How to Make the Most of the Year of the Horse? According to Chinese Astrology
After a year full of transformation, the year of The Horse brings speed, momentum and visibility. This is what it means for your life and business...
After two backpacking trips through Asia and six years of living in Bali 🌴, it’s impossible not to have absorbed part of Asian culture.
One of those things is that I no longer only look at the new year as starting on January 1st. I also take the Chinese New Year 🏮 into account, and especially the symbolic meaning of each year.
You can look up which Chinese zodiac year you were born in (I’m a 1988 Dragon 🐲) and what that means for you.
From 29 January 2025 until 16 February 2026, we were in the Year of the Snake 🐍
Does that sound intense and uncomfortable?
That would make sense.
Because, do you know anyone who had an easy year last year?
Exactly. Hardly anyone 😏
Most likely, you experienced that certain themes, people or projects were consciously or unconsciously left behind.
That is exactly what the Year of the Snake represents: just like a snake sheds its skin, we left an old version of ourselves behind. It was a year of transformation.
The snake is also a quiet animal. It observes, waits, and then strikes. That is why the Year of the Snake is mainly a year of internal repositioning.
Question for you:
If last year was about transformation, what version of you quietly died? What did you left behind? People, projects, characteristics?
If this resonates already, please give this article a like ♥️ It helps me to reach the right people.
The Energy Is Changing: Enter the Year of the Horse
Now the energy shifts. We move from the Year of the Snake 🐍 into the Year of the Horse 🐎
What can you expect?
Where the snake is strategic and introverted, the horse stands for openness, speed and forward movement.
After a year of strategic repositioning, this is the year to accelerate.
You will likely feel:
🐴 A stronger urge for change
🐴 Less tolerance for limitations
🐴 Faster decision-making
🐴 A deeper need for freedom
This is a year of go, go, go ⚡️ instead of journaling day after day about your next strategic step.
What Gets Rewarded in a Horse Year (Business-Wise)
From a business perspective, a Year of the Horse 🐴 rewards:
Businesses that invest in (personal) branding
Visibility
Fast switching instead of endless planning
Launches that feel energetic
Travel and international opportunities
But be careful: those who grow fast can also collapse fast if the foundation is not solid.
Momentum amplifies everything.
The Real Risk of This Year
Too much is never good.
So this year, pay attention to:
Burnout through overdrive
Impulsive decisions
Restlessness
Wanting everything at once
All in all: running without direction, that is the biggest risk.
Question for you:
What does running without direction look like in your life based on earlier experiences? And how will you catch that type of feeling early on to prevent it?
What We Can Expect Collectively
As a collective, you can expect:
Economic and political dynamics (do you already see it happening?)
Fast shifts in trends (also already happening)
New leaders rising
Old structures coming under pressure (also already happening)
Movement in work and living situations
The Year of the Horse is a momentum year.
If you wait and do nothing, you will feel restless.
Action creates movement, and movement feels liberating 🗽
Adjust It to Yourself
Now it becomes really interesting if you know your own Chinese animal sign and compare it to the year we are in.
I am a Dragon 🐲 (1988). Which means: visionary, charismatic, leadership energy, big thinking, ambition and impact. Magical and powerful.
A Dragon is destined to build something big and leave a legacy.
Now you understand why working with astrology is so enjoyable, all those compliments 😉
Example: The Impact of the Horse Year on the Dragon
You can imagine that a Dragon enjoys the action-driven energy of the Horse year. The go-go-go energy to turn dreams into reality.
It can be powerful, but also destabilising.
The Dragon thinks big 🐲
The Horse moves fast 🐎
That combination can lead to:
Investing too quickly 💰
Starting too many projects at once
Promising too much
It can also mean:
Others can’t keep up with your pace
You can’t keep up with your own pace
Check in with yourself:
Am I building sustainably, or explosively?
Also, don’t get distracted by superficial busyness. As entrepreneurs we all recognise the feeling of being “very busy” while at the end of the week or month nothing concrete has been achieved 👀
Check whether the tasks you are working on truly contribute to your bigger vision or whether you are doing “busyness therapy” that costs time but creates no real progress.
Reminder: The Horse year affects everyone. But how it activates you depends on your own Chinese zodiac sign 🏮
This only applies to you if you’re a Dragon 🐲 as well. If you don’t know your sign, you can easily look it up online by searching your birth year + Chinese zodiac.
Let me know in the comments what your Chinese zodiac sign is, and whether you recognise yourself in this. It helps me to reach more people with this article and I genuinely love reading your reflections or questions. I will always reply ♥️
A Small Sneak Peek Into What Comes Next
After the Year of the Snake (intuition, observation, repositioning, shedding old skin), we move into the Year of the Horse (action, speed, freedom, visibility and breakthroughs) and then in 2027 we move into the Year of….
The Goat 🐐
Where the Horse says: let’s go!
The Goat says: wait, does this actually feel right? 🧐
So we move from strategy → to action → to alignment.
After acceleration, we will crave harmony and meaning again. Think community-building and deeper specialisation.
But that is for later 🤗
The year of the Horse will be from 17 February 2026 till 5 February 2027.
So the year of the Goat will start on 6 February 2027.
Chinese New Year begins on the first new moon of the lunar calendar, which falls between 21 January and 20 February.
Because the Chinese calendar follows the moon cycles rather than the fixed Western calendar, the date shifts every year. Each new zodiac year therefore starts with a new moon; symbolising a fresh energetic cycle 🌝
Three Questions to Ask Yourself Today
In a Horse year, it is powerful to focus on direction, freedom and stamina.
1. Where do I need to move instead of overthink?
The Horse rewards action, not perfection.
Where do you already feel momentum and how can you accelerate it?
2. What kind of freedom am I actually craving?
Financial? Location? Creative? Emotional?
3. Do I have the stamina for the pace I’m choosing?
A Horse year can burn bright, or burn out.
What habits need upgrading? Where do you leak energy?
The real question to ask yourself multiple times this year:
Am I moving because I’m aligned or because I’m just running?
You See, Astrology Is Not Woo-Woo
I don’t use astrology as a random spiritual trend. I use it to make strategic decisions in life and business.
But, there are two more things you should know.
Chinese astrology goes far beyond simply knowing your Chinese zodiac sign. Your animal sign is just the surface layer of a much more complex system.
Because every year (and every person) carries one of the five elements (Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal or Water), layered within a 60-year cycle that dramatically shifts how the energy actually plays out.
For example, this isn’t just the Year of the Horse, it’s the Year of the Fire Horse 🔥🐎 That means the natural independence and speed of the Horse is intensified by the Fire element, amplifying visibility, volatility and momentum.
And this is still only the tip of the iceberg.It becomes even stronger when you combine multiple ancient systems intelligently. For example to combine Chinese Astrology with Western Astrology 🪐, and much more.
You can use it to:
Understand yourself
Make decisions
It creates clarity
Makes you feel grounded and secure
Know when to invest
Decide what your focus should be
Understand how to attract money
And so on and so on
How you apply this step by step in your life and business, that is exactly what we do inside The Shift.
👉 Check here whether the doors are currently open.
Because knowing your sign is only the surface.
The real magic 🔮 begins when you understand your full energetic blueprint and when you apply this strategically into your life and business.
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See you in the next,
Myrthe Warmenhoven
Website: www.myrthewarmenhoven.com