Daily Thought for Change

I ran a small experiment yesterday.

I hosted a group, guided reflection session.
The first one of its kind for me.

This time, the focus wasn’t on me delivering tools, frameworks, or knowledge.
It was on holding the container.
Providing just enough structure.
And letting everyone do their own work.

It felt weird at first.
Expanding in the middle.
Quietly rewarding at the end.

I even got a client out of it without trying.

But that wasn’t the point.

The most important thing was this:
For the first time, I did something purely as an experiment.
Not as something that had to work.
Not as something that needed to turn into a product, a funnel, or a plan.

And because of that, everything felt lighter.

Instead of judging the outcome, I could reflect on it.
With curiosity.
With honesty.

Do I want to do it again?
If yes, why?
If not, what do I want to try instead?

That shift alone changed everything.

In a world that’s changing faster every day, you have a choice.

You can cling tightly to a few fixed things,
work, routines, roles, identities,
hoping they’ll stay stable, getting frustrated when they don't.

Or you can get clear on your values and purpose,
choose a direction,
and then design small experiments in that direction.

You test.
You learn.
You reflect lightly.
You adjust.

Not because you failed.
But because you’re paying attention to why it's important in the first place.

I came across a simple framing on the Good Life Project that I’m carrying with me into 2026 and beyond:

Direction over directives
Experiments over rigid plans
Reflection over judgment

For a world where the terrain keeps shifting.
And the only real constant is you.

Over to you, dear reader,

What’s one direction you’re choosing to expand into this month?
What are one or two small experiments you could try, without pressure to be right?
And when will you pause to reflect on how it’s actually working for you?

In my 18 years of coaching and 38 years of living, I’ve learned this:

You don’t wake up different.
Not on Monday.
Not on your birthday.
Not even on New Year’s Day.

If change lasts, it’s because you worked for it.

So what actually stops us from changing, from working on it? We say we want it, right?

Professor Katy Milkman, author of How to Change, talked about this on the Mel Robbins Podcast. She names at least 7 very human, research-backed reasons:

• It’s hard to start

• We’re impulsive, we choose pleasure now

• We procrastinate, “later” feels safer

• We forget

• We default to what’s easiest

• We copy the people around us

And here’s the good news.

There is a lot of research showing how to work with each of these, without becoming a different person, and without suddenly getting superhuman discipline, motivation, or willpower.

I’m going to share what I’ve learned from this podcast, from research, and from almost 2 decades of coaching real humans, including myself.

Hard to start?
The podcast talks about the Fresh Start Effect. New Year’s, Mondays, birthdays, any meaningful for you date can create momentum.

But you know what works even better?

Making the first step ridiculously easy.

James Clear, the habit guy, suggests shrinking the habit down to 2 minutes or less.
I’d go further: break it down until you feel an actual urge to start now.

If it still feels hard, it’s not small enough. Or not simple, not clear enough. Clarity and simplicity before willpower.

Impulsivity?
Find, or create, something you genuinely enjoy.

Someone once asked me, “How do I start exercising if I hate it?”
Simple: don’t start with something you hate.

Dance. Walk with music. Lift weights while watching your favorite show. Many of my clients binge Netflix only on the treadmill or stationary bike. And then you see their watch showing they've been on a bike for 2 hours!

Pleasure doesn’t have to be the enemy. It can be the vehicle to where you wanna go.

Procrastination?
Deadlines help.
Accountability helps.
Rewards help.

In short: raise the stakes.

But here’s barrior not often talked about - clarity. Or, better say, confusion. How, when to start, not having all the resources etc
When the first step is clear and simple, resistance drops fast.

I always say: clarify and simplify before starting.
Everything becomes easier from there.

You forget?
So does everyone.

That’s why smart people use calendars, alarms, checklists, and other humans. Surgeons and pilots rely on checklists, not memory. Why should you be any different?

Concrete plans matter: when, where, how, with whom.

For example:
“When I make my morning coffee, I’ll send WhatsApp messages to my clients.”

Coffee appears. Messages get sent.
That’s called an implementation intention, and it works really well for the human brain.

Feeling lazy?
Congratulations! Your brain is working as designed.

The fix isn’t motivation. It’s environment.

Make things easier by default:

• Cut fruit and leave it visible

• Buy prepped vegetables

• Exercise at home instead of “someday at the faraway gym”

• Put books where your phone used to be

• Keep junk food out of the house

Most people know this. Very few do it.
We like to think we’re above biology.

We’re not. You are not.

“But nobody does this in my family.”
Or: “Everybody around me scrolls, eats badly, and never moves.”

Then choose a different comparison group.

If I’m going to scroll, I curate what I scroll - change, health, research, business, self-development, cool workout moves. The algorithm listens. Make it listen to something to program a better you!

What matters isn’t what your neighbor does.
It’s who you choose as your reference group.
Your role models. Your standards.

So, who are you comparing yourself to in 2026?

The bottom line: If you’re serious about change, stop relying on strategies that don’t work for the human brain.

Work with it. Cause you got one.

Over to you, dear reader,
Knowing your patterns, your obstacles, where you fail, what new system will you try?
How will you design change more intelligently, brain-friendly in 2026?

On New Year’s morning we went on a sunrise hike with a friend.
It was… beautiful.

Some people, but not many.
A bit of traffic, but nothing overwhelming.
Plenty of space. Plenty of quiet. Plenty of beauty for all of us to enjoy.

Later that day she sent me an Instagram video.

Same place.
Sunset hike. (New Year's Eve)

Traffic was intolerable.

Cars stuck for miles.
People watching the sunset from inside their cars because they couldn’t leave them.
Not here. Not quite there. Just… stuck.

And I had an insight.

In life.
In business.
In almost any pursuit.

Harder things have shorter lines.

Waking up at 4AM on New Year’s Day.
Doing the thing before it’s popular.
Choosing effort over convenience.

If you’re someone who doesn’t enjoy crowded competition, there’s a simple strategy:
Choose what most people FIND hard and do more of it.

But that’s not even the most important part.

What’s more interesting is this:
I’d choose that 4AM hike every time.

Not everything that’s hard for most people is hard for YOU.

And one of the most underused strategies for winning is choosing challenges where your effort-to-reward ratio is unfairly good.

For me, that looks like:

• Waking up early

• Long stretches of solo work

• Studying, learning, figuring things out

• Being in uncertainty most of the time

• Technology and new skills

• Consistency over time

• Discomfort

• Trying things that might not work

• Producing a lot of ideas and content

• Talking to strangers

• Seeing patterns

• Creating frameworks

• Being a bit (or a lot) of a non-conformist

• ...

None of that bothers me much.
Most of it, I actually enjoy.

So as part of “winning” 2026, the question I’m asking myself and you, dear reader:

What do people consider hard but I find relatively easy?
And how can I double down on that to win?

If you look closely at people who accomplish a lot, you’ll notice a pattern.
They’re almost always leaning into what the world calls “hard” but what they experience as a challenge they thrive on.

Over to you, dear reader,

What are your strengths?
Your quiet superpowers?

The extra mile is never crowded.
What’s the mile you’ll gladly walk?

My only New Year’s resolution is this:
being unapologetic about being me.

Now let’s talk about ants🐜
Stay with me.

In ant colonies, there are 2 kinds of ants.

Warrior ants.
Big. Robust. Built for defense. They attack predators, butcher large prey, carry heavy loads.

Worker ants.
Small to medium-sized. Built for precision and endurance. They forage, build nests, tend to the queen and the young.

Same species.
Completely different bodies. Completely different lives. I'd imagine compeletely different personalities.

They don’t just do different jobs.
They become different, through hormonal and nutritional cues, mostly. It's like 2 different species!

I imagine the warrior ant as a little more aggressive.
Does some lifting in his spare time.
A bit individualistic.
Maybe even heroic.
Probably has an ego to protect in every battle.

The worker ant?
Couldn’t care less about trophies.
More communal.
Focused on fitting in, avoiding unnecessary conflict, protecting the system, the status quo so the colony thrives.

Neither is better. Both are needed.

Without either of them, the colony collapses.

I think we humans have something to learn from ants. I think I have something to still learn from ants.

There is space, and purpose, for all kinds of people.
All kinds of traits, bodies, personalities, skills, and ways of being in the world.

Just because something feels wrong, unbalanced, or uncomfortable to me doesn’t make it universally wrong.

It’s just different.
And it’s not my job to judge it.

But it is my job to understand how I am wired, and what I'm here to live.
Worker or warrior.
And stop apologizing for it.

I once heard a phrase I love:
“Strong opinions, held lightly.”

It echoes advice I’ve received from some accomplished people:
Be sharper.
Be more opinionated.
Say what you mean.
Live what you mean.

And keep learning, and be willing to change.

Over to you, dear reader (and a note to myself):

What do you need to change to live more true to yourself in 2026? Unapologetically, consistently, and ready to change?

Happy New Year!

And how you feel changes what you do.

Are you using this intentionally?

I’m rewatching a training on offers by Alex Hormozi, and something small caught my attention this time.

Not the content.
The layout was different. I'd probably wouldn't notice, if I wasn't going through a behavioral science course as well.

Instead of showing how much of the video I’d already watched (like YouTube does), the player showed how much was left, and that number kept shrinking.

At first glance, who cares, right?

Except it matters a lot.

Because the moment you feel tempted to stop learning, the interface reminds you how close you are to the finish line. And your brain goes:

“Well… I might as well finish. Finishing feels good.”

Instead of:

“I’ve probably got enough value already. Time to switch.”

That tiny shift, from progress made to gap remaining, changes behavior.

Same effort.
Same content.
Different focus.

And different focus changes motivation to get results.

You can use this anywhere.

Stuck halfway through a project?
Highlight how little is left. Or, how much effort you've put in already!

Dragging your feet on admin, training, workouts, writing?
Shrink the distance to done. Break down your path into small chunks.

Businesses use this all the time.

I remember going to a coffee shop where they punched 2 holes on my loyalty card on the first visit.
Ten punches = one free coffee.

I felt like I’d won the lottery.
I wanted to fill that card.

Later I learned why they do it: starting people closer to the reward makes them far more likely to finish the journey by about 79% as research shows.

It works because humans are wired to complete things, to get things.

Focusing on how much you’ve done or how much is left - both can be useful.
The power is knowing which one to use, when.

End of the year rolls around and you tell yourself:
“It’s the last day, I deserve to let it go.”

Maybe that helps.
Or maybe thinking:

“I’m finishing strong, setting myself up to win 2026”

works better for you.

That’s the beauty, and responsibility, of being a human.

The ability to shift your focus deliberately, to activate the kind of motivation you need right now.

Most people don’t manage this skill themselves.
Their focus is shaped by apps, systems, incentives, and other people’s agendas.

Which is why so many end up working hard, just not on their own dreams.

Over to you, dear reader,

How strong is your focus control?
And is it currently taking you where you actually want to go?

Whenever I cook my eggs, brew my coffee, or need to remember doing something at a specific time - I set a timer.

A simple kitchen timer.
It tells me exactly when I need to get off my ass from my computer and do something.

And then I forget about it. It works like magic. I'm often surprised by the sound of my timer because I completely forgot I set it. It's like somebody else took care of things while I was working or learning.

It allows me to completely drop the task from my mind and sink into the zone with all of my mental resources focused on what I’m doing now.

This matters because of how working memory works.

“Working memory is the brain’s temporary workspace, holding and actively manipulating a limited amount of information for immediate use in complex tasks like reasoning, learning, and problem-solving.”

In simple terms: it’s your brain's capacity to work with things now. Like your computer's RAM. And it's tiny. You can only hold so many things in your mind.

I do the same thing with calls.
If I have meetings later in the day and want to do deep or creative work beforehand, I set an alarm for when it’s time to prepare.

No mental background noise.
No low-grade vigilance and agitation.
No “don’t forget, don’t forget, don’t forget.”

One of the reasons this works so well to reduce cognitive fatigue by the end of the day is simple:

Your brain can do its actual job with ALL the resources, instead of having to keep the rest of your life in mind.

Imagine holding a dumbbell in one hand while trying to cook.
You could do it.
But you’d be slower, clumsier, and a lot more tired by the end of the day.

That’s what holding reminders in your head does. Keeping your brain loaded with unessential stuff. Whilr trying to "cook something up"

There’s fascinating research from the University of Chicago showing that just having your phone visible, even silent, even on airplane mode, measurably worsens cognitive performance compared to leaving it in another room. (Brain Drain Study)

Out of sight.
And quite literally, out of mind.

The same principle explains why one of the most effective, research-backed tools for better sleep works so well:

Write down your to-do list for tomorrow.
Everything that’s on your mind.
The more detailed, the faster you'll sleep.

Why does it help you fall asleep?

Because it gets things out of your head.

This is also why the world-known productivity system Getting Things Done works so reliably well.

It teaches you how to keep things out of mind, while working on what comes first.

As David Allen famously put it (and trademarked it):

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

I could go on and on with the evidence.

But here’s what not carrying everything in your head actually gives you:

• Clearer thinking and deeper focus

• More creativity and better problem-solving

• Faster execution with less end-of-day fatigue

• Less overwhelm and easier prioritization

• Sharper learning and better decisions

Do any of these matter to you, dear reader?

One of my own very practical habits, especially helpful for my very human (and very ADHD-leaning) tendencies, is what I call a "Thought Note"

When I’m working on something important and want to stay focused, I keep a notes app open.

Every time an idea pops up, I write it down.
And then I go straight back to the task.

It stops my brain from chasing rabbit holes out of fear of “losing” an idea.

The curiosity gets honored, just not right now.

I schedule my rabbit-hole time for less productive afternoons.

Curiosity stays alive.
Essential work gets finished.

Over to you, dear reader,

What’s one thing you could take out of your head today?

The best way to get to a destination is to know where you want to go.
Sounds obvious. I know.

And yet, when it comes to some of the biggest life decisions:
what business to build or what job to take,
who to spend our life with,
where to live -
we often keep ourselves in the fog.

Then we get frustrated that we didn’t end up where and with what/who we wanted.

A client of mine was frustrated with yet another business idea that didn’t work out for her, that didn't meet her expectations.

I asked, “What didn’t work exactly?”

She gave me the full list.

So I asked, “Did you know you’d need these things in advance?”

She did.

“Did you check for them when you decided to go for it?”

Silence.

She realized she hoped it would become that.
But logically, it didn’t make sense.
There were no signs it ever would.

She just liked the idea of it. In the best-case scenario.

We do the same thing in relationships.

We like something about a person, and completely forget to check the list of things that drove us crazy in the last one.
We hope it’ll be different.
We don’t look for the signs.
We just like the idea of that person becoming who we want.

I once was offered a reeeeeally great apartment.
Perfect on paper.
Except it was in an area where I couldn’t comfortably walk. And I'm a BIG walker!
Middle of the city. Traffic. Noise. It would kill my mojo every day!

I said no.

Not because it was “bad.”
But because I knew it would quietly drain the quality of my days.

Even though I didn’t have a better option at the time.
Even though for someone else it would’ve been a dream. I wouldn't take it unless I absolutely had to.

Getting to know YOU takes time. And it's the most important investment.

What actually makes you happy?
The place you live.
The people around you.
The way you work.

What do you absolutely hate?

What values and principles can you not compromise on, without slowly betraying yourself?

What makes a day good even when everything is flying all over the place?

What does your best self need to grow? When/where/with who are you at your best?

…

If you don’t take the time to learn this, you can end up with a “pretty good” life.
One that makes you numb at best.
Miserable at worst.

And you’ll keep waiting to stumble into what you really want.
Some day.

Over to you, dear reader,

If you have a track record of choices that didn’t make you happy, or you’re unsure where to go next, pause and ask this:

What do you still need to learn about yourself to start aligning your choices with what your best self actually needs?

Who you become.
What you choose.
What you end up doing.

All of it is shaped by incentives.

After finishing Mixed Signals: how incentives really work, I’m even more convinced of one thing: nothing changes sustainably until incentives change, both the obvious ones, and especially the hidden ones.

Do you see all of them?

There’s a story in the book about the Maasai tribes in Kenya killing lions. Bad news for conservation, but completely rational from their perspective. 

They had 1 obvious and 1 hidden reason.

So what did researchers do?

They didn’t lecture.
They didn’t shame.
They didn’t rely on “awareness.”

They redesigned incentives.

They paid compensation for cows killed by lions (the economic incentive, why Maasai were killing lions for hundreds of years in the first place).
AND they created alternative ways for young warriors to prove their worth and status (the hidden incentive that really mattered).

Lion populations recovered. After hundreds of years of "habit", Maasai just quit it.

The lesson for me was obvious, once again, it’s never just one incentive, and it's all about the incentives, not people.

There’s always a stack of reasons - status, belonging, identity, pride, tradition - quietly running the system underneath. Miss those, and the system resists you. Align them, and change happens without force.

THE BUSINESS OF MAKING YOU

When I was a little girl, the way I got the most time, attention, and closeness with my parents was through learning, not playing.

So what do you think I enjoy more today?

Reading and studying.

On every assessment I’ve ever taken, learning shows up as a superpower. And it didn’t stop there. That same incentive structure gave me respect, better pay, better opportunities later in life, often despite a complete lack of marketing skill.

Sports worked the same way.

Time with my dad came through training and discipline. That’s how we bonded. And now, decades later, movement still feels like connection, not obligation.

None of this is accidental. As one might think. I was programmed to prioritize certain things.

This is exactly what I help clients uncover when they say,
“I don’t have time.”
“I can’t stay consistent.”
“I know what to do, I just don’t do it.”

We don’t start with discipline.
I start with incentives.

Not money.
Not rewards charts.
But the incentives that signal status, love, competence, contribution, connection.

Who do you become when you change?
Who benefits from the better version of you?
What example do you set without saying a word?
How does your energy ripple into the people you care about?

Who will respect you, love you, admire and cherish you more because of this?

Those are the incentives that truly move behavior. Even money is valued because of status and freedom, not more stuff.

Over to you dear reader,

What incentives have been shaping your life so far?
What do you “have time for” and what quietly gets deprioritized?
And are those incentives actually taking you where you want to go?

Because just like the Maasai changed a centuries-old tradition, you can change the story you've been living so far.

No willpower.
No persuasion. No change of self.

Just better incentives.

What might shift for you if you redesigned yours on purpose?

It is not a strategy unless it forces you to say no.

A friend asked me today, “So what are you working on?”

“Many things” isn’t a good answer. It’s confusion. And I realized I'm still in the confusing stage.

I keep hearing Alex Hormozi in my head: “Confused customer always says no.”

Over the weekend, I had a chat with another friend. She has a blog. I asked, what’s it about? Her answer was, “Many things.” How motivated or curious do you think I was to check it out?
I know this works.

You can offer many things. You can write about many things. You can create many projects.

But you have to lead with one thing.

Today I’m revising “StoryBrand” methodology. It talks about how successful brands and products own a problem in the head of the customer. Even if your blog “sells nothing,” if you want people to read, it still has to earn attention fast. It has to start with a hook: “Why would I care to read it? Because it's about everything?”

Even Tim Ferriss, the most popular jack of all trades out there, has a leading hook: deconstruct how high performers do what they do, extract the “secrets,” and share them with the world.

Yesterday, I shared my strategy with ChatGPT (for context, so it can give me better advice on content and messaging).

It told me, it’s great, but there’s one problem: one too many offers. You can work on both of them, just not at the same time if you want to win.

If you look at almost any business early on, they were not different things to different people.

They owned one problem. They led with one hook.

So, over to you, dear reader, think with me:

What question/problem do you want to own in your “customer’s” head this year?

Deciding takes guts. That’s why so few people do it.

What will you say no to, so your yes is actually clear?

What would have to be true for me to receive one of the Thinkers50 awards when I’m 50?

That’s how my morning started today, on December 26th, 2025.
I’m 38 now.

Bill Gates has this beautiful line:

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Not long ago, I heard Alex Hormozi telling a story:

“In 2016, I had $1,000 in my bank account and was sleeping on my gym’s floor. This August, we made more than $100,000 in a weekend from my book launch, $100M Money Models.”

Most goals are possible.
Just not on the timeline you wish for.

Back to the question.

I’d just finished reading Playing to Win: how strategy really works. One question from the book stood out for me:

What would have to be true for this strategy to succeed?

That was one of the key questions there to help you figure out which strategy to pursue.

You’d ask this question. Come up with a set of criteria. And then you start testing what you can to see whether this is even a winnable game for you. And if it is, what strategy can actually work. For YOU.

I happen to be in direct communication with 2 Thinkers50 recipients. I’m also connected to the founder of the award. I can pressure-test this thinking with some people who’ve already walked the path.

But the power of this question goes way beyond awards.

If you want to get in shape and you’re choosing a strategy - nutrition, training, recovery, quitting bad habits - what would have to be true for that strategy to work?

For YOU.

What skills do you need?
What routines must exist?
What systems need to run even when motivation disappears?

If you want a different career path,
What would have to be true for that path to succeed?

If you want more fulfilling relationships, more meaning, more freedom - what would have to be true for it to enter your life?

And...

You don’t just ask what would have to be true.
You ask whether your current skills, systems, energy, and environment are a match, or could realistically become one.

Sometimes the answer isn’t “try harder.”
Sometimes it’s “choose a better-fitting strategy.”

I've coached clients for 18 years and here's one major thing I learned: people fail a lot mroe when the strategy isn't a match for their life.

One of my strongest skills is learning principles and seeing how they apply across domains. Strategy, behavior, health, work, leadership, life.

So now that I’ve added another strategic lens to my toolkit, and the question becomes:

How do I apply this way of thinking, not to one area like my business, but to my entire life?

Including something as long-horizon and identity-shaping as earning a Thinkers50 award in a decade.

As I set goals for 2026, I’m not trying to get somewhere, or get something this year.
I’m trying to make daily, strategic choices that over a decade add up to someone who fully deserves that recognition.

Over to you dear reader,

What choices, behaviors, and decisions would need to happen consistently for your strategy of success to be true? And do you need some skills to build and say no to some projects and people?