Committing to New Music & Renewed Goals in 2026

My life got significantly better when I stopped having a Monday Mindset, when I resolved within myself to be a person who starts things whenever I want to, even if it’s on Thursday afternoon. Most people use this as an argument for why we ought to not have New Year’s resolutions, but I think the momentum that comes with a new year is such an enabler for change when used right. Neuroscience says that change is difficult because our brains are trying to protect us and to maintain what’s familiar. We fail to change because we have not formed the new neural pathways that are conducive to sustaining the new thing we are trying to do. This is why consistency is key when enforcing a change in behaviour – eventually the brain adapts to the newly formed neural pathway, but it takes some concentrated time in the beginning.

A new year is the perfect motivation and momentum needed to sustain a change, as you unwrap a new year, you can smell the newness in the air for at least 4 months into it, between January and April your brain sees the novelty of the year as an opportunity to become new, forming a relaxed environment for your subconscious, allowing you to believe in your ability to make a lasting change. Each year, I love to grab this opportunity and I try to milk it with all I’ve got. Three of my biggest goals for the year is:

1. To make a conscious effort to listen to new music and update my personality or atleast, my taste in music.
2. To act out my love and to stop loving with lip service
3. To continue to build a deeper relationship with myself as I continue to make a home within myself.

I’ve seen how listening to the same music can box you into a certain experience or certain thoughts. Each time I play Zoe Modiga’s ‘UTHANDO’, it takes me back to my matric prelims because it was one of the songs that got me through that period. Sound is powerful because it can transport you to specific memories and make you relive them. I have recycled many memories, many thoughts and many states of being with the music I’ve listened to, so this year I’m choosing to find the parts of me that colour outside the lines. I’ve let my love for Jazz prohibit me from exploring some hip-hop influences, I’ve felt so safe within Afro Soul for so long that I have neglected my appetite for new House sounds, but this year I’m choosing to love what I love while exploring what I may fall in love with. I want new songs to pair with a version of me I’m trying to grow into, the me who’s grown to regulate their social battery enough to want to host friends and family – this version of me needs new background music to cook to and to laugh over a game of Uno with my cousins after we’ve enjoyed a good meal. Loyle Carner is an artist whose music I’ve recently started cooking to, and I think I’ll make awesome meals with his jazzy hip-hop sound as my company.

I can’t remember a year when I did not have “I want to love better” on my goals list, but this year’s entry comes with a wealth of wisdom that has come with maturing and a refreshing TikTok FYP. Each year, the goal would always seem insurmountable and I’d remain in functional freeze, my social anxiety problems are far bigger than I often let on and I’d always unintentionally isolate and think I can show love from a distance. Always lamenting how much love I have inside of me with nowhere to take it, the healing from this mindset came unexpectedly when @kristen1942 on TikTok explained why behaviour is always more important than intent in relationships. This put into perspective that how I show up for people over time is more important than the feeling of love I claim to hold in my heart for them. I’m ready to love with my presence rather than holding love like it’s a twinkling star in the sky, very beautiful but oh so far. I have had to unlearn perfectionism and rigidity to embrace the art of small, unplanned, and consistent gestures of love. As I seek out more hangouts with my cousins that cost nothing but time, or affection to my parents and siblings through acts of service rather than birthday gifts, I hope to remember to love and live in the present. I also hope to learn to dance comfortably around my friends to songs such as my newly discovered artist Flo Naegeli’s You’re My Baby.

And as a jazzhead, I want to discover the good golden oldies that are iconic. I’ve always been quite vocal about the kind of jazz that sounds best to me, sharing my deep appreciation for jazz songs that have a memorable melody and that sound like a cohesive songpiece. This has sometimes put me at great odds with the music from the golden jazz icons, who are the greatest of all time, whose music is characterised by improvisation and complex sounds. I think I’m ready to embrace the depth of jazz and to go where it’s not comfortable, maybe I’ll find beauty therein, too. This sense of exploration and adventure symbolises a personal growth milestone of mine where I have taken on a mindset of exploration and curiosity about myself. As someone who’s always longed for emotional closeness and intellectual compatibility, it dawned on me once that the best person to understand me and to share all my intellectual quirks with me is none other than myself. So I will indeed be chasing the things that set me on fire, reading all the books I can to feed my curiosity for certain topics, going to all the events that inspire me, and doing it all with a passionate enjoyment of my solitude. I was listening to Alice Coltrane’s Turiya & Ramakrishna and envisioned myself as a granny in her late 60s, and I thought about the great personal journey within and externally that I would be proud of at my old age. Will I be happy with myself and celebrate having embraced a rich internal life or will I wish to have had more time for and with myself?

What are you committing to in 2026?