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What Will the Headline Be for Your Life in 2026?
Before I give you the question, I want to share a short history lesson I think you’ll find fascinating.
Just down the hill from Mount Rushmore is something most people don’t even know exists.
The Crazy Horse Memorial. A massive sculpture blasted into the side of a mountain to honor the famous chief.
The project was started by Korczak Ziolkowski, an artist from Boston who had been an assistant on the Mount Rushmore construction.
When Ziolkowski was commissioned to carve Crazy Horse, he didn’t just take on a sculpture.
Before he ever drilled into the mountain, he had to build a life from scratch. A log cabin. Roads. Outbuildings. Crops. Power. Water. Everything required just to begin the work.
Inside the museum at the base of the mountain, there’s an exhibit dedicated to Korczak. And on the wall hangs a massive animal hide, covered in simple drawings.
It’s called a winter count.
This was a tradition used by Plains tribes. Every winter, when the weather forced people indoors, they would sit around the fire and reflect on the year that had passed.
They didn’t record everything.
The elders chose one moment that defined the year.
That symbol was drawn onto the hide.
Over time, the hide became a visual record of an entire life. Births. Losses. Setbacks. Victories.
Ziolkowski’s family kept a winter count of their own, and that’s the one hanging in the museum today.
You can see when children were born. When major breakthroughs on the sculpture happened. When disaster struck and buildings burned down. When progress stalled. When it surged forward.
One year. One defining story.
Most people can’t clearly remember what happened just a few years ago. Everything blurs together.
What a shame.
How much richer would your life feel if every year actually stood for something?
So while everyone else is thinking about resolutions, I want you to think in terms of headlines.
Here’s the exercise...
Finish this sentence as if it’s already December 31st:
“2026 was the year that I __________.”
This can be big or small. Abstract or concrete.
It might be the year you ran your first marathon.
The year you bought your first investment property.
The year you reached one whole Bitcoin.
Most people let the year write its own headline. And when they do, it usually sounds like this:
“2026 was the year I worked hard but nothing really changed.”
I want the opposite for you.
You decide the headline first. Then you engineer your decisions to make it true.
Because once the headline is clear, clarity shows up everywhere else.
If the headline is “2026 was the year I created freedom for myself,” certain meetings disappear from your calendar.
If it’s “2026 was the year my money finally started working harder than I did,” saving alone no longer makes sense.
If it’s “2026 was the year I stopped living by default,” systems matter more than effort.
Here’s the core idea to sit with:
A year is a precious unit of measurement.
You don’t get many of them. And they compound, whether you design them or not.
So instead of asking, “What do I want to accomplish in 2026?”
Ask a better question.
“What do I want 2026 to be remembered for?”
That answer becomes the headline.
And once the headline is clear, everything else becomes easier to design.
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