Hello KSKOers
Wishing you a very happy new year!
Welcome to a new look Knowing Self-Aware Leadership! I’ve decided to have a rebrand and shift from the yellow, black and pink to navy and gold. A new year, a new haircut and a new start seemed to warrant some new colours! I hope you like it.
Join me in the first blog of 2026 as I share my thoughts on starting the year on a positive note with a mindset poised for success.
Looking forward to joining you on your learning journey!
Wiring Your Brain for Positivity
It’s 2026 and the new year has begun in earnest. Time and tide waits for no man, but before we’ve really got going, we’re already telling ourselves stories about what this year will be like. Busy. Hard. Uncertain. Our new year’s resolutions will be binned by mid-February. Taxes will be going up. Or of course, we could be taking a glass half full approach. We might be envisioning a year or hope, interesting innovations and possibility.
The stories that we tell ourselves matter - a lot. Our internal voice shape the way we think, behave and ultimately, how others receive, perceive and respond to us.
A few months ago, Daniel Pink shared a post on LinkedIn that stuck with me. It explained something many of us intuitively know but rarely say out loud: complaining, judging and criticising don’t just affect the mood around us, they physically rewire our brains. He said, ‘neurons that fire together wire together’. If we repeatedly focus on what’s wrong, our brains get very good at spotting problems and less good at seeing solutions. Over time, negativity weakens the parts of the brain responsible for focus, emotional regulation and good decision-making. Complaining encourages the brain to strengthen the whiney pathways.
But here’s the important bit. The reverse is also true. Optimism, gratitude and constructive thinking strengthen the very brain functions we need to navigate a complex, fast-moving world. Every thought, conversation and email is quietly shaping how our brains work. We don’t just drift into outcomes. We move towards what we consistently think about. Morag Barrett introduced me to a new phrase - BMW. Nothing to do with cars: ‘bitch, moan and whine’. The more we BMW, the more we BMW. Likewise, if we GTR a bit more (let the ‘good times roll’) the more we GTR!!
Which is where the idea of manifesting comes in.
Manifesting the Good Stuff
Manifesting has acquired a slightly mystical reputation, but at its core it’s very practical. The things we aim for are often the things we achieve because they sit in our conscious and subconscious awareness. When you’re clear about what you want, you start to notice opportunities you would otherwise miss. You make different decisions. You take small actions that line up with that aim, often without realising it.
That’s not magic. That’s attention.
A positive mindset doesn’t just mean hoping things will work out in your favour. It means holding an intention firmly enough that your behaviour begins to align with it. Think about the thing you want, and you start moving towards it. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes quietly, in the background, while you’re getting on with the rest of life.
Mindset plays a big role in moving towards a positive outcome.
Make Up Your Mindset
When I read Mindset by Carol Dweck, her distinction between fixed and growth mindsets felt instantly familiar. A fixed mindset focuses on outcomes, status and proving worth. A growth mindset focuses on learning, development and experience. One is about protecting who you are. The other is about expanding who you can become.
Most of us move between the two, but in a year like 2026, the mindset we lean into matters. Change is no longer episodic. It’s constant. A growth mindset, supported by positivity, helps us see effort as movement rather than threat. It keeps us facing forward.
In The Self-Awareness Superhighway, I wrote about adaptability as an everyday skill. Everything you’ve learned so far has taught you how to learn. That means you can unlearn and relearn too. Positivity helps here because it keeps the door open. It says, ‘this might be hard, but it might just be worth it.’
And that belief shapes our behaviour.
Watchwords for 2026
The watchwords I set for 2026 were premonitions of the year to come. Seen through a positive, growth-orientated lens, they can also become things we can actively move towards rather than passively experience.
Hyper-Humanism and Ultra-Digitalism: We are in the throws of the digital age. The question isn’t whether technology will shape our lives, but how human we remain in the process. A positive mindset helps us balance capability with compassion. AI as the brain, automation as the hands, and humans as the heart. If we hold that intention, our choices will follow.
Care: Care doesn’t happen by accident. It’s deliberate, practised and reinforced. Positivity makes care visible. It thanks people. It acknowledges effort. It creates environments where people feel safe enough to contribute fully. In a digital world, care is one of the clearest ways we manifest our humanity and ensure that man and machine can live in harmony.
Tenacity: The post-covid world continues to shift under our feet. Tenacity in 2026 isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about staying hopeful enough to keep going. Positivity fuels that hope. It helps us ride the wave of change without becoming cynical or hope-less.
Artificial Intelligence: AI is no longer a future concept; it’s a colleague we’re still getting to know. A positive mindset encourages curiosity over fear. When leaders focus on how AI can help rather than what it might replace, they move towards better outcomes, greater efficiency and better use of scarce financial resources.
Innovation: Innovation flourishes where people believe progress is possible. When positivity is present, people experiment. They try again. They notice gaps and imagine better ways of doing things. Intention leads attention, and attention leads action. Necessity is the mother of invention and when we take a positive approach, we notice the gaps that need plugging and put ourselves squarely in the space of generating solutions.
Training the Brain for What We Want
One of the simplest ways to reinforce positivity is gratitude. Regularly noticing what’s working and wonderful trains our brains to look for abundance rather than the deficits. Individually and collectively, gratitude sets a tone.
When we express gratitude it gives us a chance to live our values and they become more than sentiments on the office wall. Over time, gratitude practices shape cultures behaviours and outcomes. It’s another quiet form of manifesting: focusing on what matters and watching more of it appear.
The Last Word
We’re already in 2026, and the direction this year takes won’t be accidental. Positivity creates positivity. What we aim for is often what we move towards, consciously and subconsciously. The way we think shapes the choices we make, the opportunities we notice and the actions we take.
I’m hoping this is a year where care is visible, innovation is purposeful and tenacity is supported and celebrated. A year where technology serves human need rather than replacing it. A year where we’re intentional about the mindsets we bring to our work and our lives.
Because when we’re clear about what we want, and positive about our ability to move towards it, we tend to find ourselves shifting in the direction we want and achieving our goals without even realising it!
Nia is an expert leader who talks the talk and walks the walk. She is an academically awarded thought leader in self-aware leadership and practices self-aware leadership every single day in her role as a strategy and operations leader.
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