Compiled/translated from: @thedankoe
If you are similar to me, you would definitely think that setting a New Year's resolution is silly!
Because most people’s way of changing their lives is completely wrong. They make these plans simply because others are doing it — we view competitive behavior as a superficial meaning — but these plans do not truly bring about change; real change is far more than just convincing yourself that you will be more disciplined or efficient this year.
If you belong to this type of person, I don't mean to belittle you (I can sometimes come off as a bit harsh when writing). The number of goals I set is more than ten times the number of times I've achieved them. I think this should be the case for most people. But the fact that people try to change their lives and almost always fail completely is true.
However, while I find the New Year’s resolutions silly, reflecting on the life you detest is always wise to move in a better direction.
Whether you want to start a business, change your body, or dare to pursue a more meaningful life without giving up two weeks later, I want to share seven perspectives on behavioral change, psychology, and productivity that you may have never heard before, to help you achieve these goals by 2026.
This will be comprehensive.
This is not an article you will read and forget.
This is something you will want to collect, take notes on, and take time to think about.
This final scheme (designed to delve deeply into your inner self and reveal what you truly want) takes about a whole day to complete, with effects lasting far beyond that time.
Let's get started.
First, you are not achieving your goals because you are not yet the person who can achieve them.
When setting significant goals, people often focus only on one of the two requirements for success:
Change your behavior to move toward your goals (least important, second place).
Change yourself so that your actions naturally follow (most important, first place).
Most people set superficial goals, pump themselves up to maintain discipline for the first few weeks, and then return to old ways with almost no struggle, because they try to build a good life on a rotten foundation.
If this sounds unclear, let’s use an example.
Think of a successful person. It could be a bodybuilder with an excellent physique, a founder/CEO worth billions, or a highly charismatic man who can engage in pleasant conversations with a group of people without feeling nervous.
Do you think bodybuilders need to 'struggle' to eat healthily? Do CEOs need to be disciplined to show up and lead their teams? It may seem that way on the surface, but in reality, they cannot imagine living any other way. Bodybuilders struggle to eat unhealthy food. CEOs must force themselves to lie in bed after the alarm goes off, hating every second of it.
For some people, my lifestyle may seem extreme and disciplined. For me, it feels natural. I am not trying to compare it with other lifestyles. I just enjoy this life. When my mom tells me I should take a break and go have some fun... I resist the urge to tell her, 'If I do not find what I am doing fun, why would I do it?'
The next sentence may sound simple, but what is confusing is that many people do not understand it.
If you want a specific outcome in life, you must have the lifestyle that creates that outcome before you reach the goal.
If someone says they want to lose 27 pounds, I usually do not believe them. Not because I do not think they have the ability, but because there are too many instances of the same person saying, 'I want to lose weight quickly so I can enjoy life again.' I regret to inform you that if you do not adopt a lifestyle that allows you to maintain weight loss for life and find a reason more attractive than your old habits, you will revert to your old state and painfully admit that you wasted precious time resources that can never be reclaimed.
When you truly change yourself, all those habits that do not move you toward your goals become repulsive because you deeply understand how these behaviors accumulate into a certain life. You feel satisfied with the current standards because you are not fully aware of what they are or what they will lead to. We will discuss how to reveal this, but we need to build it step by step.
You say you want to change. You say you want 'financial freedom' and 'to be healthy', but your actions indicate the opposite. And this runs deeper than you think.
Second, you are not achieving your goals because you do not want to go there.
"Trust action. Life happens on the level of events, not on the level of words. Trust action."
—— Alfred Adler
If you want to change yourself, you must understand how thinking works to start reprogramming.
The first step in understanding thought is realizing that all behavior is goal-oriented. This is teleological. When you think carefully, it seems obvious, but when you dig deeper, most people do not want to hear this.
You take a step forward because you think about reaching a certain place.
You scratch your nose because you want the itch to go away.
These are clear, but most of the time, your goals are unconscious. You may not realize that when you are sitting on the couch during the day, you are trying to kill time waiting for the next responsibility to come, which is just a simple example.
On a deeper and more complex level, the goals you pursue may be harming you, but you justify your actions in a socially acceptable way that does not make you look like a failure.
For example, if you cannot stop procrastinating on work, you might justify it by saying you 'lack self-discipline', but in reality, you are trying to achieve a goal as usual. In this case, that goal might be protecting yourself from the judgment that comes after completing and sharing your work.
If you say you want to quit a dead-end job but have no real reason to stay there, you might start to think you lack the courage, or that you were never a 'risk-taker', but the truth is you are pursuing safety, predictability, and an excuse not to appear as a failure in the eyes of those who consider a dead-end job a mark of success.
The lesson is that real change requires changing your goals.
I’m not saying to set some superficial goal, because doing so only serves an unconscious goal, which is actually harming you. This has been discussed repeatedly in the field of productivity. I mean changing your perspective. Because that is the essence of goals. A goal is a projection of the future, serving as a lens of perception that allows you to notice information, ideas, and resources that help you achieve your goals.
Now let's dive deeper because if you do not understand this, getting out of your rut will only become harder.
I send out one or two of these letters each week. If you do not want to miss out, you can join here. You can also read my book and other letters for free.
Three, you are not achieving your goals because you are afraid to go there.
It is important to remember that it does not matter how you came to this idea or its source. You may have never seen a professional hypnotist. You may have never been formally hypnotized. But if you accept an idea — from yourself, a teacher, a parent, a friend, an advertisement, or any other source — and you firmly believe that this idea is true, then its impact on you is the same as that of a hypnotist on a hypnotized person.
— Maxwell Maltz
This is how you became who you are today and how you will become who you are tomorrow. This is the composition of identity:
You want to achieve a goal.
You view reality through the lens of this goal.
You only notice 'important' information and ideas that help you achieve this goal (learning).
You take action toward this goal and receive feedback that you are moving toward it.
You repeat this behavior until it becomes automatic and unconscious (reflexive).
This behavior becomes part of who you think you are ('I am that kind of person...').
You defend your identity to maintain psychological consistency.
Your identity shapes new goals, restarting the cycle, and if this identity is detrimental to a good life, the consequences will quickly become dire.
The unfortunate reality is that you must break the cycle between step six and step seven, but this process begins when you are a child.
You have survival goals.
You relied on your parents to teach you how to survive. You had to conform to their requirements. Because most people's education is through rewards and punishments, unless you adopt their beliefs and values, you will be punished. You do not realize this until you truly start to think.
But your parents also went through this process. Their situation may have been more dangerous. Unless they broke this pattern themselves, they were shaped by the success ideals of industrial age culture. They also carry the best and worst reflexes from their parents and grandparents.
Deeper down, once you have met your basic needs for survival (which is relatively easy in today’s world, as you are almost born into safety), you start to live on a conceptual or ideological level. You may no longer be trying to protect and reproduce your body, but you will absolutely protect and reproduce your thoughts. The ideological warfare on the internet is readily apparent, with participants being the identities of individuals and groups.
When your body feels threatened, you enter a fight or flight state.
The same goes when your sense of identity feels threatened.
If you strongly identify with a certain political ideology (through the process we discussed earlier), you feel threatened when someone challenges your beliefs. You feel pressured. You emotionally feel slapped. Because most people do not analyze whether their emotions are real, you often find yourself in an echo chamber, clinging to harmful statements about yourself and others.
If you grew up in a religious family and did not think independently, you would retaliate and attack those who threaten your psychological safety.
The same goes when you unconsciously see yourself as a lawyer, a player, or someone else who is unwilling to take action for a better life.
Four, the life you want exists at a specific psychological level.
Thinking evolves over time through predictable stages.
When you are born, you are like a little survival sponge, absorbing any beliefs you can get (which are heavily influenced by culture) to feel safe and stable. If you are not careful, your thinking may become rigid, which can make it difficult for you to live a meaningful life.
This is well documented in models such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Grotberg's stages of self-development, spiral dynamics, and integral theory, with each model building on another, but it is not difficult to observe this in society.
I have mentioned these things multiple times and have integrated them into my own 'Human 3.0' model, incorporating various AI prompts to assess your level of development and guide you forward. However, here is a brief review of 80% and 20% of the 9 stages of self-development (because repetition can help you notice things you have previously overlooked, and there are new readers here):
Impulsive stage — there is no separation between impulse and action. Black-and-white thinking. For example, a toddler hits someone when angry because feelings and actions are the same thing.
Self-protective stage — the world is dangerous, and you learn to take care of yourself. For example, a child learns to hide report cards, lie about chores, and figure out what adults want to hear.
Conformity stage — you are your group, and its rules feel like reality itself. For example, a person completely cannot understand why someone would vote differently from their family or group.
Self-awareness stage — you realize the inner life does not match the outer one. For example, sitting in church, realizing you are unsure whether you believe what everyone around you seems to believe, but not knowing how to deal with this feeling.
Responsibility stage — you establish your own principles and hold yourself accountable to them. For example, after careful study, leaving your family's religion and adopting a personal philosophy you can defend, or creating a clear career plan because you believe the right effort will yield the right results.
Individualization stage — you realize your principles are shaped by context and begin to hold them more loosely. For example, realizing your political views are more related to your upbringing than to objective truth, or noticing that your ambitious career goals are actually aimed at winning your father's approval.
Strategic stage — you work with the system while realizing your involvement. For example, leading an organization while actively questioning your blind spots, or participating in politics, understanding that your views are biased and subject to biases you cannot fully see.
Constructing awareness stage — you view all frameworks, including your identity, as useful fictions. For example, seeing your spiritual beliefs as metaphors rather than literal truths, knowing that the map is not the territory, or gently humorously observing yourself playing the role of 'founder' or 'thought leader.'
Unity stage — the separation between self and life disappears. For example, work, rest, and play feel like the same thing. No one needs to become a certain kind of person; only exist in response to what is happening.
For most readers of this text, I assume you are hovering between a 4 and an 8, a significant gap. Those close to an 8 read this text to learn or for leisure, without causing harm to themselves. Those close to a 4 are truly seeking change. You feel destined for more but have not yet been able to clarify everything, as there are clearly many factors at play.
The good news is that it does not matter where you are in this process, because the process through any stage follows a pattern.
Five, intelligence is the ability to get what you want from life.
The only true test of intelligence is whether you can get what you want from life.
— Naval Ravikant
Success has a formula.
One component is autonomy.
Another component is opportunity (many like to confuse it with 'privilege' — because they lack the other components).
The last component is intelligence.
If you have high autonomy but few opportunities, then no matter how high the likelihood of you acting toward your goals, it does not matter, because this is not a goal that can yield fruitful results.
If you have opportunities and autonomy but low intelligence, then you will never fully utilize that opportunity.
First, we previously discussed autonomy. Regarding opportunity, I cannot tell you to change your physical location, but if you do not see the abundance of numerical opportunities in front of you, I cannot help you.
That said, I want to focus on the meaning of intelligence within these two components and in this letter. To do this, we will focus on cybernetics.
Cybernetics comes from the Greek word 'kybernetikos', meaning 'steersman' or 'good at steering.'
It is also known as 'the art of getting what you want.'
Thus, if Naval's definition of intelligence is getting what you want from life, understanding cybernetics can help you achieve this goal faster.
Cybernetics demonstrates the characteristics of intelligent systems.
Have a goal.
Act toward that goal.
Perceive your position.
Compare it with the goal.
Act again based on feedback.
You can gauge intelligence by your ability to iterate through the system and persist through trial and error.
A ship blown off course can correct its course. A thermostat senses changes in heat and activates. The pancreas secretes insulin after blood sugar spikes.
How is this related to getting what you want from life?
Everything.
Action, perception, comparison, and understanding the system from a meta perspective are the foundation of high intelligence (according to the definition we are using here).
High intelligence is the ability to iterate, persist, and understand the whole. A sign of low intelligence is the inability to learn from mistakes.
Low intelligence people become trapped by problems rather than solving them. They give up when they encounter obstacles, just like an author who fails to build an audience because of a lack of trying new things, experimenting, and finding a process that works for them (considering that there is no effective process to create is a verifiable error, regardless of your limiting beliefs, thus exhibiting low intelligence).
High intelligence is realizing that any problem can be solved over a long enough time. The reality is that you can achieve any goal you set your mind to.
Intelligence is realizing that you can make a series of choices to achieve your desired goals. You understand that thoughts are layered, and you cannot jump from papyrus to Google Docs in one leap. Even if that goal seems impossible now, you simply lack the resources — resources that may be invented in the coming years — to achieve that goal.
When I talk about 'goals', as I will continue to repeat, I do not mean from the typical self-help perspective, although at times adopting that perspective can be helpful.
I am talking from a teleological perspective, which is the Greek worldview — everything has its purpose. Everything is part of a greater whole.
Goals determine how you see the world.
Goals determine what you consider 'success' or 'failure'.
You can try to 'enjoy the journey', but if you pursue the wrong goals, you will not be able to enjoy it.
Your mind is the operating system of reality.
This system consists of goals.
For most people, these goals are assigned to them. They are programmed like lines of code in the psyche.
Go to school. Find a job. Feel hurt. Play the victim. Retire at 65.
A known but ineffective path.
To become smarter, you must:
Reject the known path.
Dive into the unknown.
Set new, higher goals to expand your thinking.
Embrace chaos and allow for growth.
Study universal principles of nature.
Become a deep generalist.
I understand this may not be a traditional definition of intelligence, but this series of steps creates extraordinary connections in your brain, leading to the smart people we observe. Combining this with autonomy makes you a winner. This will perfectly lead into the next part.
Six, how to kickstart a new life in a day.
The best times in my life have always come after I have become thoroughly fed up with the lack of progress.
How do you dig deep into your inner self?
How do you become aware of your reflexes?
How do you gain profound insights and truths that can change your life trajectory?
Through simple but often painful questioning.
Very few people do this, and you can tell by their words or their views on specific topics. Questioning is thinking, and very few people do that.
I want to give you a comprehensive protocol that you can use each year to reset your life and enter a rapid progress season. This protocol helps you ask the right questions.
These questions will cover everything from macro to micro: where you want to go, what it takes to get there, and what immediate actions you can take to move toward that reality.
I want to give you a detailed protocol that you can use to replan your life each year and kick off a rapid progress period. This protocol helps you ask the right questions.
Very few people do this, and you can tell from the way they speak or their exposition on a particular topic. Questioning is thinking, and very few people do that.
I want to give you a detailed protocol that you can use to replan your life each year and kick off a rapid progress period. This protocol helps you ask the right questions.
When I observe those who successfully transform their identities, I find that this transformation often occurs rapidly after a buildup of tension. Specifically, I notice that people typically go through three stages.
Discontent — they feel they do not belong in their current life and are tired of the lack of progress.
Uncertainty — they do not know what will happen next, so they either try or feel lost and worse.
Discovery — they discover the goals they want to pursue and make six years of progress in six months.
Therefore, our goal is to help you reach a state of discontent, navigate uncertainty, discover the goals you truly want to pursue, so that this clarity overwhelms you while distractions no longer have an appeal.
The structure of this protocol allows it to be completed in one day. In the morning, you do psychological digging to reveal your hidden motivations. During the day, you prompt yourself to think about life by interrupting your autopilot state. In the evening, you synthesize these insights into a plan to start moving forward tomorrow.
I cannot guarantee that this will work for everyone, as I cannot guarantee that every person reading this is in the right chapter of their own story for these perspectives to take effect. You cannot set the climax at the beginning of a book and expect it to be interesting.
Part One: Morning — psychological digging — vision and counter-vision.
First, we must create a new framework or perspective for your thinking.
It’s like creating a new shell, leaving the old one behind, and slowly growing over time. At first, it may feel uncomfortable. That’s a good thing.
Please set aside 15 to 30 minutes to think and answer these questions. Do not try to outsource this thinking to AI. I want you to break through the limits of your thinking. If you cannot answer these questions immediately, come back to them later.
What is the kind of dullness and persistent dissatisfaction you have learned to endure? Not deep pain, but what you have become accustomed to tolerating. (If you do not hate it, you will tolerate it.)
What are the things you repeatedly complain about but have never truly changed? Write down the three complaints you expressed most often in the past year.
For each complaint: What conclusion would an observer of your behavior (rather than your words) draw about what you actually want?
What truth about your current life can you not admit to someone you deeply respect?
This question aims to make you aware of the pain in your current life. Now, we need to transform these into what I call a 'counter-vision', which is a brutal realization of the life you do not want to live. This way, you can use this negative energy to direct your efforts positively and take action from intrinsic motivation.
If in the next five years there are absolutely no changes, describe an ordinary Tuesday. Where do you wake up? How does your body feel? What is the first thing you think of? Who is around you? What do you do between 9 AM and 6 PM? How do you feel at 10 PM?
Now do it again, but extend the time to ten years. What have you missed? What opportunities have closed off? Who has given up on you? What did people say about you when you were not in the room?
You are at the end of your life. You have lived a safe life. You have never broken this pattern. What is the cost? What have you never allowed yourself to feel, try, or become?
Who in your life is already living the future you just described? Someone who is on the same trajectory for five, ten, or twenty years? How do you feel when you think about becoming them?
To truly change, what identity must you give up? ('I am that kind of person...') What will the social cost be of no longer being that kind of person?
What is the most embarrassing reason you have for not changing? The one that makes you sound weak, scared, or lazy rather than reasonable?
If your current behavior is a form of self-protection, what exactly are you protecting? What cost does this protection bring you?
If you answer these questions honestly, and if you are in the right chapter of life, you will feel a profound sense of unease, even disgust at your current life. Now, we need to channel this energy in a positive direction. We need to create a minimum viable vision because your vision is like a product. It begins unclear but will become stronger and more effective over time and experience.
Temporarily forget about practicality. If you could snap your fingers and live a different life in three years, not realistic, but the life you truly want, what would it look like? What would an ordinary Tuesday look like? To the same level of detail as question 5.
To make that life feel natural rather than forced, what do you need to believe about yourself? Write an identity statement: 'I am that kind of person...'
If you have already become that kind of person, what would you do this week?
Answer all these questions first thing tomorrow morning.
Part Two: All day — interrupting autopilot — breaking unconscious patterns.
These writing exercises are lovely, but we want real change.
Frankly, if you do not break the unconscious patterns that keep you stagnant, this will not happen.
In a day, I want you to reflect on everything you wrote in Part One. Beyond that, I want you to not forget to reflect. Take it seriously. You will not change by doing the same things for the rest of your life. You need to consciously force yourself to break patterns.
Take time now to create reminders or calendar events on your phone. Include questions in the reminders or events so you can start thinking immediately.
The more random and the less it conflicts with your schedule, the better.
11:00am: What am I currently avoiding by doing what I'm doing?
1:30pm: If someone filmed the last two hours, what conclusion would they draw about what I want?
3:15pm: Am I moving toward a life I hate or a life I want?
5:00pm: What is the most important thing I am pretending is not important?
7:30pm: What did I do today out of identity protection rather than true desire? (Hint: most of what you do is like this.)
9:00pm: When did I feel most alive today? When did I feel most dead?
To add some fuel to the fire, schedule these questions while you commute, walk, or lie down.
What would change if I no longer needed others to see me as [the identity you wrote in question 10]?
Where in my life am I trading safety for liveliness?
What is the minimal version of the person I want to be that I can achieve tomorrow?
Part Three: Evening — synthesizing insights — entering the season of progress.
If you follow this process, I would be surprised if you do not have at least one profound insight that could change your life trajectory. Now, we need to clarify these insights, integrate them into our identity, and take action to begin solidifying our journey toward a new level of thinking.
At the end of today, what is the most honest feeling about why you feel stuck?
What is the true enemy? Name it clearly. It is not the environment. It is not others. It is the internal patterns or beliefs that have been dominating you.
Write a sentence summarizing what you refuse to let life become. This is the compression of your counter-vision. It should make you feel something when you read it.
Write a sentence summarizing the goal you are moving toward, knowing it will evolve. This is your minimum viable product of your vision.
Finally, we need to set goals.
Similarly, these goals are not set for achievement, as goals are merely projections. They are unreliable, making you feel bound to something that will inevitably change. Instead, view goals as a perspective. A lens that you can exchange to enter the right mindset, executing actions that take you away from a life you do not want. Do not worry about a certain finish line, because as we will discover, it does not exist. Enjoy the process of progress.
One-year perspective: One year from now, what must be true for you to know that you've broken the old patterns? One specific thing.
One-month project: One month from now, what must be true for you to keep the one-year perspective possible?
Daily leverage: What are 2-3 actions you can time block tomorrow that the person you are becoming would take?
That's really a lot of content.
Hope this helps.
But we have one last part to lock all of this in.
Stay with me.
Part Four: Turn Your Life into a Video Game.
The optimal inner experience state is one of order in awareness. This occurs when psychological energy — or attention — is invested in real goals, matching skills with opportunities for action. Pursuing goals brings order to awareness because one must focus on the task at hand, temporarily forgetting everything else.
— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Now you have all the elements that constitute a good life.
Now, organizing all the insights into a coherent plan may be helpful. Take out a new piece of paper and write down these six elements:
Counter-vision — what is the greatest pain in my life, or what is the life I absolutely do not want to experience again?
Vision — what do I think my ideal life is, and what can I improve in the process of striving toward it?
One-year goal — what will my life look like in a year, and is it closer to the life I want?
One-month project — what do I need to learn? What skills do I need to master? What can I build that will bring me closer to my one-year goal?
Daily leverage — what priorities and key tasks will bring my project closer to completion?
Constraints — what am I unwilling to sacrifice in order to fundamentally realize my vision?
Why are these so powerful?
Because these elements actually create your own little world. If you are destined to pursue this level of goals at this stage of life, you will have no choice but to become obsessed. You will feel the pull towards greater things. You will not consider anything else an option.
You turn life into a video game.
Because games are the epitome of obsession, enjoyment, and flow states. They contain all the elements that lead to focus and clarity, so if we reverse-engineer these elements, we can live at a deeper level of enjoyment, reduce distractions, and achieve more success.
Your vision is your way of winning. At least before the game evolves.
Your counter-vision is where the risks lie. What happens if you fail or give up?
Your one-year goal is your mission. It is your only priority in life.
Your month-long project is a boss battle. It is how you gain experience points and rewards.
Your daily leverage is tasks. The daily process of unlocking new opportunities.
Your constraints are rules. Limitations that encourage creativity.
All of this exists as a collection of concentric circles, like a force field, protecting your mind from distractions and temptations.
The more you play, the stronger this power becomes, and eventually it becomes part of you, and you will not want any other way.
—— Dan