Daily Thought for Change

Willpower is unreliable. Asking people to “be disciplined” never works long-term. Helping people see the challenge in a different light works far better.

A client of mine was stuck in that early-stage-business swamp: lots of effort upfront, no visible progress, motivation tanking fast.

“It’s always like this with me,” she said. “I take action, I don’t see progress, my mood drops, I stop doing things… and nothing ever works.”

I asked her a question:

“What if your mood had absolutely nothing to do with whether you take action, or make progress and win? What if, for one week, you ignored your feelings entirely, made a simple list, and just went through the motions, mood or no mood? Do you think your chances of progress would go down or up?”

She reached out again in a few hours with an update:

She started reaching out to her network. Got advice. Learned what she was missing. Adjusted her approach. And within days she was already on a trajectory that felt promising... AND motivating.

I didn’t give her motivation.

I helped her see her mood as not a factor in her success or progress.

Yesterday I was in a coach practice session, and we discussed the now-classic paper “Beyond Willpower: Reducing the Failures of Self-Control.” The best researchers on grit and willpower in the world agree: willpower isn’t a reliable system. It breaks under pressure, stress, novelty, uncertainty, exactly when we need it most!

Don't ever put your bets on it!

What does work?
Changing the situation. Changing the environment. Changing how you frame (see) the problem.

A fresh perspective is one of the most powerful (and cost-effective) behavior-change tools we have (for ourselves and others).

The catch?
It’s nearly impossible to shift your own perspective when you’re stuck inside it. It’s the whole “reading the label from inside the bottle” situation🏷️

That’s where coaching, and other humans, matter. Not because we hand out motivation, or know the perfect solution all the time But because we help you see yourself and your challenges at a different angle, we give you the mirror, one that gets you moving consistently, and unstoppably.

Over to you, dear reader,
Are you still trying to let willpower carry all the weight of your goals?
Or are you ready to shift how you see the game so you easily stay in motion?

PS. If you lead people, the same rule applies. Stop pushing discipline. Help them see the work in a way that naturally gets them taking consistent action.

Systems.

Every time you see someone maintaining great results without looking like they’re grinding themselves into dust, it’s almost always one thing: they’ve built better systems.

And no, systems don’t have to be fancy. They don’t require apps, tech stacks, or color-coded dashboards.

One of the meanings of the word system, which I mean here is, “A set of rules or procedures: An organized scheme or method for doing something." [which usually produces consistent results with less resources, even if it's your thinking]

• Example: A company's communication system, a new filing system, or the criminal justice system.

Or...

Your personal systems for your health, your energy, your work.

Take scheduling.

One of the most often overlooked systems for high performance, which I teach all my ambitious clients, is aligning your work with your biological rhythms. It sounds simple but makes a world of difference!

Research:
“The midday slump, a natural dip in the body's circadian rhythm, significantly impairs cognitive performance across attention, memory, and decision-making. This decline is often exacerbated by poor nighttime sleep and heavy lunches.”

Translation? You’re trying to do your hardest work at the worst possible time.

So one of the simplest systems I use myself and recommend to every client is what I call smarter scheduling:

Do your essential work in the morning, or later evening.
Protect your first few hours, they’re your sharpest.
Push errands, emails, low-stakes admin, or even your workout into the afternoon when your brain naturally shifts gears.

Result?
Better output faster, fewer mistakes, less struggle, simply because you’re no longer fighting your biology.

Same with eating.

A system for no-willpower healthy eating is the reason some people always “seem so disciplined.” They aren’t. They just made the decisions once. For most of my clients this is a huge aha moment. They realize - their struggle was due to having no system. Not personal failing.

I boil eggs for the week.
Cook my carbs, beans, potatoes.
Prep protein and fruit snacks.
Keep a shake bottle pre-loaded with protein powder.
Throw biltong and apples in my bag if I know I’m out all day.
These days? I set a slow cooker in the morning and return to a healthy, no-work dinner at night.

Weekly grocery shop.
Weekly meal plan.
Done once. Zero daily decision fatigue.

Willpower saved. Results predictable. I can get to more important stuff, fueled like rocket🚀

And business is no different.

One weekly system I use:
Before the week starts, ask yourself:
What will success look like for me this week?
What needs to happen, specifically?

Then put those answers into your calendar. 

There will always be chaos - unexpected fires, pressures, emotional turbulence.
That’s exactly WHEN systems matter. They carry the weight of everything that needs to run on autopilot so that when life throws something heavy at you, you have energy, clarity, and resilience left to hold it and work through it.

Over to you, dear reader,
What’s one thing you expect yourself to do consistently that feels like “too much work”?
Could it be that you don’t need more discipline, or time, you just need a system?

At the Investor/Startup Padel Tournament yesterday, someone asked me a question I get all the time:
“How do you stay in this kind of shape with your schedule?”

People expect some secret routine or exotic supplement. But the answer is actually quite boring: I’ve got a strategy that fits my life, and I run it consistently. Sleep, food, movement, stress - nothing revolutionary. A good health strategy-life fit.

Where people go wrong is not discipline. It’s design.
You follow a diet you hate. You pick a workout you dread. You try to copy someone else’s routine. And when it doesn’t work, you decide you must be the problem.

You’re not.

My clients get results with me that they couldn't get before is for this exact reason - I help them find THEIR strategy-life fit.

It’s like giving a startup the wrong go-to-market strategy and then blaming the founders when revenue doesn’t grow. Wrong blueprint → no result.

I’m in that lesson myself right now.

My business isn’t delivering consistent results yet, not because my work doesn’t work (there are whole industries built on this), but because I haven’t cracked my right strategy. The one I can execute daily without friction.

When the strategy fits, consistency becomes easy.
When it doesn’t, consistency feels impossible.

I see this with clients all the time.
Smart, capable people who have all the pieces: the knowledge, the motivation, the discipline. What they don’t have is a way to assemble those pieces into something that works in the reality of their life: their job pressure, their energy levels, their family logistics, their environment, their habits, their internal wiring.

That’s what coaching gives you:
A different set of eyes.
A smarter feedback loop.
A system that makes consistency possible.
A strategy tailored to you, not to an imaginary ideal version of you.

And once the strategy works?
It pays returns for life - predictable, compounding, boring-in-the-best-way results.

Over to you dear reader,
Are you really lacking discipline? Or do you just need a strategy you can actually live with?

Last month of the year. 1/12th of 2025 left.
A surprisingly generous fraction when you think about what can still change if you actually do the things you say matter.
What are you committed to doing, not aiming for, in this final stretch?

One of the most useful things I’ve learned in 18 years of coaching is this:
When your life transforms, it’s not because you're obsessed about the outcomes al the time.
It’s because you get focused on actions, on doing as many quality reps as you possibly can.

Not how much money you’ll make.
Not how big your business will get.
Not how many likes, shares, or praise you’ll collect.
Not the weight you’ll hit or the body composition you dream about.

Those are outcomes.
And they lag behind your actions.

The lever never the goal, it's what you do.

Behavior vs Outcome Goals

This morning I was leaving a message for a client, asking about what success would look like by the end of the month,
“Your goals aren’t in your control. Your actions are, the quality, the consistency, the frequency. Focus there. Don't stress about targets you can't move directly.”

Because when you shift attention from getting to doing, something settles.
You stop chasing.
You start creating. You start asking different questions, "How can I do more quality with every rep I take?"

So ask yourself, dear reader:
“How will I succeed this week if success depends on what I do, not what I get?”

It grounds you in reality.
It forces you to allocate time, energy, and attention to what you say is important, not what you hope materializes.

If you look at your health or your business goal, what ACTIONS does it really need? Not out of luck, but out of rationality? How can you make sure they happen?

Goals and vision matter. They give direction. They are your compass, your North Star, that you check occasionally while you keep moving your feet
Goals are not gods handing out blessings.

Try this:

“Given my goals… realistically, what actions, how much effort, and how often do I need to show up to reach them in the timeframe I’ve chosen?”

And then, let it go.
Schedule the effort, not dreaming about the fantasy.
Prioritize the behaviors you can control, knowing outcomes never arrive exactly when or how you want.

This shift changed how I talk to myself when I don’t hit a goal🎯
It became feedback instead of self-judgment.

Did I actually do my best?
What did I learn?
What will I do next?

Outcomes report back.
Actions move you forward.

So… over to you, dear reader:

What doing-goals will you commit to for the last 1/12th of 2025?
What will you practice, repeatedly, deliberately, to grow the person you want to meet on January 1st?

PS: Put this in writing: “This month I commit to doing: _______ (daily/weekly).” [Signature]

What game are YOU actually playing? The answer will define if you win.

Yesterday one of the friends at our gym organized a beach workout. At the end he put on that classic “Bring Sally Up, Bring Sally Down” song. The rule: squat when it says DOWN, stand when it says UP.

Simple.

So I naturally did what felt good for me - I went all the way down. Deep squat. My resting place. My “I could camp here all day” position.

The friend noticed me smiling and added a new rule: “Angela, only squat to 90 degrees.”

Harder. Tougher. More “proper.”

One could argue: “Well, obviously, that’s the point!”
Well… obviously not.

If your goal is to show up, move your body, have fun with people you like, get some sun, and leave with more joy than you came with… then harder isn’t the point at all. Harder would have actually made the real goal harder to achieve.

It wasn’t the game I was playing that day🌞

Same goes for eating more veggies.
If your goal is to eat more, why make it harder? Why buy whole vegetables you dread chopping, or eat them flavorless “because it’s healthier”? Because it's less enjoyable? That’s how you fail the very game you say you want to win.

Instead, adding your favorite spices, buying precut mixes, making it easy, making it tasty… that’s what helps you win The Veg game.

Business is no different.
Trying to please everyone? Hard. Unnecessary hard and impossible.
Trying to solve a very specific problem for very specific people? Much easier, much smarter, and far more likely to work.

Harder isn’t always better. When harder doesn't move you towards YOUR goal.

Some battles are worth fighting.
Some are worth cheating so you win with less waste.

Defining the game upfront — the rules, the outcomes, the feeling you want to have at the end — saves you energy, time, and a surprising amount of unnecessary suffering that you might need for something else.

Over to you, dear reader: Are you choosing the rules of the game YOU are playing, or letting someone else choose who you need to win?

If I told you something was going to make you sleepy, would that be good or bad?
If you’re trying to get deep work done at 2PM, it’s terrible. You wouldn’t take it for free!
But if you’re someone who lies awake at midnight staring at the ceiling?
You’d gladly throw money at anything that helps you wind down.

People spend fortunes on all kinds of sleep-enhancing devices and pills!

Same product.
Different purpose, context, and desired outcome.
That alone decides whether something is valuable… or useless.

So the product (or service) you might be working on, or even your personal qualities -
There’s no “good” or “bad.”
There’s “good for this, terrible for that.”
Fit is everything.

The beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Beauty standards themselves prove it.
Before skinny was aspirational, curves were the ideal some time ago. Now it’s “strong”, my personal favorite, because at least it aligns with health. Even sculpting your glutes with squats improves long-term heart health. Win-win. 

Let's get to business.
Some business models thrive on your impulsiveness (hello, Amazon one-click). They need fast action, little friction.
Others rely on long-term thinking (your retirement planning and doing).

Different psychology. Different behaviors. Different tactics.

Right now I’m reading this brilliant book, “Real Progress: how to connect the dots of product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery” by Tim Herbig, who’s coming on Change Wired, my podcast, soon. He writes about the thing most people intellectually know but rarely apply:
You cannot build something for everyone. You build for a very specific someone with a very specific need. Unless you want to be unremarkable.

Jobs. Pains. Gains.
Pick your customer.
Serve them deeply.
Or try to please everyone and become the “balanced energy drink” that wakes no one up and relaxes no one down. Completely forgettable, except for some devoted yogi who wants it all balanced, hey probably a market for that too!

One example from the book: a rideshare service choosing to design specifically for executives traveling between meetings in business-hub cities.
They need:
– reliable routes
– quiet, professional drivers, sharp-looking
– wifi
– a small workstation setup
– a car that fits their business image, something they will be proud to share with a client if needed
– speed and predictability

But if you were serving busy moms? Or tourists?
You’d optimize trunk space, child safety features, a friendly chatty driver, maybe even scenic routes.

Different customers.
Different needs.
Different strategy.
Different product, language, hiring, marketing, colors, down to the music playing in the car.

Which brings me to the question someone asked me today:
“How do you, as a leader, make a vision clear?”

You start with strategy.
The courage to DECIDE to say NO to very specific things.
No’s to features that don't optimize for your customer needs.

So, over to you, dear reader,
What exactly are you choosing to be? For whom?
And even more importantly, what are you refusing to be?

Decisions are hard.
That’s why most people avoid making real ones.
But you’re a leader. You don’t get to skip this part.
Make the call. DECIDE to make it clear.

Have you ever tried to “just get healthy”? Eat better? Get in shape?
January 1st is a month away, and a lot of people are already planning to “invest in themselves more.”

After 18 years coaching leaders into the best shape of their lives, and now helping to reshape their culture - I keep seeing the same pattern.

We think change is about motivation, or the best strategy.
It’s not.
Change breaks because leaders make the same 3 mistakes people make when trying to get fit.

1. VAGUE VISION

“Premium service experience.”
“A high-performing culture.”
“A team committed to excellence.”

These are the “get healthy” of the corporate world.
A vibe. A wish. A motivational poster.
But not something you can see - it doesn't pass the "videotape test".

If I were to record a video of “premium service experience,” what exactly would be happening in the frame?
If I’d film you “being in shape,” what would I see? How would I measure you getting there?

If you can’t describe it in observable, unmistakable terms, you can’t execute it consistently. Leave alone 1000+ people trying to do it!
You can’t coach toward it.
You can’t expect anyone to deliver it.

Clarity isn’t nice-to-have.
Clarity is THE MUST of effective change process.

2. Clarity AND Autonomy

Once we know what “great” looks like, the next question becomes:

How do I get people to do it without micromanaging them to death?

This is the part leaders often miss.

The same way I get a coaching client to follow through:
We choose the destination, we define the winning state, we explore why it matters, and then I ask:

“Being the expert on your life, what do you think is the best next step to get there?”

It creates ownership. And they do indeed what will work best - I'm not the one living their life, doing their job.
Ownership, autonomy, freedom unlocks creativity, energy, and commitment you’ll never get through instructions alone.

Organizations need that same 2-way conversation at scale -
vision from the center, solutions from the edges that align.

That’s how you get consistency without control.
Alignment without resistance.
Innovation without chaos.

3. Measure What Changes

Leaders love tracking NPS, OKRs, service quality scores…
The same way individuals love stepping on a scale every morning.

In coaching we learn to re-direct our clients from outcome goals to their behavior goals.

Outcomes are lagging indicators you can't directly influence with your day-to-day.

You don’t control NPS.
You don’t control weight loss.
You control daily actions!

In fitness:
Not the number on the scale but showing up for workouts, planning meals, getting to bed on time.

In organizations:
Not targets but the behaviors that make targets possible.

If you’re not tracking, celebrating, and making visible daily behavior change, the system will collapse before the results ever appear.

Change, any change always comes back to human psychology

This morning, hiking with WGW in Cape Town, an entrepreneur said something that resonated:

“Maybe it’s time we stop designing solutions for how we wish humans behaved (rational systems) and start designing for how our brains actually work.”

Yes.
Exactly that.

Just like we design the physical world to fit our bodies, we must start designing our plans to fit our brains.

Whether you’re changing your own habits or guiding a thousand people through transformation, the rules are the same.
Human psychology doesn't change - it simply multiplies.

So, over to you dear reader,

Are you working with how humans brains are?
Or are you still fighting human nature and wondering why change feels like a battle?

New ideas in organizations are like new habits for you and me.

Think about deciding to wake up 20 minutes earlier, or trying to put your phone away after 9pm. At first, your whole being resists. It feels pointless, annoying, uncomfortable. Your brain keeps whispering, “Why are we doing this again?”

It’s the same with organizational ideas.

They’re doubted and resisted at the beginning because they demand trust before results arrive. Like a new sleep routine, they need time, patience, and belief from the people responsible for bringing them to life.

Ideas, habits, they also need proper support systems, proper scaffolding to mature and scale.

Even the most fruitful seed will die in dry soil, and even the most brilliant idea will collapse if it’s dropped back into old, comfortable routines, outdated systems and processes. Your phone magically finds its way back into your hand unless you build a new environment that protects your intention.

And new ideas need to be challenged on schedule.

Just like you’d ask yourself, “Is my evening routine still working for me?” - organizations need to revisit their new ideas and redesign them when they start blocking something better trying to grow 🌱

Alex Osterwalder, one of the world’s top strategic thinkers, who I interviewed for my Change Wired podcast, sees this pattern in companies of every size. I’ve seen it in 18 years of helping clients build habits that last and transform their lives.

HABIT BUILDING STAGE 1: Mindset shift.
Trust the process long enough for it to work.

It’ll feel weird, foreign, and even like you’re making things worse at the beginning. That’s normal. This is where coaching, mentorship, and "idea champions" help your ideas get grounded.

HABIT BUILDING STAGE 2: Systems.
Create environments that make the new habit the easiest option.

Put the phone in the kitchen. Pick clothes for the gym the night before. Build scaffolding for your idea sprouts to grow into magnificent trees.

HABIT BUILDING STAGE 3: Evaluate on purpose.
Check in sometimes.

Is this still serving you? Still relevant? Still helping you build the future you want? Or is it time to iterate? To innovate?

Whether it’s habits in your life or ideas in your organization, one thing unites them: if they fight human psychology, they fail. If they work with it, they flourish.

Over to you, dear reader, what stage are you in? Are you helping new ideas get accepted? Building systems around them? Or figuring out whether they still serve your future?

Talking to smart people, who are really into their stuff, niche experts, obsessed, geeks with a job title - it is one of the fastest ways to upgrade how you think, your mindset, your understanding of how life stuff works.

Yesterday I spoke with Michael Hallsworth, one of the most influential behavioral scientists in the world and the Chief Behavioral Scientist at the Behavioral Insights Team consulting.

We talked about behavior change at scale.

And yet so much of what he said maps directly onto everyday life, the habits that shape us, and the invisible forces that drive our choices.

I see it play out in coaching every day.

Here are 4 things that stood out the most.

1. SEE THE SYSTEM

We love to think our behaviors are personal. But persistent behaviors are almost always systemic.

You overwork?

Your whole environment is probably set up to reward it - your team, your culture, your calendar defaults, your beliefs about success.

You snack late at night? Look at the cues: stress at 10pm, kitchen lighting, notifications, the Netflix autoplay.

You struggle to sleep? Your whole evening routine is a system designed to keep you awake.

Michael reminded me that behavior doesn’t happen in isolation. Every system is perfectly designed for the results it’s getting.
So the useful question is: What is your system optimized for right now? And if you want different behavior, what part of the system needs to be redesigned?

2. THINK SOCIAL

We pretend we're independent thinkers. We aren’t.
Our choices, down to what we eat, how we dress, how much we work, how we parent, how we rest - are shaped by the norms surrounding us.

I see this constantly with clients:

• People eat better when their partner is on board.

• People exercise more when their friends do.

• Founders take bigger, but better calculated risks when they’re around other founders doing it.

• Middle managers drop new habits the moment the N1 rolls their eyes.

No behavior exists outside of a social network.
So when you want to change something, ask:

“Does my social environment support the new version of me?”

Often the problem isn’t motivation - it’s misalignment.

3. FLEXIBLE FRAMING

“The way you look at things changes things.”

This is the power of framing, and Michael’s work agrees with how powerful it is.

You can hold multiple perspectives on the same situation without the situation changing at all. And that changes what you do, what results you get.

Take sleep.

Seen individually, it feels like an uphill battle against late-night emails, social pressure, and everyone saying, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

But reframe it as a family, or culture redesign, a collective upgrade, and suddenly:

• You create a team effort

• You build shared routines

• You get natural accountability

• The emotional resistance drops to zero - you are inspired to lead the herd!

The facts stay the same.
The feeling,  and your ability to act,  changes completely.

Same with workplace change:

• If “feedback” feels threatening, call it “coaching conversations.”

• If “performance improvement” feels punitive, call it “leveling up your next-level skills.”

• If “resetting culture” feels heavy, frame it as “designing a better future together, one organizational habit at a time.”

Nothing changes - and yet everything does.

4. CO-DESIGN

Most people resist change not because change is hard but because change feels like it's done to them not with them.
Michael and I talked about how much smoother change becomes when people co-create the path instead of being handed a prescription they never agreed to.

I see this with:

• Clients rebuilding their health

• Leaders redesigning team rituals

• Parents shifting family routines

• Companies rewriting their culture

If I walk in with “the perfect solution,” resistance spikes.
If we build it together, momentum skyrockets.

This works because:

• Everyone is the expert of their own life

• We want agency

• We want ownership

• We want to feel like this is our idea, not someone else’s plan imposed on us

Change sticks when people feel like they’re on the same team, walking the path together side by side.

These 4 lessons apply whether you're changing one habit, a team routine, or an entire organization.

Seeing the system.
Understanding the social layer.
Reframing the problem to see many solutions - taking perspectives.
Co-designing, co-owning the solution.

Have you thought about any of these in your own life or work? Which one feels closest to home right now?

When I moved to Cape Town, 2.5 years ago, I used to stop at the same Starbucks every morning on my way to the gym.
Not because it was the best coffee in Cape Town. It wasn’t.
Not because it was cheap. It definitely wasn’t.

I went because I knew exactly what would happen the moment I walked in. I knew what to expect. I went to Starbucks in many countries while being a digital nomad. It almost made it feel like home.

Same cups.
Same order.
Same taste.
Same 3-minute rhythm that made my chaotic morning feel a little more stable.

In a world where everything else felt unpredictable - my new home, my new bed, my new gym, my new groceries, the people, the weather, the traffic - Starbucks gave me one thing I could anchor to - certainty.

And certainty is like a baby's pacifier. It soothes your soul.

Consistency pays the biggest long-term returns.
Not always the flashiest. Not always the fastest. But the safest bet for a human brain trying to make sense of an unstable world.

That's why brands win. That's why AI doesn't, yet. 

We buy branded thing (like coffee) for one simple thing - predictability of experience and someone to complain to when things don't go as expected.

Why aren't most people rushing to “AI” their entire lives?
Well, who do you blame when AI messes up?
Who guarantees it will work the same way tomorrow?
Who gives you the promise it'll work exactly the way you want?

Big potential returns are great! But we are rarely prepared to bet a lot on promised potential.

Imagine buying a plane ticket to Paris, and it's the cheapest but the airline tells you,
“You’ll land there… 80% of the time.”
Would you get on that flight?
Of course not!

We happily pay more for confidence, predictability, and peace of mind.

Here's what I'm thinking about lately:

Consistency keeps you grounded, keeps you stable, steadily growing often.
Exploration creates breakthroughs.

It’s true in branding, in fitness, in relationships, in business strategy, and in my own life.

Stick with what works and you’ll grow slowly but reliably.
Try “unbranded” options - a new workout, a new AI tool, a new approach to marketing, a new idea, and sometimes you’ll stumble into delight, innovation, even reinvention you never expected.

2 reminders to self:

1. Consistency is a product. Confidence is a product. Predictability is a product.
   If you’ve built it - sell it. People crave it more than novelty in the age where things shift so much.

2. But don’t let consistency turn into a cage.
   A small but regular dose of exploration is where breakthroughs happen. That's I eventually stopped my Starbucks and discovered many great, local coffees.

Both matter. Both are needed.
You just have to know which game you’re playing today: consistency or newness.

Over to you, dear reader
Where in your life or work do you need to “sell” more confidence, and where do you need to “buy” more newness?