New Year Intentions That Actually Stick

As we welcome in this last day of 2025, let's talk about setting intentions that will actually stick.

New Year's Resolutions rarely fail because you lack willpower—they fail because they’re built on an overloaded life and a dysregulated nervous system. 

We flip the script with a five-step intention-setting framework designed to support healing, prevent burnout, and make healthy changes last. As a holistic cancer dietitian, I walk through how to honor winter’s energy, learn from last year without shame, and build goals from self-love rather than self-critique.

1. We start with reflection as real-world data: what worked, what didn’t, and what you’re ready to release. 
2. From there, we choose one primary goal—putting yourself first—and let every other action flow from that stance. 
3. Then we lean into guided dreaming. Before you chase tactics, get vivid about the life you’re creating: radiant health, calmer days, more connection, and purposeful work. (You’ll hear how vision clarified an unexpected move for me & my family across the world, reinforcing that direction precedes logistics.)
4. Joy becomes a core health strategy, not an afterthought. We explore why fun, laughter, and creative play regulate the nervous system, lower stress, improve sleep, and make nutrition and movement easier to sustain. 
5. Finally, we practice “less is more.” By stripping nonessentials, you create space for rest and the simple habits that compound—sleep, nourishing meals, walks, grounding, and supportive routines.

If you’re navigating a cancer journey or committed to staying cancer free, this approach helps you build a life your biology can thrive in. 

Ready to start 2026 with intentions that actually work? Subscribe, share this episode with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find practical, hopeful strategies for long-term health.

Wishing you a very happy & healthy New Year!! 🎉

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Transcript

A New Year, New Energy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to our final episode of 2025 of the Ground and Root Podcast. On this podcast, we are exploring the world of holistic and functional strategies to enhance healing and to help you stay cancer free. I am your host and holistic cancer dietitian, Deion Detraz, and I'm so excited to be with you here today on this final day of the year. It is New Year's Eve, the last day of 2025. And in today's episode, we are going to talk about how to step into the new year, step into 2026 with intentions that actually will work. Okay. We are on the precipice of a brand new year with limitless potential, limitless possibilities. In last week's episode, I talked about how 2025, the energies of 2025 and 2026 are very different. We are about to embark on a brand new year with new energies that are supporting us in a different way. Now, like I said in last week's episode, and I am going to recommend if you haven't listened to that first, you probably should pause this, go back, listen to the reflection post first, because it's it is a two-part series, and then come back to this. It'll make more sense. Okay. But as I mentioned in last week's episode, that it's easy to jump quickly into our hopes for the future, like to move forward, right? We hope for the that the changing of the years digit is just gonna automatically, magically rescue us from the past, from whatever we didn't like from the past, from past habits, from past challenges, experiences, et cetera, holes that we've dug for ourselves. And it's just gonna like magically start fresh. Of course. That's why so many people make New Year's resolutions, but unfortunately, very few people actually realize their resolution. So we dream of changes that are gonna make us happier and healthier or sexier, right? We make lists of resolutions in the hope that just like making the list is gonna make it happen, that our willpower will be strong enough for us to see it through. And that's just not the way it is for most people, right? That execution just doesn't really work. It's estimated that every January, at least in America, I don't have global numbers for this, but it might be similar in probably European countries. But roughly one in three Americans will set resolutions for themselves to better themselves in some way. But a much smaller percentage of those people actually make good on them, see it through, right? It's estimated that at about one week in, you know, 75% of people are still sticking with it, but that means 25% of people have already let it go a week later. But less than half, maybe around 40% or so, are still on target at six months later. So these are not productive goals, right? Productive resolutions. And I'm gonna give you five tips today of how to make actual intentions and goals for yourself that will stick and will manifest. Okay. The first tip though is we must learn from the past. And that's why in last week's episode, that I spent the whole episode talking about that, about reflecting on the past year, what what worked well, what did not, what are you releasing, leaving behind, what are you ready to step into? Okay. So first listen to that and do the exercises, the journaling prompts I suggested in that episode if you haven't already. Okay. Then we're gonna dive into the next four strategies. Step one, learn from the past, release what's you just don't want to bring with you anymore. Okay. Step two, next, we start with just one primary goal. Okay. All the other intentions, all the other actions that we want to take are going to be based on this one goal, which is putting yourself first. When you're willing to prioritize you and your self-care and your health and your needs and your desires, everything else falls into place. It is the absolute selfless thing to do, even though we've been brainwashed to think that's selfish. It is not. It is the selfless thing to do. This is what I've seen in myself and honestly, in all the clients that I've worked with over the years. When you put you first, everybody benefits. Now, for those of you who have gone through a cancer journey or are currently going through a cancer journey, then you already know now is the time to put you first. This is your ultimate permission slip where you get to do what you need and want. Nobody is gonna tell you not to. We want to carry this energy forward, whether you're moving through cancer or not. You come first. The thing is that when you take this mentality that you matter first, right? That your health, your wellness, your dreams and desires will ultimately benefit everybody else. This is also changing the relationship you have to yourself. This is bringing more love and attention towards you. And when we make intentions and goals for ourselves that are from a place of love in ourselves, those are gonna be more meaningful and more successful goals. Okay. On the contrary, when we're setting intentions from a place of hate or disgust or just like we're done with ourselves, we're setting ourselves up for failure. So we got to first. So step number one, right? Or tip number two, I guess, technically, sorry. It doesn't matter the order, is to put you first and from a place of love. Because when you put yourself first, it's like the ultimate act of self-love. Okay. So let's agree to do that. Anything else that we come up with on our list is because it's from this place of like me first. And that is now we're changing our, we're changing our relationship to that as being a selfless thing, not a selfish thing. All right, tip number three, the next step is before again, before you jump into that list, let's first just set some side some time aside to dream. Do you even know what you want? Do you know what you desire, what you dream, what you want the rest of your life to look like, who you want to spend it with, what is your soul's purpose? Do you have the answers to this? If you do, then you may not need to set aside time to dream. You may have already done that and you've like, you know where you're headed. And then we can continue, okay? But if you haven't, now is the time. We are in the energy of winter. Winter is about rest and reflection and dreaming and magic and setting intentions. Spring is more about action. It doesn't mean we're not gonna start taking steps, okay? But it doesn't, the energy is really supporting you to dream right now and to rest and to listen to your intuition. That water energy, it's intuitive energy. What is who are you really? Okay. Who are you meant to be? What would that look like? What do you desire? Okay, so remember, here's how actually I'm not gonna say remember. Let's just think about this for a second, okay? If you're listening to me right now, then I'm going to assume that at least one of the things you'd really like to create in your life, in your dreamscape, right? Is optimal, vibrant, radiant health. And if you're still moving through a cancer journey, then that means healing from cancer, right? Ideally, or at least getting to a point where you can maintain optimal health with cancer in your body that is no longer growing or active or spreading. Yes. So if I'm assuming I may be wrong, I'm assuming that's one of your dreams, one of your goals. So I what I'd like you to do is to start with that ideal, plus whatever other dreams you have for your life. Okay. This is not just about health and healing, but obviously that's a big point of our podcast. What does your version of optimal health, vibrant, radiant health look like, right? In the context of your life or the life you're desiring. Dream up a as detailed a picture as possible, right? Just sit in meditation, lay down, close your eyes, imagine. Just let yourself imagine, daydream. What could this look like for you? Don't worry about the logistics yet. Don't worry about like the how. Okay. Right now it's just what are we going towards? We can come up with the how once we know what the goal is. But first, again, if we're gonna set intentions that really matter, that are meaningful for us, we first need to know where we're headed.

unknown 8:51

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SPEAKER_00 8:52

So we've already done the like reflecting on what's happened, what's no longer working for us. We've prioritized ourselves. We're putting ourselves first. So by putting ourselves first, we get to dream up. What does this look like? What do we want the rest of our life to look like? And if no clear pictures come up right away, please don't fret. That is also normal, particularly if you've never done this exercise before. You're, you do have to teach your brain to dream again. You know, as kids, we come into the world ready to dream. We believe in magic, we love to come up with fairy tales and we love to daydream. This is really normal. And then it's taken out of us as we get older, which is really sad. As an adult, we should still make time to daydream. I think that's really important. So if it, if you don't get a picture right away, it's okay. We're just teaching our brains, we're teaching our psyche to let go of reality for a little bit and just dream up what would be the ideal? What does that even look like? And if you're not sure, it's okay. You just sit with yourself and ask yourself, what would my dream life look like? And then you just give it time. What would my life look like if I had vibrant and radiant health? What would my life look like if I was cancer free? And I didn't have to worry all the time that the cancer was going to come back. What would my life look like? And maybe you do this several days in a row, you know, with a journal and you just see what comes up. You let your intuition guide you. You let yourself start to dream. For me, I've always been a dreamer. That's been very easy for me. But one of the things I like, I use this exact strategy. I didn't have the answer to it yet. When we decided to come to France, I had no idea we were going to make such a huge life move. That was never on my radar. That was not in my goals, right? That wasn't my New Year's resolution for that year. But what happened is I became very aware of our current reality. And as much as there were lots of bright spots, there were a lot of really hard, challenging spots for me and for my husband. And I just started asking the universe as part of my morning meditation with my journal, how could this look better? What could we do different? And I didn't need to know the answer, you know? It was just letting myself begin to dream up how we could change what is true for us right now. And it didn't take that long. Probably within a couple of weeks, I started to get visions of us coming to France for a year for a sabbatical to live with his family. We could run out our house, our cottage, and just take a year off. Have a completely different life experience. And then the goal was to come back, right? The intention was just like, we just need to, we need some time away. And as I sat with that in meditation, it became clearer and clearer until eventually I brought it to my husband. I was like, what do you think about this? Obviously, this was like a crazy idea. But he was in a state of mind feeling like, yeah, why not? Let's go for it. And within that decision, six weeks later, we were on a plane to France for a year. Okay. That I did not see that coming at all. And the other thing I didn't see coming is that by the end of that year sabbatical, we decided to actually move to France and create a life here because it was more in alignment with where we were headed, with what our dreams and desires were, not just for me and my husband, but for but for my kids too, and for our family as a unit. And we made difficult decisions that because we were focused on the end goal, the dream. Okay. If we don't know what the dream is, we don't know how to get there. I didn't know that coming to France was going to be the answer. And it doesn't mean it's perfect. Okay. I could probably do another episode on like the good and the bad of moving to France. But my point is that when we trust the process, the answers, the solutions, the how will come. Okay. Now, once you've done that, the next step is to ask yourself what brings you joy? What do you do for fun? What fills your cup? What makes you laugh? What puts a smile on your face? What makes you happy? And again, if you're not certain, please don't fret. But with that same exercise as before, just take some time with your journal in meditation and ask yourself that question. What makes me happy? And just see what comes up. Start writing it down. Even if it doesn't make sense right away, you know, just trust the process. What do I do for fun? What would I like to do for fun? What did I used to do for fun? If we start to, if we start to ask these questions from the place of the dream, the desires that we're heading to towards, then the answers become a little bit easier too. Even if it's not something that we're used to doing, it's, ooh, I could see myself doing that. Oh, it might be fun to start taking dance classes or I don't know, whatever it is. Right. And again, in my last episode, I did talk about how gratitude and doing things that make you happy ultimately create more health in your body. So again, a missing piece. I really believe this. This is just not talked enough. This is why in our coaching program, we actually start with your emotional wellness. We start with the nervous system. We start with removing stressors. We start with joy and fun and pleasure. Because until we bring that base into your body, can we actually start to shift the other physical things to help you heal with food and supplements and fasting and all these other great strategies that we have? But the thing that is most important, honestly, is the base. It's the nervous system that is your container that is allowing you to be healthy and vibrant and radiant. And stress is like the biggest deterrent to that, right? It doesn't mean it doesn't mean we can't, of course, we're still going to have stress in our life, but a more regulated nervous system is going to help us deal with stressors in a completely different way. So creating goals or intentions that are bringing in more joy and fun and pleasure is going to help you create this different, this like healing shift in your body. Right. So in your intentions, I really want you to think through how can I bring more joy into my life this next year? What does that mean? Right. What are the things or the activities or the people that will fill my cup? How do I make time for those things in this next year? Or maybe, like I said, like maybe I want to start taking dance classes. Maybe there's a new activity or a new hobby that I want to experiment with in the next year. Okay. But that would be the next step is what is going to bring me more joy? Not like what's going to bring me a sexier body. Because the truth is, when you have more joy and fun and pleasure, you're going to have the capacity to do the things that are going to bring you more health or a sexy body. I know I keep using that as a, but I think you get the point. It's like that can be the end result, but that's not necessarily how we're going to get there. How we're going to get there is by doing things that fill our cup. And the final tip to help you truly create like a routine and a rhythm that is going to allow for these new fun activities in your life is that you probably are going to have to do less. You're going to, in order to create space to do more fun things or to have more time for rest or more time for sleep or more downtime, is we're going to have to start doing less. You know? And when I talked about creating space to dream, that winter is a season of rest, you are being supported right now to do less energetically. So if you can pull out the to-do list, pull out your list of responsibilities and just like really with a fine-tuned comb go through that and be like, what do I really not have to do right now? Or what could I ask somebody else to do for me? Or what can I just let go of? You know what? Ultimately, that's actually not that important. Let's let that go. So we need to create some space, right? In our routine, in our day-to-day, week-to-week schedules so that we can do more of the fun things, so that we can have more time for rest. First, we need to simplify in order to have the time for this stuff, you know? And it's interesting. I see this happen a lot inside of our coaching program. That, you know, in the beginning, you're just thinking about all the things you need to add in. Okay, I've got a, you know, I've got a meal plan and cook healthier meals and I got to exercise every day and I need to get enough sleep and I need to ground or do sauna or, you know, all these things. These are all like action-based things that are adding to your to-do list. It doesn't mean these things aren't great for you. But if you already have a really full and busy life, all that's going to do is create more stress and overwhelm that you're like, how am I gonna eat all this in? And more anxiety because now you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not doing enough things. I'm not gonna help myself heal. Like you see how you get into this spiral, right? So in order to prevent that scenario from happening, we have to first open up the schedule. We have to do less of the things that don't really matter or that somebody else could do for you. You know, create space in your schedule and then bring in the things that are gonna fill your cup and promote better health. And it's interesting, one of our clients in the program, she's been with us for many years now. She's passed her cancer journey and just like the long-term prevention plan, but still getting a lot of support from the community. And she's been, she on a call said, you know what? I have to tell you this that you've been telling me forever to streamline my schedule. And that's been hard for me to do. And I've struggled with sleep for years and I've tried all the things, the circadian rhythm support, right? The supplements, like all the things that all the strategies to help. Sometimes it helps a little bit, but never like enough. And then I actually decided to like clear my schedule, to just do less. And guess what happened? Immediately, she started sleeping better. Yeah. It wasn't another potion or pill or magic thing. She just needed to create space in her routine so her nervous system could calm so that she could sleep better. And then obviously that's going to promote better health and healing. Okay, so let's quickly summarize these five steps. Today, if you have time, obviously it's New Year's Eve. It's a great time to go through these exercises. If you don't have time, it's in the next week, right? Just because tomorrow is the first day of the year, we're still in this energy of like new beginnings. So take advantage of this time of year and go through this step by step. So just as a reminder, step one was to learn from the past. So that's the previous episode on self-reflection. Okay. Step two, prioritize you. That is the ultimate act of self-love. And all the action items you take from that place are going to better support you and are more likely you're more likely to succeed, to be honest. Step two, excuse me, step three, sorry, create radical space to dream, to rest, to tap into your intuition, and to really tune into who. Who you want to become? Okay. Who are you meant to be in this lifetime? What are you calling in? What are your dreams, your desires? What is that ideal life? Right? That ideal state of vibrant, radiant health that you're working towards. What does that look like? Okay. Step four. What brings you joy? What do you do for fun? What fills your cup? Let's do more of that in 2026. Okay. All of us. Let's do the things that make us happy. That is like probably the most important step we could take in becoming healthier. And the final step is less is more. Okay. Take a fine-tooth comb to your to-do list. What can you let go of? What do you really not need to be doing so that you actually have the space and time to do the fun things and to rest more? I hope that was helpful. It's a different way to look at New Year's resolutions, right? But ultimately it's a way that's going to have more impact and you're going to be more likely to succeed in really knowing what your long-term goals are. And again, we're in the C we're, we just started the energy of winter. So you are being supported to do these things now. And it doesn't have to be today or tomorrow. Like honestly, you could use all of January and February to do this. Like before we start moving into the springtime action energy, right? You can do this to really think through how can I streamline my schedule? How can I get more rest? How can I do things that fill my cup? Start with those things first. All right. And with the podcast in January and February, we will be covering things to help you support these things as well. Okay. So please continue to hang out with us because we're obviously going to continue this message as we move into the beginning of the year. If you want to connect with us more closely, please check out the links in our show notes. I have all the different ways that you can connect with us, whether that's within our coaching programs or just following us on social media or inside our free community. There's a lot of different ways you can go deeper with us. And as always, thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to see what 2026 has in store for you and for me and for Ground and Root, for all of us, for the world at large. I think there's a lot of potential ahead of us. And I just hope for all the best for you. If you're enjoying this content, we're covering, please help us spread the word. Share, subscribe, leave a review. As always, we are so appreciative of your support and helping this information get into the ears of as many people as possible. That is how we really begin to change the statistics around cancer and we help people live longer, healthier, happier lives. I wish you such a beautiful last day of the year and a wonderful start to 2026. And I look forward to connecting with you again on next week's episode. Bye for now.