Daily Thought for Change

I’ve decided to take my public speaking and writing seriously this year.

Especially writing.

And I know improvement comes down to 2 things:

Practice.
And feedback.

If you only practice and never get concrete feedback from someone who can name what’s working and what’s not, you’ll improve… but slowly. You’ll get stuck often. You’ll repeat your blind spots.

But practice still comes first.

Without practice, there’s nothing to give feedback on.
Just like reflection doesn’t work without actually living the life, doing the imperfect work first.

And then the most important question becomes,
What exactly should I practice? And how do I make it consistent? To get the results and my growth?

This is what I help my clients figure out.
And it’s what I need to do for myself and my writing.

Over the past 18 years, studying coaching craft, reading over a hundred books on behavior change, I’ve learned 3 very simple questions that help you figure out what exactly you need to practice and how to make it happen consistently faster.

1. The Miracle Question

Often used in therapy:

Imagine a miracle happened overnight and you got what you wanted. How would you notice? What would you see?

Let’s take writing.

If the miracle happened, I’d see more engagement.
People sharing it. Commenting. Saving it.
Telling me it was useful.

When I read it back, it would feel clear.
Easy to grasp.
It would stir something.
You’d want to do something after reading it. And you'd have all the tools to take action.

That tells me what to practice.

• Storytelling to evoke emotion

• Concrete examples to stay relatable

• Bringing it back to the reader: why it matters to you

• Clean structure, clear takeaways, next steps, simple tools

Now I have something specific to model.
Something I can ask ChatGPT or a good writer to critique.
Something I can break into sub-skills.

And, most importantly, something I can measure, to see whether what I do works or not.

2. The Constraint Question

Why don’t you already do it?

This one shifts your brain into systems thinking.

Very often, once you remove the REAL constraints, the desired behavior often happens on its own.

Writing?

• Being too abstract → not relatable

• Being too wordy → hard to grasp

• No through-line → scattered focus

• No skimmable structure → hard to act on

Eating well?

• No healthy food available

• Not knowing how to shop or cook

• Family habits pulling in the opposite direction

When you list the obstacles, you usually find something surprising:

It’s rarely a personal flaw.
It’s usually a system design flaw.

The problem isn’t you.
It’s what's around you that makes your habits happen.

So you don’t need to reinvent yourself.
You need to redesign the environment so the new practice can win.

How do I make the new action easier than the old?

3. The "Bright Spot" Question

Where is it already working?

This is learning from your accidental successes.

That email someone sent saying your piece was helpful.
What worked there?

That week you were consistent with eating well.
What did you do differently?

Those few nights you actually went to bed on time.
How did that happen, even with the workload, racing thoughts, and not being a good sleeper?

Your own small successes are clues.
Proof that the capability exists.

Your job is to reverse-engineer them. That's the best map of your growth journey.

I’m applying these 3 questions to my writing habit.

Not to become some polished, flawless version of me.

But to build systems that help me get better as I already am.

Over to you dear reader, what do you want to get better at? Try asking these 3 questions to help you build systems to succeed as you, not some miracle version of you.

As I was wrapping up my talk on systems for behavior change at scale — turning strategic aspirations into lived results — at the Align & Inspire offsite with the Department of Economic Growth and Tourism, one participant asked:

“Angela, if we don’t use a system like this, what’s the risk of failure of our initiatives?”

“Research says 75% of change initiatives fail globally due to the disconnect between plans and action. So I’d say that’s a pretty good estimation.”

75% failure rate. Smartest people involved. Billions of budgets spent.

Research also says about 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail in the first month.

Different contexts. Same problem.

Only a small percentage of people, and organizations, manage to translate goals into lasting results.

Why is that?🤔

In 18 years of coaching, 25 years of trying to improve myself in ways that last, reading hundreds of articles, books, listening to podcasts, studying behavioral science, here’s what I’ve learned:

It’s not about willpower.
It’s not about motivation.
It’s not about “imperfect humans.”

It’s about the absence of a system designed for human behavior.

Change works quite well, and lasts, when:

1. You can answer this question:
“If I were to videotape you making this change, what would I see?”

If it’s not visible, it’s not actionable.
If it’s not specific, it’s not measurable.
If it’s not concrete, it’s not gonna be real.

2. You make it easy, remembered, and rewarded.

Eliminate friction.
Prepare in advance.
Don’t rely on memory, build prompts.
Don’t rely on motivation, design incentives all the way.
Acknowledge progress. Involve others.

Your brain is: Lazy. Forgetful. Self-interested.

It constantly asks:
“What’s in it for me?”

So design for the brain you have, not the one you wish you had.

3. You measure what matters.

There’s a reason the phrase “what gets measured gets managed” has survived for decades.

Measurement creates attention.
Attention changes behavior.
Self-monitoring and being watched by others increase follow-through.

We try harder when we know someone is watching.
Even when that someone is us.

There are, of course, many more nuances to lasting change. Decades of research went into that.

Cognitive biases.
Our energy fluctuations.
Motivation dips.
Confusion.
Misalignment.
Ego.

...

I don’t pretend to know it all.

But the purpose of my work, whether it’s a government offsite, culture transformation, or 1:1 coaching, isn’t perfection, or knowing it all.

It’s progress towards better.

One habit.
One behavior.
One daily action at a time.

Helping people see what completely changed my life:

Everything you want: in work, leadership, health, culture, personal growth - depends on something incredibly simple.

The daily actions you take, daily action that depends far more on good systems than on perfect humans.

Over to you, dear reader,

What do you want to create or change this year? And what system will make that action reality-proof, even on your worst day?

What differentiates the truly successful people I’ve worked with from everyone else?

What’s different in their mind when things get hard?
How do they push through when most people stop?

A new client asked me that this week.

And Friedrich Nietzsche said it better than most of us ever could somewhere in the 19th century:

“He, who has a strong enough why will bear any how.”

The leaders who endure.
The founders who survive the chaos.
The people who reinvent themselves more than once.

They have a why that’s bigger than their challenge, their discomfort and their deepest fears.

They don’t push through because they are superhuman.
They push through because stopping would violate something deeply personal, it would be destroying a part of who they believe they are.

For me, it’s simple.

I don’t want to reach the end of my life knowing I left potential unused.
I don’t want to look back and see places where I played small, and underlived.
And I genuinely believe every person is a superhero in disguise. If we unlock more human potential, we build a better world, the one with more capable, happier, thriving people solving problems for generations to come.

That’s my double why:
No regret.
And contribution beyond myself - building systems to unlock more human potential, so everyone gets to live their most extraordinary life, fulfilled and fully realized, with no regret on their deathbed.

Look at the people who build great things despite all odds.

Elon Musk decided early that energy sustainability and humanity being stuck on one planet were existential threats. His work is rooted in that lens, survival and expansion, Tesla and SpaceX, SolarCity.

Jeff Bezos built his career on a regret-minimization framework. He asked himself: “At 80, what would I regret not trying?” The answer wasn’t the safe job. It was the crazy idea of an online everything store. Later, with Blue Origin, it became about expanding humanity’s future beyond Earth.

Sara Blakely kept going because she was on a mission to empower women (starting with herself first),  not just through products and better-looking butts, but through normalizing failure and doubt as well. And succeeding despite it. She publicly shares her mistakes as part of the mission.

Different personalities.
Different industries.
Same pattern.

A big enough why makes the how survivable.

Recently, a client in a painful career transition told me, “For the first time in my life, I feel like doing absolutely nothing.”

That’s not laziness.
That’s a loss of direction. Loss of why.

When the destination is foggy, the brain conserves energy. It won’t activate “go get it mode” without a compelling "prize" on the other side. Motivation isn’t magic. It’s a clear direction plus fulfilling meaning.

If the why disappears, the drive follows.

So, dear reader, if you don’t feel particularly gritty right now…
If you’re stuck, procrastinating, circling the same doubts…

Don’t start with discipline.

Start with WHY.

What would make the struggle worth it for you?
What regret are you unwilling to live with?
What future would feel like stealing from yourself, if you never attempted to live it?

What do you care enough to suffer for, feeling like it's the best ride of your life?

That’s where your perseverance, your grit, your next level is hiding.

So, what's your why, that's stronger than any challenge?

PS Here’s a good book with practical exercises on that by Simon Sinek team “Find Your Why”

Action is above all.

I’m finalizing a few free trials with clients right now.
Most of them came in asking for one thing: clarity on how to move forward.

What surprised me (and didn’t) was this:
The clients who gained the most clarity were the ones who took the most action on what we discussed.

Not a perfectly planned action. Just any action.

All of them realized what was the biggest value, the missing piece:
Finally taking consistent action on things they’d been thinking about often for years.

Yes, self-knowledge matters.
Yes, you do need to reflect.
You do need to understand your values, your why, the difference you want to make in the world, what a deeply fulfilling life could look like.

But even that understanding, that clarity doesn’t come before action.
Action comes first.

You move first to experience.
Then you reflect, and you learn.
Then you make better, more intentional choices next time.

Wisdom lives in the actions you’re avoiding.
And if you want something different, you have to do something different.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

Right now, my own work feels chaotic.
I’m trying many things.
Different clients. Different assignments.
No neat storyline yet.

And that’s exactly what I need.

I need the chaos of action to reflect on it.
To see what fits. To learn what works.
To choose the next path with more real-life insight, not more books.

You take action, you learn through reflection. 
You grow through challenges you don’t avoid.
You make better decisions because of the imperfect ones you already made.

You can't learn from an unlived life expecting deeper self-knowledge.

I’m looking for a long-term place to live. I’ve seen many places that didn’t work. And because of this, I know what will.

Trying a lot made me fast and decisive.
No “I’ll think about it.”
It’s either a hell yes, or a no.

If you are on a journey of self or work re-invention, there’s no way around one thing - taking action that might (and often won’t) work. Can you act without having a perfect answer?

Over to you, dear reader,

What are you waiting to be clear about? And what action can you take today to explore the options instead of waiting for the right plan?

How much of what you do is actually your choice?

Look around you.
What’s within reach.
What’s in your room, your house, your work setup.
Your friends. Your community. Your culture. Your country.

Pretty much everything you do each day is shaped by that.

Apart from your DNA, your daily behavior is largely a byproduct of where you are and who you spend time with.

A reflection exercise from a coaching course I’m taking asked a simple question:

What behavior do you want to change this weekend?
and
What in your environment could you change to make that behavior easier?

So it’s visible.
Remembered.
Convenient.
Close.
Supported by people on a similar path.

I sat with it for a moment and realized: there wasn’t much to change, except one thing.
More proximity to mentors.
More people walking the same road.

Not much else. I engineered my life to lead me exactly where I want to go - from my fridge, to social media, to conversations I choose to have.

Like many of my clients before they start working with me, I used to believe that what I do each day is something I decide… each day.
Through willpower. Through effort. Through discipline. Through intention. Through goal-setting.

Trial, error, education later, and I learned something uncomfortable and freeing at the same time:

Most of our actions aren’t chosen in the moment.
They’re defaulted to based on what’s visible, convenient, and easy.

The brain is lazy first because what saves energy prolongs your life. (At least for the moment)

That’s why when clients ask me to help them change behavior, I almost never start with “the person.”
I start with what’s around them.

We look at their setup.
Their calendar.
Their cues.
Their friction points. Their social circle that they are empowered by or lose sleep over.

Very often, just doing the prep - creating time and reminders, removing obstacles, making the right thing easier - does all the hard work.

The habit sticks.
And then the habit shapes who you become.

High achievers often struggle with this the most.

They believe deeply in agency.
In making good decisions.
In pushing through.

They believe in their personal power. That’s how they got where they are. (At least that's the thinking)

And it often becomes their blind spot.

They rely on will instead of design. And expect others to act on this every day too.
But then the brain gets tired.
Life gets busy.
Emotions run hot.

And everything collapses back to default.

The solution?

Start with design, not will.

Over to you, dear reader,
What behavior are you trying to change right now?
And have you actually designed the support setting first?

PS: It’s ironic how willpower and discipline backfire when we use them everywhere, instead of saving them for when they really matter.

One of the coolest things I get to witness in my coaching is this moment:

People come in convinced the habits they want to change are too hard. They think they are hiring me for some discipline building.

Health.
Self-talk.
Communication.
Procrastination.
Decision-making.

They’re sure they’ll never be able to stick with what’s required to reach their goals. At least not on their own. They are convinced it's gonna be hard all the way through!

And then, step by step, skill by skill, habit by habit, we work our way up.

And suddenly:

• Working out daily feels normal.

• Going to bed on time feels obvious.

• Eating the “right thing” feels like… no work at all.

It’s like they’ve become a different person.
(Wink 😉 - because they kind of have.)

I’m going through rebuilding my sales system.

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned about sales is this:

You need to sell to the right people first - people who value what you offer, want it, and can comfortably pay a price that makes your offer sustainable for you.

For a long time, I was trying to sell to people for whom my price represented a huge percentage of their income.

Which meant I was effectively asking them to sacrifice too much - against rent, family, security, and a dozen other priorities.

Then something interesting happened.

I got a few clients where closing at my best prices took about 2 minutes.

Not because they wanted it more.
Not because my offer suddenly improved.

But because, for them, it wasn’t that much money.

If I ask you to pay $1,000 and you make $200,000 a month, that’s less than 1% of your income.
If you want it, you probably won’t blink twice.

No objections.
No discounts. No back and forth.

But if that same $1,000 is a third of your monthly income?
You’ll think a lot.
And it might still be a no, no matter how good the offer is.

The same dynamic shows up in habit change.

If someone already eats well most days, tightening things up to get a beach body doesn’t cost them much.
They don’t have to “pay” a high price in discomfort, identity change, or daily friction.

But if you’re just starting with nutrition?
That request is MASSIVE!

It’s not a tweak, it’s a full lifestyle overhaul.
And unless you’re ready for serious pain and sacrifice, it’s often too much to ask.

So:

• In sales, you either warm people up a lot… or you choose different people.

• In habits, you either warm yourself up… or you quit because it's "too hard".

Gradual change takes longer.
But it feels lighter. And that's why it lasts.

It stops feeling like sacrifice at all.

Over to you, dear reader,
Where are you asking too much, too fast, of yourself, turning a hill into an insurmountable mountain?

What would happen if you tried hiking the smaller hill first?

It was an intense, busier-than-usual week for me.

And taking the time to reflect on it is the only way I make sure I actually learn from it and get better, turning chaos into structure and ability to handle more.

I reflect so I can see:

• what worked really well and why — so I can keep it, do more of it, and reuse it in other parts of my life

• what didn’t work — where I, or the world, “failed” my expectations, so I can redesign systems, adjust my mindset or my decision-making process

• why I planned too much and did less

• why certain things took priority over what I intended to do

• how, even on the busiest day, I still supported my health

• how I followed up on commitments or communicated adjustments

• what helped me prioritize according to my values, not someone else’s urgency or my own moods

Without this kind of reflection, you and I just run in circles.

We hope that next time we’ll do better.
That next time we’ll be different.

And almost always, we’re not.

There are 2 main reasons why. Something I was reminded of while reading Permanence: Become the Person You Want to Be and Stay That Way by Lisa Broderick, who we'll have on Change Wired podcast soon.

First: planner–doer bias.
Your planning self assumes your doing self will feel exactly the same way, being in the exact same favorable situation to do the right thing.

Motivated.
Clear.
With time, energy, resources, and perfect recall of why this mattered.

That’s rarely true, isn't it?

Second: distractions and wrong triggers.
In the moment of action, your attention gets hijacked.

By circumstances.
By other people’s needs.
By Slack, social media, meetings, moods, and noise.

You get pulled away from what you value, and triggered into behaviors your best self would never choose.

The solution to both isn’t more willpower. Or a different self.

It’s better systems.

What works, both in coaching others and coaching yourself, is asking a different kind of question:

“How can I design my environment, my routines and rituals, my decision-making process, my reminders, my accountability, my fridge, so that the next time, the same me can succeed?”

Look at what went right.
What allowed you to succeed despite all odds?

That’s not luck.
That’s a system, whether intentional or accidental.

Learn from it.
Reuse it for the days, situations and moments when things go wrong.

Then look at what didn’t work.
Not to judge yourself but to feed-forward:

What can I put in place so I remember to do the right thing?

So energy, motivation, and accountability make the right action easier?
So my environment supports my better self, not the self I’m trying to outgrow?

And very often, as I was reminded in Permanence, all that’s needed to follow through is learning to consistently ask the right question at the right time:

“Did I do my best to set myself up to do the right thing?

Over to you, dear reader,

What if every morning this question popped up on your phone with your alarm, or looked at you from your home screen, or landed in your inbox, so you could honestly assess whether you did everything you could to help yourself win today?

PS "Did I do my best...?" - is the way to ask active questions to put focus on your efforts, not circumstances. This is the main tool of change from the book Permanence that helped hundreds of executives to evolve into better selves and stay that way.

Yesterday, in the coaching class I’m taking, we were talking about motivation and willpower.
What they are. How they work. Where people struggle. And how to help clients struggle less.

We started with definitions.

If you define willpower as some mystical inner force, something you either “have” or “don’t have” in certain amounts - you aren't gonna get too far, trying to improve it.
You become a victim of your moods, your cravings, your momentary desires often.

And the person you want to become might be getting further away.

An actual definition:

Willpower is the ability to resist short-term temptation in order to reach long-term goals.

That’s it.

Nothing mystical.
No special personality trait.
Just a trainable mental skill.

And once you see it as a skill, it becomes something you can work on and improve.

Willpower isn’t something you’re universally good or bad at.
You’re better at it in some situations and worse in others.

Think about it.

You don’t randomly shout at coworkers, fight strangers, or lose control in meetings, even when you’re angry.
Social consequences matter. Negative effects in your life matter.

Yet many people are completely fine with making choices that slowly make them sick, having no accountability or immediate negative results.
Food. Sleep. Alcohol. Stress. Movement - you neglect it because there's no immediate pain.

Same person.
Different context.
Different level of practiced restraint.

Once you realize willpower is situational, and you can have more or less of it, depending on what you've "trained" - you can stop judging yourself and start working on your "willpower fitness".

Just like the gym:
If you want stronger legs, you don’t train biceps.
If you want willpower in a specific area of life, you train there.

In coaching, we teach clients different “moves”, exercises, that build willpower where it matters to them.

Some of them:

Intentional distraction
When an urge shows up, don’t fight it. Redirect attention until it passes.
Talk to someone. Go for a walk. Watch something absorbing.
Urges peak and fade - distract yourself for them to go away.

Sitting with discomfort
You can feel the urge and do nothing.
Like sore muscles after a hard workout, unpleasant, but livable.
Not every itch needs to be scratched. Meditation helps train this as well.

Eliminating triggers
Identify what reliably pulls you into the behavior you want less of.
Then ask: How can I reduce my exposure to this?
Willpower grows faster when the environment stops fighting you and starts supporting you.

Connecting to your why
Go beyond surface goals.
Link restraint to identity, values, and who you’re becoming.
Why does this matter for the person you want to be?

Notice → Name → Respond
Tune in.
What am I feeling?
Why might this be here?
What response would I be proud of, even if it’s hard now?

Accountability
Most things you do well already have accountability attached.
So create more of it for the things that matter.
Who’s your “accountant” for this habit?
Who are you doing this for besides yourself?

State changing
Change your biology and your mind follows.
Move. Shower. Breathe. Use music. Shift focus.
Your nervous system leads, your thoughts, emotions and urges follow.

This isn’t a full list.
It’s a menu of exercises. Just like those exercise videos on YouTube.

Willpower isn’t magic.
It’s a skill.

You build it one curl at a time. Just like your bicep.

It’s a set of dance moves you haven’t practiced on a dance floor yet.

Over to you, dear reader,

When you say, “I’m just not disciplined around X”, what would happen if you treated that area like a workout and committed to just one rep every day?

Because once you learn these moves in one domain, they transfer everywhere.
And that’s one of the core mindset skills of mastery for in health, leadership, work, and life.

I ran a workshop for HR and people leaders yesterday.
It was called “Designed for Humans.”

The whole point was simple:
How do you design workplace interventions that actually last and produce measurable results,
instead of becoming another session people enjoy… and forget within a week.

We had 30+ people in the Teams room.

And several told me the same thing:
They showed up because of a last-minute reminder that I sent in our whatsapp group,
“Ah. Right. This matters. I should go.”

The host shared something interesting too.
For his own events, adding a last-minute “bait”, a reminder of why it’s worth showing up, cut no-shows from 60% to 30%.

Same event. Same people.
Different timing.

The Right Thing at the Right Time

One of the most influential executive coaches in the world, Marshall Goldsmith, has followed a simple ritual for years to stay focused on his goals.

He hired a coach to call him every day for 5 minutes.

No teaching. No advice.
Just a few “Engaging Questions,” like:

• Did I do my best to set clear goals today?

• Did I do my best to work toward them?

Not once a quarter.
Not at the end of the year.

Every day.

He made his priorities top of mind, right when they could still influence behavior.

In a Harvard Business Review article “To Change Company Culture, Start with One High-Impact Behavior,” the authors share how one organization they worked with improved gender balance in hiring.

Not by running more training.

But by doing this small thing.
Right before opening applications, managers watched a 7-minute video on bias in hiring.

Right message.
Right time.

That’s what changed decisions.

Robert Cialdini, the author of Influence, wrote an entire book about this: Pre-Suasion.

About how our decisions are heavily influenced by what’s most recent in our minds.
The closer something is to the moment of action, the stronger its pull.

I notice this tendency in myself all the time.

If I sign up for an event far in advance, there’s a good chance I won’t go.
Unless I’m reminded, right before, why it’s worth my time.

That's probably one of the biggest reasons why New Year’s resolutions fail.

You set them.
You feel motivated.
Then life happens and you forget.

If you reminded yourself daily why your goals matter to you - you’d see far more of them stick.

We often overcomplicate behavior change.

More content.
More workshops.
More motivation, some complex accountability or incentive systems.

When very often, the human brain just needs:
the right reminder, at the right time.

A reminder of not just WHAT but also why it matters.

Over to you, dear reader, where in your life could consistency improve with a meaningful, better-timed nudge?
And what’s one reminder you could put in place today, to make the right thing remembered?

Why do you need it?

The most important question if you want a human to do hard things.

I came across this in an Instagram post by Daniel Pink today.
It shared results from a 2-year intervention with 2,900 employees.

The company wanted higher performance.

They tested everything.
Perks. Benefits. Incentives. Different levers with different groups.
Randomized controlled trials - aka trying and measuring different things with different groups of people.

What worked best?

Not money.
Not perks.
Not shiny extras.

Reflection on personal purpose.

Why do you do what you do?
Why do you need it?
What’s in it for you?
What do you stand for?
What are you trying to become?

Low performance dropped by 50%.

Your brain is always running a cost–benefit analysis.
Every task. Every decision. Every moment of effort or avoidance.

And one of the biggest benefits your brain prioritizes that we almost never talk about:
staying aligned with who you believe you are at your core.

When your actions match your values, things feel lighter, easier, like less effort - you flow, even through the hardest "lift".
When they don’t, everything feels heavy, even simple tasks.

What I found to be a challenge is the notion that your values compete with each other often - you want the abs, but the cake now is very appealing too.

Rest vs growth.
Comfort vs getting better.
Short-term relief vs long-term identity.

What you do in any given moment depends on which value shows up in your brain first, what you are reminded of in the moment.

When people are prompted to think about their deeper values, about purpose rather than immediate discomfort or payoff, they think longer term.
And paradoxically, that helps them do more now.

Enough effort today to build a version of themselves they respect tomorrow.

Something I noticed years ago, working with leaders, entrepreneurs, and high performers:

There isn’t a single one who doesn’t have reminders of what truly matters to them.
Reflection rituals.
Questions they return to again and again.

Whether they’re leveling up their leadership, building a business, or finally taking care of their body after a decade of neglect - the starting point is always the same.

Not tactics.
Not plans.
Not discipline.

Why do you need it? - I would ask.

And not the surface-level answer.

I keep asking why.
Again and again.
Until we hit identity.
Until we hit values.

Because that’s what gives a self-growth journey roots deep enough to withstand the winds of life.

So, over to you dear reader,

Do you routinely reflect on your values to inspire yourself to do the hard work for growth?
And do you ask this question of the people you’re trying to grow?

PS I ran a 24-hour race this weekend. Do you know why I quit early? I didn't have a big enough why to push aka I didn't care.