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🙏🏽 2 Seconds to Help
2026 is here! I need your help to plan my content.
What’s the ONE area you’re truly focused on improving right now—not the thing you ‘should’ pick, but the one that’s actually taking up space in your mind?
Dear {{ first name | Legend}},
can you believe 2025 is almost over? Happy New Year! 🎉
It’s been a year of ups and downs, but as I sit here sipping my morning coffee, I’m very excited for what’s to come.
As the year wraps up, I reflect on what’s gone well, what not so well, and more importantly what I want to make happen in the new year ahead. I’m willing to bet that some of you are thinking the same.
What skills do I want to gain?
What habits do I want to develop?
I’ve always said I wanted to do “X”, maybe this is the time
You are motivated and you can’t wait to get going on some of these goals.
But what I’ve learned about human behavior is that motivation is not guaranteed nor is it reliable. The truth is we fall back to our default programming (>90% of the time) when we’re not consciously focused on our goals, so that means staying comfortable and taking the easy way out.
And our goals end up incomplete.
Heartset: You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems
“You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits is very clear on his message: if you don’t have systems built to help you attain your goals, you’ll probably fail to achieve them.
It’s that simple.
Mindset: Your brain is not built to help you thrive, it’s primary goal is to help you survive
Your goals are not your brain’s goals.
And so if you’re not outsmarting your brain, your behaviors will simply default to what it’s programmed to do: keep you alive.
If you’re intent on bettering yourself, getting after it in 2026, you’ll need to put together a system to help you. How?
Skillset: The Fresh Start Playbook
How to turn identity resets into real behavior change
1. Anchor Change to a Fresh Start Moment
What it is:
Fresh starts are temporal landmarks that psychologically separate your past self from your future self—making change feel possible instead of punishing.
How to apply it:
Do not say “I’ll start soon.”
Say when, and make that moment meaningful.
Use:
Mondays (weekly reset)
Birthdays (identity reset)
Start of a new season (Jan, start of the quarter)
New roles, quarters, or projects (status reset)
Post-failure moments (emotional reset)
Specific examples:
“Starting next January 1st, 2026, I’ll write one page every day”
“On my birthday this year, I’m meditating every morning.”
“This new quarter = a new standard for how I run meetings.”
Fresh starts work because they give your brain permission to stop defending the old story.
2. Bundle Change With Immediate Reward
What it is:
Pair a behavior you should do with something you want to do.
This converts effort into anticipation.
How to apply it:
Ask: What do I already crave that I can only access while doing the hard thing?
Specific examples:
Only listen to your favorite podcast while walking or working out
Only drink your favorite coffee while doing strategy or writing
Only check analytics after publishing content
You’re not increasing discipline.
You’re redesigning the dopamine loop.
(Protip: you can also do habit stacking, where you tag on a new habit to an existing one. For example, “Right after I make my morning coffee, I’ll meditate for 5 min”)
3. Remove Friction Ruthlessly
What it is:
Behavior fails more often due to small hassles than lack of motivation. (Remember, our brain wants to take the path of least resistance.)
Every extra step is a silent “no.”
How to apply it:
Make good behavior the default and bad behavior slightly annoying.
Specific examples:
Open your calendar to the exact time block where the habit happens
Layout your workout clothes before you plan to work out
Pre-write the first sentence of tomorrow’s email today
Put junk food on a high shelf; put fruit at eye level
Schedule the meeting before you feel ready
If a behavior requires motivation every time, it will not survive real life. So make the desired behavior the EASIEST thing to do.
4. Lock In Your Future Self With Commitment
What it is:
A commitment device creates consequences before your future self can negotiate.
How to apply it:
Add stakes that future-you cannot ignore.
Specific examples:
Publicly announce a deadline
Pre-schedule content or payments
Make a bet with a friend
Tie a financial penalty to inaction
This works because humans hate:
Losing money
Breaking promises
Looking inconsistent
Design consequences once so you don’t have to decide again. And make the pain of not doing the thing more than the gain. (Remember that we feel losses twice more than gains.)
Want to learn more? I highly recommend Katy’s book 👇🏽
If you like this, you’ll love:
Quit Letting Fear Hijack Your Life (The Threat Response Playbook)
How to Escape Your Autopilot Life and Train Your Brain for Greatness (5 strategies to escape autopilot)
How to Condition Your Mind for Peak Performance (A simple 4 minute system to show up confident and powerful every day)
Change behavior, change lives 🤘🏽
Howie Chan
Creator of Influence Anyone
Don’t miss:
The Influence Anyone Podcast
What if most of your decisions have nothing to do with logic and everything to do with a Stone Age brain?
In this episode, I sit down with Professor Doug Kenrick, one of the world’s leading evolutionary psychologists and former collaborator of Robert Cialdini, to unpack the hidden motives driving modern behavior.
We explore:
Why reason is often just a story we tell after the fact
How ancient survival motives still shape leadership, status, and influence
Why some influence tactics work brilliantly—and others backfire—depending on the “ancestral state” you activate
If you want to understand why people do what they do (including you) and how to work with human nature instead of fighting it—this conversation will fundamentally change how you see behavior.