As 2026 approaches, many people are looking for ways to end the year with emotional balance and clarity about next steps. Experts in behavior and neuroscience point out that this is an opportunity to reflect on the habits, emotions and decisions that have shaped the past few months and to outline strategies for starting the new year more consciously.
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Psychoanalyst and researcher Elainne Ourives emphasizes the importance of completing cycles well: “The way we end one cycle determines the way we enter the next. Changing years without adjusting the internal frequency means repeating behaviors, emotions and results,” she explains.
What 2025 leaves behind
The end of a cycle usually brings dense emotions to the surface, such as fear, guilt, stagnation, and excessive self-demands. These feelings can interfere with decision-making, focus and planning, essential elements for starting the new year with purpose. Searches for HeartMath Institute indicate that dysregulated emotional states reduce focus, creativity, and mental clarity, making it difficult to set realistic and sustainable goals.
According to Elainne, the moment of transition should be used to identify patterns that are unlikely to carry over into 2026. Recognizing self-sabotaging behaviors, repetitive habits, and forms of procrastination helps free up space for more productive and enjoyable experiences.
Three steps to recovery
Experts indicate that emotional preparation can be organized into three stages:
- Awakening: observe and identify habits and attitudes that do not contribute to personal, emotional or professional development.
- Elevation: rebuilding the relationship with yourself, aligning intention, behavior and emotion, strengthening clarity on what you want to achieve.
- Activation: establishing new emotional frequencies, linked to purpose, focus and openness to new projects and relationships.
“Leaving behind what didn’t work is as important as setting goals. This process allows the person to change the way they act in the world and achieve different results,” explains Elainne.
Practical Strategies for Routine
In addition to reflection, it is possible to incorporate practices that help with emotional reorganization:
- Mindfulness and Breathing: Simple concentration and heart coherence exercises help reduce stress and increase mental clarity.
- Guided visualizations: Imagining positive future scenarios strengthens the sense of control and commitment to goals.
- Review of habits and thoughts: identify recurring patterns of self-sabotage and replace them with more conscious attitudes.
- Collective thinking: Sharing experiences and learning with others can increase perception and motivation for change.
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Where the methodology is applied
The practices presented by Elainne, including the stages of awakening, elevation and activation, are explored at events such as the 2025 edition of Cocriador Milionário, which will take place from December 12 to 14 at the Expo Center Norte, in São Paulo. According to the psychoanalyst, these experiences provide an immersive environment for reflection and emotional reorganization, but the concepts can be adapted to daily life, at home or at work, allowing everyone to approach the closing cycles with more awareness and determination.
Building goals and intentions only becomes sustainable when there is emotional clarity and awareness of one’s own standards. The closing of the cycles is an invitation to question oneself, to reorganize one’s emotions and behaviors and to establish solid foundations for the year to come.
“When a person changes their internal frequency, they transform the way they act in the world, redefining outcomes and experiences,” concludes Elainne.
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