Create accountability structures that aren’t based on motivation. Motivation is a feeling, and feelings are unreliable. If your plan for 2026 depends on staying motivated, your plan will fail. What you need instead are structures that keep you moving forward even when you don’t feel like it. This could be a weekly check-in with someone who will... See more

What would you have to stop doing in order to have the bandwidth for what actually matters?

Most people also make the mistake of planning from where they are right now instead of working backwards from where they actually want to end up. They look at their current circumstances and ask what seems achievable given those constraints. That’s not planning, that’s just extrapolating your present into a slightly better version of itself.

The other problem with standard New Year planning is that it’s almost entirely focused on addition. People ask themselves what they should start doing, what habits they should add, what new routines they should build, but they almost never ask what they should stop doing , what they should subtract, what parts of their current life are actively... See more

The entire structure of New Year’s resolutions is built around the dopamine hit of setting goals. You sit down, you imagine a better version of yourself, you write down what that person does differently, and you feel good about having a plan. That feeling is the reward, and for most people, that’s where it ends. The goal itself becomes the... See more