Why do 80 to 90% of new year's resolutions fail by February?
It's not because you lack willpower.
“It's because you're trying to build a mansion on a rotting foundation.”
So if you're hearing this right now, we are in April of 2026. And maybe all that new year, new me motivation is gone. And now you're just waiting for that perfect time to start that new habit or build a life that you truly want.
Well, I'm sorry to tell you, but that perfect time is never coming.
But in this episode of Something For Everybody, my aim is to help you change your life right here right now. Hello, my friend. Before we jump straight into the episode, I would love to share the sponsors of this podcast.
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businesses that I'm involved in, please go to errandmashbits.com and sign up for our weekly newsletter. Thank you. Now onto the episode completely uninterrupted and ad-free here we go. So the core problem that we're going to look at and think about is most people focus on actions, what they do, of course, actions matter a lot.
But the first order thinking is your identity. So most people focus on the actions of what they do rather than the identity of who they are. You have to fix the identity before you can go into the actions of what you're actually doing. Because if you see yourself as a smoker trying to quit, you will eventually smoke. But if you see yourself as a non-smoker, the habit falls away naturally.
That's just one example about identity and how you perceive and how you see yourself also potentially identity is called self-image. But we're going to focus on that word identity today to really help you try and change your life right here right now. So what is this one day fix? Can you actually change your entire life or
fix your entire life in one day? Well, here's what is actually true. You don't fix your life in a
year by grinding for 365 days. You fix it in one day by making a psychological pattern break that dictates the next 365 days. So yes, technically you can fix your entire life in one day by fixing your identity. But again, that is a process based on certain things and action items we're going to talk about. But there is an anatomy of identity. Now, when we think about identity, I think about the word identity as repeated beingness. So who are you being on a consistent basis
“and your identity is shaped by many, many things. That's why there is an anatomy of your identity.”
And that's why you might repeat the same behaviors or repeat the same habits or fall short of your New Year's resolutions over and over and over again and you try to implement more willpower and you try to do different tasks and action items. But you're not fixing the underlying foundation. So it's not your lack of willpower. It's not you. You're not the problem. It's not a character flaw. It is a design problem. It is a pattern problem that we can break and fix and alter
by looking at our identity by looking at the foundation. And then we can move into the actions and the habits and the daily patterns that excuse me, they're actually going to alter and change our life. They're actually going to lead us down the life that we actually want. If you want to exercise more, stop smoking or stop drinking or find a partner or whatever the case may be, those are the actions, those are the targets, those are the goals. But the underlying foundation
has to be the identity. Because we're in this sort of survival loop, right? As children, we do adopt the beliefs of our parents and society to survive. Everyone does that.
We have to do that to survive.
questioning them. No matter how good your parents were or what your upbringing was or how bad it was, we carry all of these scripts into adulthood. Most of the time without ever questioning them and then get really mad and judge ourselves and shame ourselves when we can't reach that goal or reach that habit or build the life that we truly want. And we just try harder and try harder and try
harder and never works because we're not addressing the scripts or the patterns or ultimately
the identity that we've had our whole lives. And that's really what we need to do because we have a sense of identity protection. Your brain treats a threat to your beliefs the same way it treats a physical predator. This is why you get angry when challenged or why you protect your current often miserable lifestyle because it feels safe because it's known. That is really important to understand. So again, it's not a lack of willpower. It's not a character default. It is an identity
“self-image issue that we can fix. That's why some people say you can fix your entire life in one day”
by really addressing the identity piece. And then you have the rest of the year or whatever time horizon you give yourself to add in those new habits and daily actions. And that's what you do
because you've already fixed kind of quote unquote who you are. Not yeah. So then we move on to
like the real goal. What is the real goal? It's like all behavior is goal oriented or target oriented. Even procrastination is a goal. The goal of protecting yourself from judgment or failure, right? You're procrastinating because you don't want to do the thing because if you put the thing out into the world, you might get judged. There might be failure. You might fall down, right? That's so procrastination is a goal or a target because it's protecting you from something.
So everything all behavior is goal oriented. And so to change to change the way you think about goals and orientate your life in the world, you must change your unconscious goals. That again is
“linked to your identity. So really you understand the point here. The foundation is your”
identity. Again, how do we define identity? It is your repeated beingness. Who are you being on a consistent basis? Kind of unconsciously making those decisions for you, which could be good for you bad for you or you're protecting your miserable life because it's known or you're trying to build a new life but don't know how it's all based on how you see yourself and how you see the world and what stories you tell yourself about your childhood or all these types of things
that sort of create the person you see in front of you now and you can actually fix your entire life if you start to dig deeper into your identity and how you show up and we're going to get into and a little bit to some action items that you can go through that you can apply to your life to start thinking about this in a different way. So you can't actually change your entire life. So you don't need to rely on this sort of new year, new me motivation or sort of milestone
motivation or the perfect time. You can do it right here right now after watching or listening to this episode. You can fix your life and then you can come back to me in 12 months and say,
“man, my life is so much different because I actually went back into the roots into the foundation,”
change those fundamentals, change that foundation and then I applied the signs of habit change. Then I applied the signs of goals and targets and then man, everything just changed for me because I started to see myself in a different way. I started to see myself as a person who can install new habits. I started to see myself as a person who is capable of these things because I fixed and altered my identity and a more positive uplifting courageous and capable way.
And so one way to start thinking about that is this anti-vision strategy. So there is a problem with positive thinking, right? It's just like imagining a dream life often lacks like sort of this
gravitational pull needed to change. And like there is no thing in life that's like always positive
all the time. Like and there's no reason sometimes to force positivity. Like I think it's really important to be optimistic, but optimistic is the foundation of mental toughness because optimism is the fundamental belief that things will work out for the best, but through the appropriate effort, energy, attention and focus and all great athletes, all great teams, all great businesses are optimistic, which means they're mentally tough. And so that's like the version of positive thinking
that I want to have. But we also have to be very realistic about our current situation. It's like awareness, acceptance, and action. Acceptance part is like where are you at right now? We can't lie to ourselves and say everything is perfect all the time because we're kind of comfortable with being a little bit miserable. No, we have to say this sucks. I want a better different life. I want a better relationship. I want a better job. I want a better something. And I'm accepting the fact
this is my starting point. But I know if I look at my identity and then move into actions, I can actually change my life. But I'm going to be optimistic about it, knowing that it could
Work out.
optimism into my life through this foundation of mental toughness. So it's not just like
positive thinking. I'm going to visualize it. I'm going to imagine my dream life and it's all going to happen. Again, again, that sort of positive thinking only kind of lacks that gravitational pull. And it also lacks like the actual concrete steps that you actually need to take to change your life in a matter of whatever the time frame is. And so outside of the positive thinking, we have the sort of power of negative space. It is much easier to know what you don't want. And so
some experts suggest starting with what's called an anti-vision. Because again, it might be much easier for you to know what you don't want. And so to know what you don't want to eliminate those things, can then it leaves more space to figure out what you do actually want. Because you
“look at like the most important piece of target setting or goal setting is clarity. And the”
only way to get clarity on what you really want is to ask yourself what to really want. And maybe it becomes easier to answer that question if you know exactly what you don't want. And so this is
where the sort of first exercise comes in a place of like the anti-vision. So here's the exercise.
Right? Describe your anti-tuesday. The version of your life in five years, if you change nothing, the anti-tuesday. The version of your life in five years, if you change nothing, the physical health you fear, the debt you hate, the stagnation that scares you, nothing changes what is your arandum Tuesday like in five years, if nothing changes. That is the anti-vision. That is the anti-vision. So you're using that sort of pain of that as fuel.
You're using that sort of life you hate because you mildly hate your life right now. But in five years, if nothing changes, you will absolutely be miserable and hate your life even more. So you're
using that as you're using that pain as fuel. You're using a life you hate as a sort of launch pad
as this activation energy to propel you towards the life you actually want and can build and are capable of building. We just need a different set of tools and identity and potentially motivation to get us going in that direction. And so here comes the sort of the day one protocol, the actual action steps and part one of this is the morning audit. So you've got to set aside at least one day
“and write down 15 to 20 questions about your current life. Because if you want to change anything”
again, you need awareness, acceptance, action. This is the awareness piece like you have to figure out your life in this current state. Why do I do this? What's my conditioning here? Where do this come from? Why do I tell myself this story? What's my identity about this? Where are you trading your aliveness for safety? What are you avoiding? What do you not doing? What do you need to come front? What identity needs to change around this around that? What habits do I want to install?
What does my life look like? Why am I miserable here? Why can I ask yourself 15 to 20 intense questions about your life? Reflect honestly, awareness, acceptance, action. There has to be rooted in realness. There's has to be rooted in honesty. That's part one. And then we go to part two, which is like pattern interruptions. Right. So throughout this like kind of fix it day, set alarms on your phone for 11 a.m. 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. with the questions.
Am I moving toward the life I hate or the life I want right now? So you're interrupting your day at 11 a.m. 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. by simply asking yourself a question. Am I moving toward the life I hate or the life I want right now in this moment? That is a pattern interruption and your pattern interruptions create a new identity, which is your repeated beingness and your repeated beingness, then creates a new self image or a new way of how you actually see yourself,
which actually can lead you to actually installing that habit that you believe will change your life.
“And I believe that to be very, very true. And then part three of this process is the vision”
MVP. Create a minimum viable vision. Don't worry about a 10 year plan. Don't worry about mapping everything out perfectly. But what does a good a good Tuesday? Right. We talked about the anti-vision, you know, five years from now. Nothing changes. What does a Tuesday look like? Right. And so what's the opposite of that is like creating this minimum viable vision. So what does a good Tuesday look like three years from now? What would that person believe about themselves? How would that person act?
How would that person show up? So you're doing this sort of minimal, you know, of what's the thing in business, the viable product or something like that? Whatever that phrasing is. I don't know. No, not my area. But that comes off of that in this idea of this minimum viable vision. What does a good Tuesday look like in three years? From right now, because you did the anti-vision,
That's the life you don't want.
you do want. What would that person believe about themselves? How would that person act? How would that person show up in the world? How is that person's identity? What does that
“person's self-image look like? These are an important questions to ask yourself to reflect,”
to understand, and then to move into action. And so essentially with all this stuff, you're trying to gamify the process, right? You're really turning your life into a video game. It's like the
gamification of progress. So because you want to stay consistent and consistency is the most important
thing, to stay consistent, you actually need a hierarchy of goals or hierarchy of targets, right? So the vision is like this long term kind of boss level. That's the vision. And then you have a one year lens. This is like your first major quest, your first major milestone. And then even maybe more importantly than that is these daily levers, these daily actions, these daily habits is the two to three small tasks that kind of level you level you up and level your character
up every single day. These daily level daily levers and daily actions are what's actually going to alter and change your identity over time. So you actually meet that one year plan or you meet that long long term vision, right? Because again, identity is repeated being this, who are you
being on a consistent basis? We can change that because our identity was learned through pattern,
through patterns, through habits, through scripts that we were told. So why can't we go and change it? Why can't we change our self-image and change our habits and change our identity and change
“how we see ourselves. We absolutely can't. That's what we've been discussing for the last”
15 minutes and how you can actually change your entire life. Maybe not one day but you can't actually change your entire life by altering the foundation on which you see the world, which is your identity. And so you have that, you have a vision, you have one year plan. But most importantly, you have those daily levers and daily actions, right? Those two to three small tasks that kind of level you up and level your character up daily. So you start to have these receipts about the
person you're becoming and the more receipts you have, the more evidence you have, the more likely you are to commit to this person because you're now you're doing what you say you're going to do and that's actually the mark of someone who has high integrity and high confidence, which is also an important part of shaping our identity. And so sort of wrap us up here, right? It's very important to understand. Is that happiness isn't found at the finish line? It's found in the progress of
becoming the person who belongs at the finish line. So stop trying to do things and start being the person who does them throughout this entire episode. I said, identity is repeated beingness. And this closing thought shapes that up and sums that up perfectly. Again, I'm going to say it one more time. Happiness isn't found at the finish line. It's found in the progress of becoming the person who belongs at the finish line. Stop trying to do things and start being the person who does
them. Very important. And then the last bit before I go, I want to re-go over the action items
because that's most important. You can watch this episode. You can listen to this episode. Great.
But if you don't actually apply things right here right now, things are never going to change. So apply these things to your life two day to actually change your life. One, right? Your anti-vision. Spend 10 minutes tonight, today, whenever writing down exactly what your life will look like in five years, if you stay exactly as you are, make it vivid and extremely uncomfortable. Then define the daily lever or daily action. Pick one action that the future you would do naturally.
Whether that's drinking water, getting 10,000 steps, lifting weights, whatever it is and do it today without overthinking it. That's the second action item and the third action item is the identity statement. Replace I'm trying to, whatever goal you insert, I'm trying to with. I am the type of person blank. So let's say it's walk 10,000 steps today. So the identity statement would be, I'm trying to walk 10,000 steps a day. No, a race that replaced that with.
I am the type of person who walks 10,000 steps a day. That's your identity statement. That's
“your repeated beingness and those are your three action items that you need to apply right now”
if you actually want to change your life. So thank you very much for tuning into another episode of something for everybody. Again, my name is Aaron Nashbits. If you found this episode valuable at all, please share it with a friend, whether you're watching, listening, doesn't matter, share it with a friend. I tell the podcast grows. I appreciate you very much. And if you want to support the podcast, follow, subscribe, like wherever you are. But you can also join our exclusive
community over on Patreon. So cheers and take good care of yourselves. Much love.
