Five Mindset Shifts I’m Making in 2026 as a Pilates Business Owner

Happy New Year!

According to the Chinese New Year - 2025 was the year of the Snake - a time for shedding old habits (aka your snake skin) to make way for 2026 - the Year of the Horse - a time to move forward (at full gallop) with purpose and direction. For some reason, this has really stuck with me through the past few months and had me thinking about the year that was 2025 (full of upheaval) and moving into 2026, where my goals for the future of my Pilates business, teacher training and coaching are plentiful and ambitious.

Here’s some of the ways I’m moving into 2026….

1) Plan - Be proactive, Not reactive

What is it you want to achieve this year? What steps will you take to feel more proud and confident as a Pilates business owner?

If you want to shape your business to fit your life, the truth is, this step has to be a very intentional process. Failure to do can mean that your business runs you - The horse bolting with you barely hanging on for the ride. Terrifying.

Thinking about your next steps rather than letting things happen is key.

2) Step into your creativity - Write it all down

At the end of every year, I sit down with a large piece of paper, a large texta (felt pen for those from NZ) and map out my intentions for the coming year - I allow myself to get very ambitious and possibly a little grandiose with my thinking - its part of exercising the creative brain that is at play here. As a business owner, creativity is our bread and butter, allow yourself to think big and then to reverse engineer your goals to match your creative mind.

And, because it’s just pen to paper, write out some ideas down that are a little left field - it might be that you don’t execute on the idea, but you have allowed your brain to think in all directions and that is an exercise that increases your capacity for creativity. I was going through my office yesterday and getting rid of some paperwork, I found some post-it notes with ideas that were pretty mediocre, the point is not that they were average ideas, the point was I had allowed myself to ideate them, rather than censoring them before they were out of my head and onto paper.

3) Be consistent

One idea that has really stuck with me in 2025 and I will be taking into 2026 is the idea of being consistent - of repeatedly taking small steps on a daily basis to work towards my goals. To shift the needle - just a little bit, day after day. When I look back at the year that’s been, I can see the fruits of my labour - which brings me to my next point…

4) Look back with pride and a sense of accomplishment

It’s in hindsight where we can really see where we’ve made progress for the year. At times it seems like the work we do on our business has no impact, until you start to realise the body of work you’ve created in the past year has actually moved you forward. Sometimes these things we do don’t necessarily achieve big results, but when you create consistency - you create trust in yourself. Look back with a sense of pride and accomplishment for all the things you’ve done - big and small.

This habit can bolster your success in 2026.

5) Reframe, reframe, reframe

So something doesn’t work out the way you thought it would, perhaps your plan to add x number of clients, or to reduce your workload in the studio didn’t quite pan out the way you wanted to. Business is, after all an exercise in realising that you can’t control all factors.

I have really noticed in myself that this mindset skill has developed this year and I am so grateful for this reframing from negative to positive thinking. So when something doesn’t work out -find the positive in the situation, accept and move on. Give yourself permission to do so. You will bounce back faster from disappointment when you can pivot your thinking to see the good in the situation and the learning that took place.

There’s always today and the next day and the day after that to implement your ideas.

As the Year of the Horse unfolds, how will you lead your mindset toward purposeful, forward movement?

If mindset support is something you need this year, I’m here to help. My Personalised Coaching Program, From Burnout to Balance, supports Pilates business owners to build clarity, resilience, and sustainable leadership. Mindset is one of the core pillars of the program—and in my view, the most important.

I’m taking a small number of Pilates business owners through this work in 2026.
You can book a discovery call to find out whether it’s the right fit for you.

Here’s to a focused, purposeful, and successful 2026.