Beginning 2026 with intention
A no-scramble way to set up your year to succeed
Hi there! You’re reading the Bonfire newsletter from Kevan Lee & Shannon Deep. Each week, we highlight brand, marketing, and creative learnings from our experience as in-house marketers turned agency owners who think a lot about creativity, our relationship to work, and how all of that impacts our identities. We’ll also feature insights from our digital community of super smart folks (which you’re welcome to join).
Wishing you a great week!
Every January, there’s a predictable scramble to become, it seems, an entirely new person. New planners, new goals, new habits, new routines, new selves.
No pressure.
So often, our New Years resolutions come down to doing or not doing. We buy the gym membership and the fancy alarm clock, throw away the sugar and booze, and download the various tracker apps, but we spend a lot less time considering the why behind our actions compared to all the external stuff that’s related to them.
Over here at Bonfire, we believe being intentional is the key for most things, but especially when it comes to what you’re pursuing on a macro level, understanding why something is important to you or not, how it fits into the bigger picture of your life, and how to scaffold those choices so you have the best chance of succeeding is of paramount importance!
We developed our 3-month Start With Intention challenge in our Campout community to help you do exactly that in a relaxed, supported way, but we figured we’d also start off the year with a few thought-provoking prompts to get you thinking about all the motivations behind the curtain of your goals.
Oh, and no resolutions required—just some honest noticing.
3 prompts to begin 2026 with more clarity
1. What do you want to feel more of next year, and where did you already experience that feeling in 2025?
We’re already talked about how you don’t want the thing, you want the feeling you associate with that thing. So let’s go!
We’re better at recognizing patterns than inventing entirely new ones. Try tracing the moments that already felt great in 2025, and see if you can identify common threads, environments, or circumstances that link them all together. Maybe all of them were when you were working with a team. Maybe most of them involved being able to set your own schedule. Or they all included friends. Whatever the commonality, this gives you a major clue for what to do more of in 2026.
2. What’s one story you can let go of that would immediately create more room for creativity or ease?
In December, we did a Campout event all about letting go of what wasn’t serving us. Kristen Pavle and Dave Gorum of Play Into Being led us through an exercise to “compost” projects, activities, or beliefs that we wanted to ditch in 2026, but in a way that expressed gratitude for them and turned their energy into something new. (Like composting!) Most of us chose to compost a belief or story that we felt was holding us back.
So maybe it’s the story that “If nobody else sees this, it’s not worth doing.” Or it could be “If I make less money than last year, that’s a failure.” Or “The only way to move forward is if I commit 100%.”
Whatever it is, identifying what that story might be for you can be powerful! And even if you don’t “release” it right away, acknowledging the story means you can start noticing it—and noticing it might take away some of its automatic thrall.
3. If you had zero limitations of time, money, or logistics in 2026, what would you choose to do?
This one’s a classic, we admit. But give it a think.
We know that answering this question implies a level of luxury and privilege that few of us can actually exercise in real life. But the real value in this answer might just be the element of surprise. Maybe in answering, you’re surprised to find out that you wouldn’t change a single thing, even if you had all the time and money in the world. Maybe you realize that you’d go back to school, or quit your job, or move abroad. Maybe you have “Buy a house” on your general life to-do list but actually…if you had unlimited resources…you wouldn’t do that at all. Interesting!
When we free ourselves to think of what we would choose to do without constraints, it shakes up the “shoulds” and “musts.” And helps us see more clearly how many of them are actually mandatory after all.
For all the above questions, hold your answers lightly. Let them guide your first few steps instead of forcing a perfect plan.
Over to you…
What questions do you use to guide your New Year planning? Or do you reject all that out of principle? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
If you want more just like this…
Beginning January 15th:
Join Campout’s 3-month challenge to find your values, your vision, and your people for 2026.
Tired of resolutions that fizzle by February?
Start 2026 with intention.
Join us four our 3-month challenge, Start With Intention, beginning January 15.
You’ll get:
3 live workshops (Jan–Mar) + anytime replays
A private channel to connect and keep momentum
Async prompts + resources for deeper reflection
Full access to Campout’s community, library, and tools throughout the challenge
Full details are available in Campout. We’d love to see you there!
But wait! There’s more…
Wanna hang out in person?
New retreat dates are coming soon. You can join the waitlist for our next one, coming spring of 2026.
Wanna be friends?
If you love this newsletter and wish it were more interactive, you’re in luck! Join us over in Campout, our digital community for creative marketers and the creative curious.
Wanna work with us?
If you need help with brand strategy and storytelling, fractional brand and marketing leadership, and bringing your brand strategy to life in impactful ways, send us an email at hello@aroundthebonfire.com to get in touch.
As always, you can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads.