Chrystal Hurst identifies discouragement as the main threat to growth in 2026, arguing that negative emotions and comparison shrink what feels possible. She urges reading, new experiences, and big prayers to expand your horizons, and plans a full curriculum by late November focused on living in abundance and expectation.
Here's what will get in the way of your growth in the next year, because y'all, we're winding 2025 down, and in 2026 I'm really wanting to focus on having a growth mindset and expanding what I believe is possible. Here's what the enemy wants to do to you. The enemy doesn't care if you're nice and if you're good and if you pray, if you read your Bible. He's just like, can I get her, can I get him to stop taking action? Because they stop believing that something is possible. He's like, go to church all day long, you know, sing your praise and worship all day long. But if I can discourage you and disconnect you from possibility, then I have neutered your your impact. So we're all supposed to have an impact, we're all supposed to make our mark, but it's usually beyond what we think is possible. And the enemy simply wants to get you to believe it's not possible. So today, when I met this young lady who told me what she's doing for someone else, it wasn't for me. It doesn't solve any of the things that were bothering me yesterday. However, it reminded me that it's possible. Here's what I need you to do every day of your life. You need to make sure you keep putting yourselves in situations, reading books, being around people, uh, enlarging the room, changing your connections, praying big prayers. You need to keep living in the land of possibility. You cannot reduce what you think is possible by your experiences of today or yesterday, you will be limiting yourself. And your frustration and your comparison— my disappointment, my irritation, my sadness— all of those things draw me inward and say, it's not, it can't, it will never. Your job is to keep pushing it out, pushing out the boundaries of your thoughts. Means that you have to be looking for what's possible. So when you find yourself shrinking and recoiling and never mind and why not, why, why would I even try, and it's not— when you find that, which is not a growth mindset, that's a fixed mindset. Push the boundary. Put yourself in different environments where you can see what's possible. That's what happened. I got on a plane, came to a city. It's my last speaking event for the year, I think. And I ended up in the presence of someone else who reminded me that I was getting stuck yesterday and I need to keep allowing my experiences and my mind to expand. Because God is full of possibilities I know nothing about. Right now is the time of year where we are firming up things and directions. My goal for 2026 is that, like, in the next 2 to 3 weeks, definitely before the end of November, that we have outlined all of the topics and the, and the plans for deep dives and growth, personal growth, that we'll have in the Inner Circle. But what I know is that the year for next year is about that— living in overflow, living in abundance, living in expectation, living with possibility. Because I'm just convinced that some of us cut off the potential of what's possible just because we don't see it. Because we have a bad day, a bad month, or bad few years. Here's the rub: the things that I give to other people are because I know what it is to stand in need of it for me. And so the Lord said, you see what you did there, girl? You were ready to recoil and retract and give up and just have a Negative Nancy mindset. And here, here I am telling you, this is possible. I need you to learn the lesson, girl. I need you to, as you learn it, share what you're learning, because I need my people— yes, believe in Jesus, yes, read the word, yes, obey, yes, surrender— but I need them to like Think bigger. So this is me telling you today, if you're feeling this, resist and push back and look for what's possible.
