If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, please watch this video…

If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, the next 20 seconds might determine whether that happens. Because every January, millions of smart, motivated people make the same quiet mistake, and it destroys the year before it even begins. It's not laziness. It's not discipline. It's something far more predictable and far more fixable than that. I spent 25 years studying motivation and performance, and I've seen this pattern across athletes, executives, students, parents. The people who thrive don't rely on inspiration. They rely on structure. So in this video, I'm going to give you a simple science-backed system to design your best year ever and actually follow through. 4 acts, 20 techniques, all proven, all practical, and each one builds the foundation for a year you'll look back on and say, that's when everything changed. I'm going to throw a lot at you. That's why I've also created a workbook with a set of checklists to help you find your way through 2026. The link is in the description and you can download it for free. If you give me the next few minutes, I'll give you the clearest plan you've ever had for a great year. Let's start. The first thing you want to do is run a regret review. Let's begin with something uncomfortable. Set a timer for 10 minutes, then look back on 2025 and choose your biggest regret. Not a list, not a bundle. One. The one that bugs you the most. Something that you didn't do or wish you'd done differently. Maybe you didn't start that side project you said you would. Maybe you drifted from people you care about because you didn't reach out. Maybe you spent too much time scrolling and not enough time reading. For me, it's Simple. I didn't protect my writing time. I let busy become an excuse, and I paid for it in the quality and the quantity of my work. That one stings. Now take a piece of paper and write down your regret. Physically write it. It's going to hurt, but that's a sign that it's working. Now grab a second piece of paper. On this one, write 2 things: the lesson you learned from that regret and the small plan you'll follow in January to avoid repeating it. For me, the lesson is that I need a stricter, non-negotiable schedule. And the way to put that into practice is to schedule 3 hours of dedicated writing time every day in January. It's already blocked in my calendar. No debating, no dithering, just doing. My own research on regret shows that the worst way to deal with regret is to ignore it. The second worst way is to wallow in it. But the best way is to stare it in the eye and use it as a tool for getting better. So look at that first page, the one with your regret. Again, it won't feel great, but recognize that you're human, that we all make mistakes, and treat yourself with compassion. Then crumple that paper and throw it away. Keep the second page, the one with the lesson and the plan. That's your guide for the first chapter of 2026. Regret isn't weakness, it's instruction. Use it to decide what matters most in the year ahead. Most of us know what a postmortem is, but how about a premortem? That's our second idea. Now jump to the end of 2026. You're there. Sit with that for a second. Seriously, close your eyes. It's New Year's Eve, December 31st, 2026. And the thing you cared about most didn't happen. You said you'd take 2 unforgettable trips, but you barely left your zip code. You said you'd spend more time with your family, but you let work or distraction or inertia get in the way. You said you'd finally start writing that book, but the pages are still blank. Ask yourself, what went wrong? Psychologist Gary Klein calls this a premortem. A postmortem explains why something died. A premortem explains why something might die before it happens, so you can stop it. Now stay in the future for a moment. Imagine what went wrong. Maybe you failed because you never put the important things on your calendar. Maybe you failed because you relied on motivation instead of structure. Maybe you failed because no one was holding you accountable and you drifted. Write down the reasons for your imaginary failure, all of them. Then design 2026 to block those failures from becoming real. If your future self failed because you didn't plan family time, schedule 10 sacred family days right now before anything else claims that space. If your future self failed because nobody was holding you accountable, find someone this week to keep you honest, someone whose only job is to make sure you follow through. I use premortems for every major project. They've saved me from blind spots, wishful thinking, and some painful mistakes. You can do the same. Jump forward, imagine the future, then build a version of 2026 where that failure never gets a chance. The next idea: adopt a theme for 2026. People love New Year's resolutions, and there's evidence they can be effective, especially when we limit them to a few ideas and keep them specific and focused on behaviors we can control. So if you've got a resolution or two for 2026, go for it. But I'm going to challenge you to do something more. Choose a single word and make it your theme for the year. Not a sentence, not a paragraph. A single word that captures the kind of year you want and the kind of person you're trying to become. Maybe it's simplify or connect or build. Use this word as your compass for the rest of the year. When you're lost, remember that word and let it guide you. For me, the word of 2026 is ship. I've spent the last couple of years experimenting, and that's been great, but this year I'm shifting from exploring to executing. I wanna ship more stuff and get more work on the screen, on the page, and on the stage. Even when things aren't perfect, even when I don't feel Like I'm 100% ready. And that's why having a theme works. Psychologists call it a self-cue, a simple word or phrase that instantly snaps your attention back to what matters. So when I get lost fixing a sentence for the 13th time, when I'm tempted to generate new ideas instead of finishing existing ones, when I drift, I come back to that one word: ship. Now it's your turn. Here's a list of 50 words. Pick one, write it down, and let it guide the decisions you make, the projects you choose, and the person you become in 2026. And now for the last idea in Act 1: organize the year into 90-day seasons. A year is a long time. 365 days, 8,760 hours. It's daunting. That's why so many people lose steam. So instead of approaching the year as one extremely long stretch, treat it as 4 shorter chapters, each with its own focus. Act a little less like Father Time and a little more Like Mother Nature. The natural world runs on seasons, so why shouldn't you? Why 90 days? Because it's long enough to make real progress, but short enough that you can see the finish line from the starting line. And when the finish line is closer, motivation goes up and persistence gets easier. Research on quarterly goal setting shows the same thing. Shorter feedback loops lead to longer lasting effort and faster course correction. So here's how to use it. Every 90 days, do a mini reset. Reflect on what worked, reset what didn't, redirect your time and energy toward the next season's priorities. Because 4 90-day pushes will beat one vague 12-month intention every single time. You've just built a foundation, clarity about the past, the future, and what matters most. Now it's time to build a structure that keeps you on track. That's Act 2. This act is all about building a structure that sets you free. And the first idea is this: protect your first hour. The first hour of your day is the hour your brain is most impressionable, the moment that sets the trajectory for the rest of the day. And most people— smart, capable, ambitious people— hand that hour over to their inbox, to their phone, to the demands of other people. Don't do that. A University of London study found that multitasking early in the day drops your effective cognitive performance by the equivalent of 10 IQ points. That's the difference between doing great work and doing forgettable work. So protect your first hour like it's sacred, because it is. Use it for deep work, quiet work, creative work, anything that moves your priorities forward, anything that's about you directing your life rather than responding to circumstances. For some people, that's writing. For others, it's exercise. For others, it's reading something that expands their thinking before the world shrinks it away. For me, I try, fully try, to never begin my day by answering email, because the minute I open my inbox, my brain learns a dangerous lesson. This is where the action is. But that's never where the action is. And I've squandered an opportunity to make progress on what matters. So set aside that first hour, guard it like an attack dog, and then get to work. Just imagine stacking 1 hour on another hour on another hour on another hour of your most important work 365 times. That's 365 hours devoted to what is most important to you. That will change your year. 5 down, 15 to go. We're on our way to planning a great year. The next one: use the 2-minute rule. You've blocked off the first hour. Here's something I swear by for the other 23, the hours where the small tasks pop up and threaten to pile into a mountain. It's called the 2-minute rule. It comes from David Allen, and it's pretty simple. If a task takes 2 minutes or less, do it immediately. Why does this matter? Because small tasks are deceptive. They look insignificant, but they create invisible cognitive clutter. Returning a text, signing a form, throwing something in the laundry— individually, these tasks are nothing. But collectively, they become a fog that slows down every part of your mental machinery. The 2-minute rule is a fog remover. If it's quick, finish it. Don't think about it. Don't plan it. Don't schedule it. Just do it. You're not trying to get everything done. You're trying to keep friction low so you have the mental bandwidth for bigger, deeper work. I use this constantly. When I'm outside of my deep work and something comes in, an email, a request, a minor task, I ask myself, 2 minutes? If yes, it's gone instantly. If not, it goes on my list. This one habit alone makes my days feel lighter, cleaner, and more focused. The next one, create a weekly shutdown ritual. Most people end their work week the same They slam the laptop shut, they grab their bag and sprint toward the weekend. But their mind never makes it out of the office. On Saturday and Sunday, they're still mentally debugging the week, running through open loops, half-finished tasks, decisions they never made, emails they're vaguely worried they forgot to send. Their body is off the clock, but their brain is still on call. There's a better way. Cal Newport, the author and computer science professor, has found that a deliberate shutdown ritual dramatically reduces weekend rumination. Why? Because your brain doesn't need everything finished. It just needs to know that future you has a plan. That's enough to release the mental pressure valve. So before logging off on Friday, spend 5 minutes setting up Monday. Review your tasks. Decide your top 3 priorities for the next week. Block the first 60 or 90 minutes of Monday for something that matters. And then end with a verbal cue. Cal uses shutdown complete, but you can use anything you want. Week over. Pink out. Whatever. Yeah, this is a little corny, but it works because it gives you cognitive closure. It frees your brain for recovery, which boosts creativity, insight, and emotional energy. When your mind feels safe to rest, it actually rests. So imagine doing this for 52 consecutive weeks. Whenever Monday comes along, you won't feel dread. You'll feel prepared all year. Another idea for 2026: run a weekly reset. Every Sunday night, set aside 15 minutes to pull your life out of chaos and into clarity. You don't need a complex system. You just need a reset. Sit down with your calendar and your to-do list, not to punish yourself, But to take back control of the week before it takes control of you. Look at what's coming. What's essential? What can wait? What needs to be moved, canceled, protected, upgraded, delegated? Where do you need breathing room? A study from Dominican University showed that people who write down their goals and regularly review them are significantly more likely to achieve them. The review is just as important as the writing. This small ritual changes the emotional tone of your entire week. Monday stops being a cold plunge and starts becoming a launchpad. You begin with clarity instead of confusion, intention instead of reaction. It's a It's astonishing how much calmer and more effective your week will become if you give yourself this tiny moment of control. 15 minutes on Sunday night throughout 2026 will buy you hours, sometimes days, of calm focus and forward motion. The next one, try mise en place for life. Chefs have a secret that has nothing to do with knives or sauces. It's called mise en place, French for everything in its place. Before they cook, they organize ingredients chopped, tools out, surfaces cleared, not because they love tidiness, but because preparation creates speed and accuracy. I advise you to steal this secret. Research on implementation intentions shows that people who prepare their environments in advance are far more likely to follow through on their goals. What does this mean in practice? If you want to exercise in the morning this year, lay out your workout clothes the night before and put them in the exact place where you'll see them when you wake up. If you want to use that first hour to write, clear your desk the night before. Open the document you'll be working on, type a single sentence, Or question at the top, something your sleepy brain can respond to instantly. Order isn't sterile. Order is strategic. Build mise en place into your days during 2026, and all the days will flow. Final idea in this section: take a 15-minute walk break. I've said it before, but as you all know, I believe in repetition. Breaks aren't a deviation from our performance. They're part of our performance. Breaks aren't an enemy of great work. They are an engine of great work. We have to be intentional and deliberate about taking them. And we know that the best, most restorative breaks are outside and in motion. For instance, one Stanford study found that people walking on a treadmill generated more than twice as many new ideas as people sitting in a chair. And when people walked outdoors, the number of creative ideas they produced went even higher. So, once a day this year, step outside for 15 minutes and move. Don't wait for the moment to strike, though. Stick it in your calendar. Just you, your feet, and the world. It will clear your head, reset your mood, and sharpen your thinking far more than grinding through another half an hour at your desk. It's astonishing how many great artists and scientists were walkers. Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Nietzsche, Beethoven, Aristotle, Georgia O'Keeffe, even Steve Jobs. And now maybe you. Okay, you've designed your structure, but you still need fuel. Something that makes showing up easier. And keeps you showing up when the novelty fades. That's what Act 3 is all about. Halfway done, folks. Here's Act 3: Build motivation by upgrading your inner operating system. Embrace the 85% rule. We grow fastest not when things are perfect, but when they're almost perfect. Machine learning researchers at the University of California, San Diego discovered something counterintuitive: systems learn best when they're right about 85% of the time. Not 100%, not 50%, 85%. If you're succeeding all the time, the task is too easy. No adaptation. No evolution. If you're failing most of the time, the task is too hard. Too much noise, not enough signal. The sweet spot is that narrow band where you're stretched but not snapped. Where your abilities are just behind your ambitions. The experiences where you grow aren't the ones that feel effortless. They're the ones that But sit just on the edge of your ability. So here's what you can do to launch into 2026. Pick one goal you're working on right now— writing, running, coding, whatever. Then deliberately dial the difficulty so you're succeeding about 8 or 9 times out of 10. If it's too easy, increase the challenge. If you're failing constantly, dial it back. Start living at 85%. That's where growth happens. But here's the thing. It won't feel good. That uncomfortable feeling isn't failure. It's the emotional signature of learning. Which leads to the next point: Redefine discomfort as learning. A few years ago, I decided to take some acting classes. Not because I thought I'd win an Oscar, but because I believed it would make me a better writer. Believe me, it did not feel great. To put it mildly. Especially at the beginning. I was awkward. Rigid. Clumsy. My brain kept firing the same alert: Stop! You're doing something wrong! But eventually, I learned that message wasn't a warning. It was a signal I was on the right track. Research from Maëlle Fischbach at the University of Chicago shows that real progress often feels deeply unpleasant. In her studies on how people pursue goals, participants underestimated just how much effort true learning requires. When something feels easy, you're usually coasting. When something feels awkward, effortful, or slightly embarrassing, that's the sign you're growing. Effort, not ease, is the neurological cue for improvement. So, The next time a task feels uncomfortable— public speaking, writing a new chapter, having a difficult conversation— pause and tell yourself, this isn't failure. This is what learning feels like. Train your brain to see discomfort not as a stop sign, but as a mile marker on the road to mastery. And once you can handle discomfort, the next step is to shape your environment so it works for you, not against you. And that means designing Friction wisely. Willpower is overrated. If you're always relying on it, you're never going to win. That's because your environment beats your intention almost every time. Behavioral economists have shown that adding or removing tiny bits of friction— a few extra steps here, some fewer steps over there— can shape your behavior more effectively than motivation alone. Delete one app and your screen time plummets. Set up automatic savings and suddenly You're consistently putting money away. We're not weak. We're human. And humans follow the path of least resistance. So the smart move is to design that path intentionally. Here's a concrete idea for starting the year, one that takes just 5 minutes and pays dividends for months. Pick one behavior you want to reduce and make it harder. Pick one behavior you want to increase and make it easier. That's it. If you want to scroll less at night, charge your phone in another room. If you want to eat healthier, prep a bowl of washed fruit and put it at eye level in the fridge. In 2026, spend less time trying to summon your will and more time reconfiguring your environment. The next one: use public promises. A strange thing happens when we tell another person what we intend to do. Our odds of actually doing it jumps. Not because the other person nags us, and not because we suddenly become more disciplined, but because we've created a tiny social contract, one our brains are surprisingly motivated to honor. A fascinating experiment published in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that participants who made specific promises to a single accountability partner showed significantly higher follow-through than those who kept their goals private. The magic isn't in the announcement. It's in the relationship. A goal shared with one trusted person becomes more concrete, more binding, and more real. But here's the twist. Shouting your goals to the entire world, posting them across social media often backfires. Public declarations can create a premature sense of accomplishment, draining the motivation to do the actual work. So here's your beginning of the year move. Pick one meaningful goal, share it with one person, and ask them to check in with you every Friday with one question. Did you do what you promised? Simple, quiet, incredibly effective. The next one: track small wins daily. If you want to build unstoppable motivation this year, don't focus exclusively on the finish line. Focus on the next step. In her landmark book, The Progress Principle, Harvard's Teresa Amabile analyzed thousands of daily work diaries and found a striking pattern. People feel and perform their best on days when they experience small wins, tiny steps forward, even if they're modest or imperfect. It wasn't praise that kept people going. It wasn't perfection either. It was progress. Small wins generate progress loops. Progress creates positive emotion, which fuels more progress, which generates even more motivation. Trouble is, most of our work environments aren't built to let us see our progress. So we often overlook our progress and instead We focus on setbacks and frustrations. But here's how to fix that. Create your own progress ritual. At the end of each day this year, take 60 seconds and write down 3 ways you made progress. Doesn't matter how small. Sent an email you've been avoiding. Read 3 pages. Went for a walk instead of scrolling. You don't need to look at the list again. It's the act itself that matters. Trust me on this. I've been using this technique for a decade. So try this every day in January. By February, you'll have a ritual you'll keep for the rest of the year. Because once you see your daily wins, your momentum becomes very hard to stop. Master difficulty. Embrace discomfort, shape your environment, and count your wins. That's how you build a motivation system that lasts. Time for the last piece, because nobody sustains excellence alone. Act 4: Connect and Renew. Strengthen the forces that strengthen you. First idea in this section: build a challenge network. You know, everyone loves a compliment, but compliments don't improve your work. The real upgrades come from the people brave enough to tell you uncomfortable truths. So how can you design that into your life? Well, psychologist Adam Grant has a great idea. Build a challenge network, a small group of people who care about you enough to tell you when your work isn't good enough. In his research and corporate work, he's found that people who actively invite criticism from trusted peers learn faster and perform better than those who just collect praise. So don't just ask What'd you think? Ask something sharper. What's one thing I can do better? And make it a habit. Here's a simple way to do that in 2026. Create Feedback Fridays. Once a week, send one piece of work— a draft, a slide deck, an idea— to one person in your challenge network. Along with it, ask a single, focused question: What's one thing you'd change to make this better? You don't need a dozen critics. 2 or 3 honest, thoughtful challengers will keep your ego grounded, your learning curve steep, And your work getting better and better week after week. The next one, curate your circle. Your challenge network sharpens your work, but your broader circle, that shapes your life. And you need to be careful about that because you can end up absorbing the attitudes, habits, and energy of people you never consciously chose. Sociologist Nicholas Christakis, in his famous work on social contagion, found that emotions and behaviors spread through social networks up to To 3 degrees. Happiness spreads. Discipline spreads. So do their opposites: stress, indifference, bad habits. So heading into 2026, don't just let your circle happen. Curate it. And start with the role that we just discussed: your challenger. This is someone who won't let you coast. Someone who pushes your thinking and tells you the truth. Keep that person close. Then add 2 more. First, a cheerleader. Not a flatterer. Someone who genuinely believes in you and helps you recover on the days you'd otherwise quit. The second one? A coach. Someone who has already played the game you're trying to play. One or 2 steps ahead. Able to see the patterns you can't see. That's your trio. Challenger. Cheerleader. Coach. Not a crowd. Not a committee. A calibrated circle. Because energy is contagious. Ambition is contagious. Courage is contagious. So pick the people who push you forward. Next one. Create a to-don't list. We obsess over what to add to our lives. New goals. New habits. New tools. But one of the most powerful performance boosters isn't addition. It's subtraction. And yet research has shown we have a hard time thinking subtractively. Our brains want to solve problems by doing more, not by doing less. But we can overcome this cognitive bias with a to-don't list, a small list of things we should stop doing. So every quarter in 2026, ask yourself this one deceptively simple question: What's not worth my time? A recurring meeting that adds nothing? A committee you've outgrown? A project you're keeping alive out of habit, not purpose? Here's your January move. Pick one thing, just one, that you will stop doing for 90 days. Put it on your calendar as a to-don't and honor that commitment. When people stop doing low-value tasks, their productivity and well-being jump dramatically. Subtraction frees up time, attention, and emotional bandwidth in ways addition never can. You've already got a to-do list. This year, try a to-don't list. We're almost there. 2 more. Try micro Sabbaths. Earlier in this video, I told you to take a walk break. That's movement. That's creativity. A micro Sabbath is its calmer cousin. It's not about motion. It's about stillness. A micro Sabbath is a short, intentional pause where you stop feeding your brain inputs. No phone, no laptop, no scrolling, no stimulation. Just 10 or 15 minutes of nothing. Quiet. Nature. Breathing, or simply sitting in a chair without trying to achieve anything. And it's incredibly restorative. Research on attention restoration theory shows that even brief moments of quiet or gentle, natural attention lowers stress, restores cognitive capacity, and boosts creativity. It's the mental equivalent of clearing your cache. So this year, find a 30-day stretch and once a day, take a 15-minute micro Sabbath with zero agenda. Sit by a window, stare at a tree, lie on a couch, do absolutely nothing, and don't apologize for it. This isn't laziness, it's maintenance. Walks spark ideas. Micro-sabbaths restore your brain so you can actually use them. And our final idea for a great 2026: Send 26 thank-you notes. If you want a practice that strengthens your relationships, boosts your well-being, and keeps you grounded through the ups and downs of the year, here it is. Write more thank you notes. Psychologists Martin Seligman and Robert Emmons have both shown that expressing gratitude, especially in the form of written letters, produces a lasting boost in happiness, reduces stress, and deepens connection. In some studies, the positive effects last for weeks or even months. In one study, gratitude writers reported 25% more life satisfaction and even exercised more— about an hour and a half extra per week. Not bad for a In a few sentences. So the beauty of gratitude letters is their simplicity. They don't require grand gestures or poetic writing. They just require attention. Attention to the people who've helped you, supported you, taught you, challenged you, or somehow made your life a little better. So here's your 2026 challenge, one that's easy to remember: send 26 thank you notes this year, one every 2 weeks. Handwritten is best. Short is fine. Simple, clear, sincere, That's all you need. You'll brighten someone's day, strengthen a relationship, and without fail, lift your own mood. There you have it. 20 evidence-based ways to design your best year yet. Don't try to use all of them. Just pick 2 or 3 that really speak to you and give them a try. Because a better year isn't something you wait for. It's something you create.