3 Daily Practices to Elevate Your Spirit

I hope your 2026 is off to a great start!

As I reflect on the magical time I spent in Paris over the holidays, I am not only savoring many precious experiences — I feel heightened awareness about the importance of seeking opportunities to fortify my spirit every day.

Because I am committed to living a meaningful and happy life, and I want to feel strong and resilient no matter what is happening around me.

If you, too, feel a desire to live that way you can include small yet powerful daily practices in your routine, like many that made my time in Paris so special.

I intend to continue to build these practices into my life, and I’m happy to share ideas that you can choose from.

Attend to your heart. It can be easy — and fun!

In addition to eating healthy foods and staying active to support your heart, bear in mind that your heart is a center of emotion. It is where desire lives. It has intelligence. It is the home of your spirit.

And when you honor and nourish your spirit, it responds in wonderful ways.

Consider these ways to elevate your spirit each day:

1. Seek out beauty

No matter what environment you move through, there is always an opportunity to spot something beautiful. (In fact, there’s a chapter in my book, Live Big, about this, called See Wonder. It has terrific exercises to help you make this a regular practice.)

The beauty you notice might be a color, an image, a person wearing something that catches your eye, a building, the composition of food on a plate, the sky. The possibilities are endless!

The key is that when you notice beauty, take a moment to savor it. Reflect on it. Perhaps you’ll see even more about it that's noteworthy, or you might recall something similar from a memory, or you might think of someone to tell about it. 

When you spend as little as 20 seconds savoring something, you “save it to disk” in your brain and your spirit — rather than it being a fleeting moment that slips away forever.

2. Look for and spot inspiration

The inspiration might come from a work of art, from something small and interesting you notice as you move through your day, from a person with energy or ideas that impress you, from something you read, from something that surprises you.

And in the same way that savoring beauty for as little as 20 seconds “locks in” the awareness, savoring things that inspire you will have a lasting positive impact.

3. Feel joy

This will be easy on many days — when you look into the eyes of someone special, when you share laughter, when someone does something special for you, when you achieve something your have worked toward.

When that joy shows up, recognize how precious it is. Savor it just like beauty and inspiration.

And on days that are more difficult, you can create joy. 

How?

Think about a way to connect to someone special. Go to a place that makes you happy. Do something for someone that will lift their spirits — and yours will be lifted, too. Draw, compose a poem, play an instrument, or sing. Take a walk and admire the sky and your surroundings. 

Even when things feel heavy, joy and awe can be part of your day!

And cultivating that joy will buoy your spirit and lift your mood in ways that will have meaningful benefits.

Watch your creative power soar

Having fortified your spirit when you incorporate these practices daily, the wealth of great creative power you naturally possess becomes easy to tap — and in time, may even feel effortless!

Your thoughts will be more expansive as you see possibilities and put ideas together with the fuel of an elevated spirit.

You will show up in the world more authentically and vibrantly. That energy will be magnetic.

You will be able to create visions for what is possible, in all dimensions of your life, that are vivid and feel exciting to test and pursue.

You will feel strong and filled with hope, knowing that you are creatively powerful and resourceful.

My dream is that women everywhere (and men, too!) will adopt these small practices. I know that together we impact the world in marvelous ways — in 2026 and beyond.

Paris memories — the gate at the entrance to the courtyard of our flat, and inside the apartment; the incredible Gerhard Richter retrospective at Foundation Louis Vuitton; the Bourse de Commerce museum, where we saw the Minimal exhibition; inside Les Deux Magot, the cafe famous for the luminaries of literature who gathered there; flowers inside the iconic Art Deco building of the Samaritaine department store.