change positions. Mindfulness is your opportunity to experience the moment and then take your initiative and make it better. If something is painful, you find the tools to make it better – that tool has a purpose. I am doing this for this reason. You can do something. You have the tools inside you to make a change.”
For more insights from Laura Day, listen to her on the Second Act podcast.
