Release: My Word of the Year for 2026

Every year, I choose a word that becomes my anchor—something that shapes how I lead, how I make decisions, and how I show up for the people and communities I serve. This year, that word is Release. Not because I’m trying to let go of everything, but because I am finally ready to create space for what’s been trying to come in.

Release is often misunderstood. People hear the word and think of loss, endings, or surrendering control (which has been part of 2025). However I’m also stepping into a release that is different. It’s intentional. It’s strategic. It’s a leadership practice rooted in clarity and abundance. It is the belief that sometimes the only way to rise is to loosen your grip on the things that weigh you down.

Release is about leadership growth.
As leaders, we collect responsibilities, expectations, roles, and identities the way shelves collect dust. We hold onto outdated strategies because they once worked. We keep relationships or commitments because they once mattered. We say yes because we always have. True leadership requires evolution—an honest look at what no longer supports the vision we’re stepping into.

This year, I am releasing the pressure to carry everything alone.
I am releasing overcommitment disguised as ambition.
I am releasing the belief that struggle must precede success.

Instead, I am choosing aligned action, guided energy, and a pace that honors both purpose and wellbeing. Release is helping me grow into a leader who leads with clarity, not clutter; groundedness, not grind.

Release opens space for abundance and newness.
There is a spiritual and energetic truth that we all know intuitively: we cannot receive what our hands are too full to hold. Abundance doesn’t flow into overcrowded containers. Innovation doesn’t spark in overwhelmed minds. Opportunities don’t thrive in environments built for survival rather than sustainability.

When I choose release, I’m choosing space:
Space for joy.
Space for clarity.
Space for peace.
Space for ideas that have been waiting patiently for me to slow down enough to hear them.
Space for aligned clients, aligned partnerships, aligned impact.

This is the year I make room for better.

Release is my invitation to joy and prosperity.
Joy is often the first thing leaders sacrifice. We trade ease for urgency, creativity for productivity, and rest for responsibility. But joy is not a reward—it’s fuel. It restores our imagination. It expands our capacity. It reconnects us to purpose.

Prosperity, too, is not simply financial. It is fullness. It is operating within your gifts, serving from overflow, and leading from a place of congruence rather than depletion. Release is the bridge to that kind of prosperity. It allows the right opportunities to find you because you’ve let go of the wrong ones. It aligns you with the work you’re truly meant to do.

As I step into this new year, I am choosing to release anything that competes with my calling, clutters my peace, or disrupts my alignment. And in doing so, I am choosing expansion, joy, and a prosperity that touches every part of my life and leadership.

This is the year of release—and because of that, this is the year of rising. What are you releasing this year? What is your word or focus of the year too?