Starting 2026 with Intention: How Employees Can Build Sustainable Mental Health and Wellbeing Habits

This year, I’m going to…

• Work out for an hour every day
• Eat only organic foods
• Read a book a week
• Become a morning person
• Stop internet scrolling
• Run a marathon
• Get promoted
• Finally write that novel
• Learn a new language
• Complete my to-do list every day
• Achieve work-life balance
• Stay calm, cool, and collected at all times

Ever seen – or written – a list like this? Just reading it is enough to make your heart rate rise.

The new year often arrives with big goals and even bigger pressure, with a lot of attention focused on people’s wellbeing and professional life. But lasting wellbeing doesn’t come from dramatic resolutions that fade by February or hard-to-achieve expectations that lead to burnout. It comes from small changes and behaviors you build over time. 

As 2026 begins, we encourage employees to take a proactive approach: pause, reflect on what they truly need, and adopt practices that feel supportive, not overwhelming. This article explores why intention around our wellness goals is more important than intensity, what can happen if we set goals beyond our capacity, and how employees can determine the sustainable practices and habits that will meaningfully support their mental health and wellbeing long-term.

When expectations outpace capacity

When we set overly ambitious goals for ourselves and don’t pause to reflect on what we really need for our wellbeing, not only do we risk falling short of our expectations, but we actually risk worsening our mental health or burning out.

Burnout is a state of mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion caused by ongoing stress and overwhelm. People with burnout may experience a range of symptoms, from persistent low energy and extreme fatigue, to low motivation and increased self-doubt, to worsened sleep and increased illness. Some people also experience emotional and social withdrawal, pulling away from family and friends, becoming more cynical and frustrated.

We often hear about burnout caused by job-related stress – long hours, high-pressure environments, unclear or unmanageable responsibilities, or lack of support. In fact, a 2024 National Alliance on Mental Illness poll found that 52% of employees felt burned out in the previous year due to their job. 

But burnout can also result from compounding pressures in other areas of life, whether caregiving for children or parents, dealing with medical challenges, or simply having too much on one’s plate and not enough time or space to recover. Research on self-regulation actually implicates goal-setting here, too: setting overly ambitious or rigid goals can increase stress and self-criticism when people inevitably encounter setbacks. If we’re in stressful environments or periods in our lives, adding pressure with big goals or changes can, therefore, inadvertently increase our risk of burning out.

Choosing intention over intensity

The thing is, setting goals isn’t bad at all, in and of itself. We set goals because we want to grow and change, especially where our wellbeing is concerned. We want to feel healthier, more productive, and more grounded day to day. But decades of behavioral health research have shown that lasting change is incremental, not dramatic. As science writer James Clear writes in his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, small shifts – even those that feel too easy at first – compound over time. We’re more likely to stick to the changes if they’re manageable.

It’s also true that we, as humans, can really only focus on a few things at a time. If we try to tackle too many projects, or change too many behaviors at once, our attention scatters and progress stalls. If we limit our focus to one or a few meaningful areas, however, we have greater success. So, when you’re looking to build sustainable habits that will support your mental health and wellbeing, intention is more important, and effective, than intensity. 

Questions to help employees identify what they need

How do you decide what to focus on? Take a moment to pause and honestly reflect. Think about what really matters for your wellbeing right now, what habit(s) you can build upon, and what support or tools you may need in order to make a change.

Here are a few questions to guide that process:

• What are the main hurdles to my mental health and wellbeing right now? Consider stressors at work and beyond – caregiving, finances, isolation, lack of rest, and limited time to exercise, for example.
• When I’m feeling my best, mentally and physically, what habits or activities am I engaging in? These might include consistent sleep, movement, breaks, time outside, connection, journaling, creative expression, or sticking to a budget. Are these things you can do more consistently or build into your everyday routine?
• Conversely, which habits drain my wellbeing? Perhaps it’s scrolling social media before bed, overbooking your schedule, or working through lunch. Are these things you can pare back on?
• What helps me feel more grounded throughout the day? Think small: a morning pause, a short walk, structured breaks, or a mindful check-in.
• What tools or support do I need for my mental health and wellbeing that I don’t have currently? This might involve therapy, coaching, digital mental health support, wellbeing reminders, or accommodations at work.
• What environmental cues do I need to add or change in order to help establish a new habit or behavior? Research shows that environmental cues such as visible prompts, alarms, or designated spaces for different things make habits more automatic and sustainable. Are there cues in your day that lead you to engage in unhelpful habits? Are there others that could help?

Answering these questions can surface areas of mental health and wellbeing that feel most important to focus on, and give you some ideas about the habit changes that could be most beneficial for supporting your mental health and wellbeing.

How to make sustainable changes to support wellbeing and prevent burnout

Here is where intention becomes action. The following 6 practices are proven to help people create behavior change that lasts:  

1. Set limited goals with intention.
   Choose goals or behavior changes that feel most important to your wellbeing and proactive mental health care – or even just those that feel most manageable first. You can always break down bigger goals into smaller steps, ultimately adding the next step and achieving the larger change you want over time.
2. Start small and build routine slowly.
   Remember: tiny, manageable changes are more sustainable than ambitious leaps. A two-minute practice, repeated daily in stable contexts, is often more effective than a 30-minute practice attempted once a week.
3. Change one habit at a time.
   Similarly, attempting to change multiple behaviors simultaneously can tax our attention and willpower, making it harder to sustain any one change. Focusing our attention increases follow-through. Once one habit feels natural and automatic, we can build on it or add another. This sequential approach supports long-term behavior change while reducing stress.
4. Give yourself flexibility and grace.
   Wellbeing is not linear. We have good days and bad days, days with lots of energy and days with less. We might be successful in completing our wellbeing habits or goals in the morning and unsuccessful in the afternoon. That is okay. In fact, it’s expected. Expecting and accepting fluctuation helps prevent shame and enables us to get up and keep going more easily, which supports long-term consistency.
5. Rely on your community.
   Connection strengthens resilience. Reaching out to colleagues, friends, family, or a mental health provider is beneficial for our mental health almost always. It can also make new habits easier to maintain and prevent us from becoming isolated during stressful periods.
6. Use tools that reduce friction.
   Apps, reminders, guided sessions, or structured mental health programs, like Journey Proactive EAP, provide consistent support and reduce the mental load of remembering or self-motivating to engage with mental wellbeing practices.

A year for mental health – that lasts

Employees don’t need to become “new” versions of themselves every new year. No one does. What we all need is space to reflect on what benefits our wellbeing, realistic habits that honor our capacity, and support that helps us feel grounded and capable rather than overwhelmed. When organizations encourage this proactive approach, they help prevent burnout and worsened mental health conditions, and further help employees move through the year with steadiness, ease, and physical and mental wellbeing that lasts.