What does it mean to forgive your unfulfilled goals? Well, it’s that time of year where we take stock of the past 12 months. Then we set goals for the New Year. At least that’s the plan.

But, have you ever noticed as you review the year that you spend very little time celebrating your successes (small and large)? Do you tend to focus on the goals that you didn’t manifest? Does that negative self-talk coming from your inner self-sabotager drown out anything remotely positive?

If so, you’re not alone. There’s a concept called The Gap and The Gain. This refers to our tendency to focus on The Gap, meaning how far we still have to go to be where we’re “supposed to be”. The Gain refers to acknowledging how far we’ve come in the past 3, 6, or 12 months.

So instead of beating yourself up for goals and intentions that didn’t get manifested (falling into The Gap), I invite you to take a different approach.

1. Forgive the unfulfilled goals. This means forgiving yourself for not living up to your own expectations. Use a mantra referring to yourself in the third person such as, “ (Your name), I forgive you for not achieving your goal of (fill in the blank).” Research shows that self-talk in the third person is more powerful. I would also recommend doing this while using the Emotional Freedom Techniques aka EFT Tapping points. If you’re not familiar with EFT Tapping, here’s a brief How-To video.       
2. Celebrate and express gratitude for all the things you did accomplish, not matter how big or small. Again, I would recommend talking to yourself in the third person while using the EFT Tapping points.

After you’ve done this for as many times necessary, you’ll be in a much better head space to have clarity on the things you want to manifest for 2026!