Daily Thought for Change

You don’t really know what’s helpful until it helps you.
And a lot of what we think should help…doesn’t.
Here are 3 quick stories where the “obvious fix” wasn’t the fix.

1) Better Eating (without more willpower)

We assume the solution is more nutrition facts, more reminders, more motivation. But the most powerful lever isn’t in your head - it’s in your kitchen.

Research shows: when plates, packages, and serving bowls are bigger, people eat more. Shrink them and your intake drops - no pep talk, willpower, or complex strategy required. That’s not opinion; it’s one of the most robust findings in food behavior research.

It turns out, how you stock your fridge, changing what's most available is a lot better strategy than deciding to "be different".

Try this today: next supermarket run, restock your fridge so the first thing you see is the food you want to reach for (cut fruit, washed greens, protein you actually cook). Put “sometimes foods” out of sight or in much smaller containers. Smaller plates help too. Don't work harder - make the right thing easy.

2) Choosing People (your “zip-code effect”)

We like to believe our choices are purely our own. Free will. Hustle. Discipline. Yet the data shows our environment - specifically our people - quietly shapes a huge share of our health and behavior, career choices, and even what you wear or where you go on vacation.

Research shows: in city after city, your neighborhood predicts health outcomes better than your genes. And within that context, income and local norms correlate with how long we live and how we live.

Practical move: map your “default influences.” Who do you eat with, work next to, swap messages with before bed? Add one person whose default is the habit you want (the walker, the reader, the builder, the exerciser, the high achiever). Change who you sit with on purpose. Follow social media accounts that model the behavior you seek, not just the outcomes you envy.

3) Motivation at Work (progress, not perks)

We think motivation to do better work comes from money, perks, the fancy office. They matter, but the real engine of your best work is the felt sense of making progress on meaningful work. 

Research shows: When people can see forward motion, engagement and performance climb; when they can’t, they disengage no matter the perks. That’s what Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer found analyzing 12,000 work-day diary entries across 7 companies. And other researchers confirm - when we see no progress, we don't try.

Make it visible: end the day with a “Progress Note” - document 3 small wins. Ship work in smaller chunks so progress is easier to notice. Leaders: instrument progress like your KPIs depends on it - because they kind of do! Don’t guess; show people their work is adding up.

The bottom line: stop fighting your brain. Align what you need to do with how humans really work - intentional environments, smarter social defaults, and visible progress. Start with one tiny architectural change this week:

• Kitchen: make the first reach the right reach; use smaller plates.

• People: upgrade one default influencer on the habit you want.

• Work: install a daily progress check that you can see.

Over to you dear reader, what do you want to change? If it's a struggle, are you sure you are working with the brain you have? Or the one you think you've got?

What if the reason you keep missing your goals isn’t lack of effort but the way you’re measuring success?

And what if you approached goals not as destinations but directions from now on?

Most of the big goals we have - career transitions, starting a business, building long-term health, even finding the right partner - are too complex, too dependent on variables we can’t control, to measure by a simple yes/no checkbox.

Did I get there or not?

That’s a setup for frustration, and for many people, it’s the moment they quit.

But if you choose to focus on direction, not destination, things shift.

If you pick your metrics for progress and a handful of actions that move you forward, you can guarantee one thing: you’ll get better.

And if you consistently get better, aren't you guaranteed to one day arrive?

Think about health.

You can’t guarantee you’ll drop 10 kilos by X date. Too many factors - genetics, sleep, stress, hormones, life, your own self - get in the way. But you can guarantee that if you consistently eat better, move your body daily, and invest in your sleep, your health will improve. Over weeks and months, those gains will compound and you will arrive.

I’ve seen the same in career transitions with clients.

Clients often arrive panicked: “What if I don’t land the right role in six months... or ever? What if it's too late? What if...?”

But the timeline again is the wrong question.

When we focus instead on upgrading skills, broadening their network, and practicing how to tell their story, applying for jobs, exploring options, reflecting on what we learn, measure progress - things keep moving. Inevitably, the right role comes. Because they’ve built capacity, skills, they took action and measured the progress - not just chased an outcome.

The same goes for business.

You can’t predict which pitch will land or which client will say yes. But you can commit to refining your offer, practicing your delivery, testing new ways to solve real problems. Each step forward makes you more ready for the opportunity when it arrives.

Getting better at the right things means progress.

Progress means you are getting closer. And closer, one day, turns into goals achieved.

“In the end, the money and success that truly last come not to those who focus on such things as goals, but rather to those who focus on mastery and fulfilling their Life’s Task.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery

So if your goal feels impossible, you are frustrated, things seem to stall - stop measuring yourself against the finish line. Instead, design your “progress journey” - your way of mastering self and the world:

• Choose your direction. Where do you want to go? What's the goal that shows you direction?

• Define today. Where are you starting from as compared to your goal?

• Define “better.” How/when will you measure progress?

• Assign actions. What skills, experiments, or projects will help you make progress?

• Review regularly. Measure your progress regularly, take on new skills/projects, reflect on your goal monthly/yearly.

When you work this way, frustration gives way to fuel and motivation. Progress makes everything else irrelevant, it gives you pride and confidence to continue. Progress will eventually turn into goals achieved. And mastery will ensure the results are sustained over time.

Over to you dear reader, maybe it's time to stop chasing finish lines and focus on better instead? 

An award.
A friend of mine won one recently. I was genuinely happy for them. But if I’m honest, a small voice inside whispered, “Why haven't I won one in a while?”

Later, while telling the story that felt relevant, a client asked me one simple question,
“But did you buy the ticket?”

Isn’t that the truth for most of our comparisons?

We look at the successes of others and ask, “Why not me?” But a more useful question is, “Did I put in the work? Did I care enough to show up again and again... and again? Did I play the game?”

Most of us have all the seeds of success inside us - talent, ideas, potential. But these are only the seeds. Fruit requires gardening. Without effort, nothing grows. Without commitment, it never sprouts.

Pressfield wrote in The War of Art:

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”

That resistance often looks like waiting for luck. Hoping success just arrives. Watching others win the prize while never entering the race ourselves.

Think of the lottery. It’s fun to imagine winning, but if you don’t buy a ticket, you’re not in the game.

It works the same way with careers, creativity, and business.

• Alex Osterwalder didn’t stumble into a globally known innovation toolkit with Strategyzer. He sketched, tested, refined, published a PhD, failed a ton after, and kept at it until it spread worldwide.

• David Allen didn’t “get lucky” with his worlds known productivity system, Getting Things Done. He put decades into learning and testing, into experiments, until a system emerged.

• Julia Cameron didn’t become a patron saint for artists by accident. The Artist’s Way came from years of practice, refinement, and showing up for her own creative battles.

None of them just wished for success. They bought a one-way ticket. They signed up for the journey, committing to keep moving forward no matter what.

If you feel like some success is missing from your life (like I sometimes do), here’s a simple formula proven by all the world's greatest:

1. Choose something you care about. Something worth your effort.

2. Prioritize it like you care. Give it time, energy, focus.

3. Give it a decade. Show up long enough for compounding to work its magic.

4. Win🏆

Over to you, dear reader, the next time envy creeps in, don’t ask, “Why not me?” Ask, “Did I buy the ticket?”

New shoes.

That’s what a new career move, new life stage, corporate innovation will feel like. Promising, a little shiny - and stiff. Meanwhile, the old shoes feel like “you.” Soft. Familiar. Easy to slip back into.

On the Change Wired podcast, Alex Osterwalder and I were talking about business innovation and why so many good ideas die early.

"They don’t create the ecosystem for the innovation to survive”

New things don’t win on potential; they win when "the soil, sunlight, and water are there".

Same in life.

We drop the seed of reinvention into the dry soil of our old life and then blame the seed when it doesn’t sprout.

In business, you never design in a vacuum - you design in a context and need to shape that environment on purpose to support the promising seeds.

We do this all the time, we quit too early, we don't set up our new seeds of reinvention to flourish:

• You try a new career path and you’re not instantly great. Feedback isn’t as sweet as it used to be. So you retreat to your “old tricks” to feel better about yourself for the moment.

• You start a new fitness plan and feel like a beginner again. Awkward, sore, annoyed. You go back to the routine that stopped giving you results and growth years ago.

• You join a new circle of friends to match who you’re becoming. It doesn’t fit your calendar, your old habits, your identity - not yet. You feel like fish out of water. So you tell yourself it’s “not me.”

None of that is a verdict. Awkward is just a phase.

Voltaire had a simpler take on it too: “we must cultivate our garden.” Don’t wait for a miracle harvest; do the work that makes growth succeed.

Give your new thing the ecosystem it needs.

Instead of asking “Is this working?” too soon, ask: “Have I built the ecosystem that would let this work?”

Old shoes feel like “you” because they’ve been shaped by miles. New shoes become “you” the same way. Walk in them. Break them in. Give them a fair chance to survive.

Over to you dear reader, pick one new thing you’re tempted to quit. Build the ecosystem to support it - like you mean it to succeed. Commit to 30-90 days at least.

Are you a satisficer or a maximizer?

Herbert Simon, economist, political scientist, and cognitive psychologist, coined those terms back in the 1950s.
Satisficers aim for good enough.
Maximizers want the best possible.

Satisficers tend to be happier.

Because happiness, it turns out, doesn’t live at the end of a never-ending list of options.

In today’s world, especially with AI at our fingertips, the problem isn’t not knowing enough.
It’s knowing too much.

You get 100 incredible options for any decision - 
100 AI-generated productivity tips, 100 morning routines, 100 diet plans, 100 leadership books, 100 business models.
And you end up doing… none.
Or, picking the first thing that feels right and calling it strategy.

DECISION-MAKING DONE BACKWARDS

I don’t start by looking. I start by asking:

• What do I need and why?

• What are the must-have features?

• What are the deal-breakers?

Last time I needed shoes to speak on stage.
Here’s how I broke it down:

• Purpose? To match my outfit for a talk.

• Must-haves? Casual style. White. Super comfy.

• Don’t care? Brand name.

• No-go? Over a certain price. Cool but uncomfortable.

I went shopping.
I found the first pair that checked those boxes.
I bought them.
I was home in 20 minutes. Done.

Was it the best pair in the world? No idea. Don’t care.

It was good enough, and more importantly - I had a whole day to do other stuff and prepare for what mattered most - my talk, not my looks.

In life and in business, most people waste far too much energy trying to find the “perfect” option, especially when trying something new (and not knowing what will work in the end)

That’s the real cost of maximizing:

• Lost time.

• Missed opportunities.

• Momentum stolen from what actually matters - action.

AI?
It makes this worse for maximizers.
You think access to more knowledge will help you choose better.
But it often just floods your brain and paralyzes action.

The people who thrive with AI?
The ones who know how to filter fast - the satisficers
They define “good enough” first, sift through the options at lightning speed, then move into action.

Don’t start by evaluating all your options.
Start by defining your choosing criteria.

And if you're testing something new?
Try it fast. Try it small. Try it cheap and easy.
You’ll learn more by doing than by planning for perfection.

This morning at the gym, a man complimented me, “You just have this presence.”

It was very interesting to hear.

Just short 2 months ago, on my birthday, that would’ve sounded like a joke.

People kept asking me habitually, with no ill intent, just observing, “So where are you off to next?” As if I was always boarding a flight, never actually arriving.

I realized, approaching my life like a waiting room wasn't really working for me.

I was well prepared, yes. Happy? Not exactly.

Happiness doesn’t live in the waiting room. It lives in the room we call "now".

So this birthday I made 2 pacts with myself. Not vague aspirations - practices I could see, track, and reflect on. 

1. Don’t rush.

2. Trust - myself, people, and the larger unfolding.

I didn’t write “be more present.”

A good coach, or any decent behavioral scientist, never stops at an intention.

You design behaviors you can repeat and review. That’s how you create lasting change: action first, outcomes follow. Implementation-intention research mirrors this - specific “if-then” plans dramatically improve goal follow-through. “If I catch myself speeding up, then I pause and take one slower breath and repeat, "here, right now”

Simple. Trackable. Effective.

Practice #1: Don’t Rush

Rushing steals the quality out of the moment you are in and the moment you’re racing toward. The minutes you “save” rarely buy you anything that matters. Time-affluence research shows it’s how we experience time - not how much we cram into it - that predicts well-being. Choosing time over hustle is often the wiser trade. If your happiness is what you want.

What it looks like in my day:

• When I notice the speed-urge, I tap the brakes: one slower breath, one slower rep, one slower sip. Right here, right now.

• Between tasks, I add a deliberate 20-second reset-pause before I touch the next thing. I design "time slack" in my day.

Presence isn’t mystical. It’s a few practices repeated. Happiness is an outcome.

Practice #2: Trust

When anxiety spikes about what I can’t control, when I start worrying about how things will go, I ask: What’s mine to do? Who can help? What must I release? Then I act, I ask, and I let go. Trust - of self and others, of the unfolding - isn’t naïve; it’s a choice that expands capacity to be in the now. When you do what you can and lean on others - a trust fall if you wish - you can enjoy now, trusting you'll be ok.

2 months of practice so far.

Outcomes: I feel joy every day no matter what sh*t happens. And I seem to now “have presence”.

Which I never had before.

Actions over intentions.

That’s how you change yourself and what you are working on.

What practices can YOU implement, that might create the fairy-airy outcome like being happy? You can't assign "be happy", but you can shift what you do and how you look at things, your attitude - and THAT will lead to different destinations, different life.

“Even small, repeated actions can create a sense of control in uncertain and stressful situations.” - Angela Duckworth

Rituals create calm confidence when everything else is moving.
Calm enough to keep your best thinking online instead of letting autopilot run the show.

Do you have any?

Grit researchers, Navy SEALs, pro athletes, and every faith tradition know this: routines carry you through uncertainty. That's why you keep coming back to church. Or run through the drills before major game.

Rituals build a small island of control you can stand on while the tide is all over the place.

Good writers know it, too.

Most don’t know how a book ends when they write the first line. But routines take them to the last one.

They show up at the same time, in the same chair, with the same pre-game motions and, one paragraph at a time, the path appears.

Rich Diviney, former commander (drawing on SEALs and neuroscience) offers a simple frame I like to offer in my resilience and stress fitness trainings: DPO.

A way to create calm in the midst of unfolding chaos.
To feel confident and ready, your brain wants to know 3 things:

• Duration — How long will this take?

• Pathway — What steps will I follow?

• Outcome — What does “done” look like? What's the outcome and reward?

The trick in fast, messy times: bring the horizon, the when, closer.
You don’t need the whole book - write the next sentence.
You don’t need the final score - run your warm-up, plan the first pass.
You don’t need the entire transformation plan - take the first, smallest step, test it out.

There is always the next step you know how to take.

When life gets urgent and crowded, our first instinct is to toss rituals. “Who has time?”
And that’s exactly when you need to keep them the most.

Routines aren’t extra; they’re the scaffolding that holds you steady so you can move fast without coming apart.

Doubts will make you choke. Routine will keep your walk steady.

What are your routines, dear reader? The ones that ground you anywhere - in any city, role, or season of life?
If you have none, staying cool in constant change becomes an impossible dream - you stress out, burn out, often check out.

Rituals don’t have to be grand:

• A five-minute walk at sunrise and another at dusk.

• One minute of box-breathing before every meeting.

• A phrase you repeat before an important call or presentation.

• A two-minute “reset” when things don't go as you plan.

Familiarity calms us. Make some on purpose.

Winners have rituals. What are yours?

______________

“Before I [event], I [action], so I feel [state].”
(Example: “Before I present, I breathe 4-4-4-4 and write my first sentence on a sticky note, so I feel anchored.”)

You don't do the easiest thing. You do the most valuable for you in the moment thing.

A client working on sleep told me, “I never thought change could be as simple as deciding.”
What she meant: once her decision lined up with what she values, the struggle disappeared.

Not willpower. Values power.

Neuroscience starts telling a different story about how we make choices.

Our brains don’t default to “whatever’s easiest.” They estimate value instead. And value is a complex equation.

We generate options, judge what each one is worth to us right now, choose the top option, and update our internal math based on the result.

That’s value-based decision-making. It’s how the brain tries to be useful, not lazy. PubMed

“there are three basic stages to what neuroscientists call value-based decision-making. First, our brains determine what options they are choosing between, assign a subjective value to each one, and identify the option with the highest value in that moment. This means that from the start, our choices are shaped by what we consider the possible options in the first place. Next, our brains move forward with what is perceived as the highest-value choice (which may or may not be the best choice in the context of our larger goals or longer-term well-being). This means that there isn’t one single right answer, and what our brains perceive to be the “highest-value” option right now might change if considered from other perspectives (for example, when thinking about career goals versus wanting to be a good friend). Finally, when we’ve made the choice, our brains track how rewarding it turns out to be, so they can update how they make the calculation next time; this means that we often overweight the outcomes of our choices rather than improving our process.”

~ Dr Emily Falk. "What We Value: The Neuroscience of Choice and Change"

Emily Falk’s work argues that when we understand how the brain’s value system works, we can see “many possible paths to our goals,” not just the obvious ones. Translation: if you want a different habit, change the menu your brain is evaluating. Scientific American

A quick story (and a confession)

I used to eat sweets as my main stress-releasing pill. Tired? Stressed? Sad? Lonely? - Hello cookies🍪

Then, by applying CBT coaching method, I made a re-calculation.

5 minutes of sugar versus years of steady energy, clear skin, stable mood, no weight drama?

The long-term won. Once my values shifted, the choices shifted. Now, in a bakery, I don’t “resist.” I just don’t include pastry in the option set. It’s not food for me anymore.

And this is what many people outside coaching don't really get, when struggling with behavior patterns - your brain’s decision-making process is fast and silent, and you don't bother to slow it down to redo your brain's math. And THAT's why you struggle.

Most days you (1) limit options without noticing, (2) pick the “highest value” in that moment, and (3) settle on the outcome so the next choice is faster.

Useful - until your auto-pilot leads you somewhere you no longer want to go.

3 small levers that change your habits without willpower

Dr Amily Falk offers 3 places to intervene, to align your choices with the highest value overall, not just in the moment:

1. Imagine more options. Expand the menu. “Go to bed” isn’t binary, nor is food. You can eat a protein cookie, go to bed 15 minutes earlier this week, go for a walk instead of starting to run. More options = better odds one feels valuable now and later. (You’re giving your brain more “paths to the goal.”)

2. Re-value the options. Judge by now and later. Ask: “What’s this worth to me tonight? What’s it worth to future-me in a week? A year?” That tiny “future check” often flips the winner. Is 1 minute of sugar really worth my entire life in front of me?

3. Re-weigh the outcome. After you choose, don’t just notice whether it felt good. Notice what it bought you. “I slept 7.5 hours and my 10 a.m. meeting was sharp. And at night, I really was there for my family”. Your brain updates the math. Make sure it’s updating on the right signals, not just the quickest dopamine.

You got it all wrong! I got it all wrong!

The brain doesn't go for the easiest thing - otherwise we wouldn't have all these remarkable achievements, often with a lot of self-sacrifice.
The brain goes for what YOU value most. It's just you often don't stop to think what that actually is.

Pick one sticky habit.
Then run the 3-Step Re-Value:

• Expand: List 3–5 alternate moves you could make in the same moment.

• Evaluate: For each, rate 1–10 for now value and later value. Circle the first option with a strong combined score.

• Encode: After you try it, write one line: “What did this actually buy me?” Repeat for 3 days. Let your brain learn what to prefer.

Your habits aren’t a willpower problem.

They’re a value-calculation problem - one you can solve.

So, dear reader, which choice needs a re-valuation this week, and what new option will you add to tonight’s menu?

Our self-development often fails for one simple reason: we forget.

Not because the intention wasn’t strong. Not because we don't value what we say we do. But because life gets in the way.

Or because we use the wrong kind of reminders.

The best tool ever invented for self-development? A planner.

These days, I never let a client leave a session without a calendar commitment.
Want to work on strategy, self-awareness, your recovery?

Great!

When? Where? How? What will remind you to take that action? If it’s not in your planner or calendar, it’s not happening. You're busy.
And if they truly don’t have time? Then we set a reminder to revisit it on a specific date. That way, it doesn’t die in the “intention bucket.”

I know the “intention bucket” well.

Mine was overflowing once: get better at sales, polish presentations, grow my network, practice Italian… blah blah blah.
And most of it never happened. Other things rushed in, urgent, seemingly very important. Even the meaningful ones connected to my deepest values - my health, relationships, or serving my clients better - slipped away. Status quo and habits took over.

Tony Robbins, the world's greatest life coach, says,
“Never leave the site of a goal without a plan of action.”

David Allen, the creator of one of the most popular productivity systems, Getting Things Done, agrees,

"Never keep an intention without a date attached to it."

Behavioral scientists go even further with something called JITAIs - “Just in Time Adaptive Interventions.” These are reminders or prompts designed to appear exactly when you’re most able to act.

Example: when I see an email related to my studies mid-morning, I snooze it until 6 p.m. and I star it - the time I usually study. So when I sit down at my desk that evening, the email shows up again, right where and when I’m ready to take action.

The missing piece of our good intentions: good systems of meaningful triggers.

Without them, even your best, most heartfelt intentions die unfulfilled, your potential withers.

With them, you multiply the chances that your better self will grow up.

Over to you dear reader,

Do you have a system of triggers that protects not just your urgent work, but your important future self? Or does your intentions bucket get a refill again?

Every behavior gives you something.

Before trying to change it, it’s worth asking - what exactly am I getting from this? And will my new behavior provide it?

When I was a kid, I got a ton of attention for good grades. Teachers highlighted my achievements. Parents gave me freedom because I “did my job” well - studying. Peers saw me as special in a good way.

Also...

My dad spent hours teaching me English, even how to dance. Learning was our bond. I did my homework in the kitchen watching my mom cook, having conversations. Learning became a source of many joys.

It’s taken me places. Literally. I was able to live in so many places because I spoke different languages, and easily acquired skills to find work.

Is it surprising that every assessment I take says the same thing: learning is my superpower? Growth mindset is my status quo. It’s how I keep moving forward.

I still don’t know if it came from nature or nurture. What I do know: opportunities still come my way because I know more things and easily learn what I don't.

I often joke, “Don’t feed me - give me something to learn.”

Going hungry? Manageable. Not learning? Torture.

At this stage of my life though, I need less learning and more applying.

Not just book-smart, but street-smart. Creating more value for others with knowledge AND implementing it. Building a business. Helping others expand their world. Expanding my world through opportunities I create for others, not just knowledge I collect.

So, I need to do less of what I value so much.
OR tell myself a better story ALIGNED with my values - like understanding that you learn even more by trying to apply your book knowledge to problems in the real world. It's learning on steroids!

And that’s what many of us miss about the process of change.

It’s not just about rewriting the story in our heads. It’s about aligning the story with what we truly value - the personal incentives baked deep inside us.

Every behavior pays out some reward🏆

Maybe it’s recognition, comfort, relief, freedom. If we want a new behavior to stick, it has to give us something just as meaningful, as rewarding or better. Ideally, right now. Otherwise, our old incentives will win every time.

So many would say, “I have to do it,” but never really buy into it. Their internal incentives aren’t aligned. And lasting change only happens when the new behavior allows you to express more of who you are, not less.

Over to you dear reader,
The change you’re working on right now, is it truly aligned with what you deeply value? Or are you trying to force a story that doesn’t reward the person you actually are?