.svg)
Stop me if you know this feeling:
It is January 17th.
The "New Year, New Me" energy has worn off.
Your alarm goes off at 5:00 AM - because that’s what Successful People™ do. Your body physically rebels. You hit snooze. You skip the kale smoothie.
By 10:00 AM, you’ve decided you’re a failure. Again.
We have a name for this phenomenon. It’s called Planning for the Fantasy Self.
The Fantasy Self is the version of you that runs on 100% battery, has zero distractions, loves the taste of raw spinach, and never gets tired. It’s a nice idea. But it’s not real.
The real you is messy. The real you gets tired at 3 PM. The real you has kids, or ADHD, or a night-owl circadian rhythm.
The problem is not your discipline. The problem is that you are trying to force a square peg into a round hole and then blaming the peg for breaking.
This year, we’re killing the concept of "New Year, New Me." It implies the current you is broken. It treats your life like a demolition project instead of a renovation.
Instead, we are adopting a new philosophy: New Year, More Me. Below is a blueprint for designing a life and habits that truly stick because they work with you, not against you.
Here is the mistake many of us make: we try to 'install' a complex habit immediately without breaking it down into its components and installing each part separately. We say:
"I’m going to run 15km, cook three organic meals from scratch, wake up at 6am and read 50 pages every day starting Monday."
- everyone, every year, on Dec 31st
This is guaranteed failure.
Why? Because your brain is designed for behavior automation, but any kind of automation requires a manual learning phase.
When a kid learns to ride a bike, you don’t put them on a professional racing cycle and push them down a hill. They’d crash.
You give them a Kid Bike. You give them training wheels. You let them pedal slowly, manually, clumsily. At first, it’s 100% manual. Left foot, right foot, steer, look up, don’t crash. It consumes all of their processing power.
Eventually, a "click" happens. The brain takes the manual process and turns it into a habit (your brain’s version of "AI automation", if you will). Suddenly, they're not thinking about pedaling anymore; they're just riding.
Most of you are trying to "Brain Automate" habits you haven't taken the time to manually learn and install yet. You’re trying to ride the Tour de France before you’ve taken off the training wheels.
The Fix: Give yourself the Kid Bike.
Want to wake up earlier? Don't aim for 5 AM. Aim for 15 minutes earlier than usual. Then add 5 mins to that every day.
Want to cook? Don't master French cuisine. Master one good breakfast recipe. Cook it until you don't think about the ingredients or preparation of it. Only then add a second recipe.
Let your brain automate the small processes before you add any complexity.
We love to plan our habits for our best days. The days when we feel manic motivation.
But habits don't die on your best days. They die on your worst days.
You need to design systems for your "Schmegular Life" - your average, mundane, 40%-energy-level reality.
Objective data is your friend here. Stop guessing who you are. Record yourself working. Look at your actual sleep data. If you know you crash at 7 PM, don't schedule your workout for 7:30 PM. That’s just self-sabotage wrapped in ambition.
If the "Kid Bike" is the vehicle, Habit Bundling is the fuel.
We often try to use willpower to force ourselves to do things we hate. But willpower is finite. Dopamine, however, is a daily renewable resource.
The trick is to link a "chore" habit with a "reward" activity. For example:
When you create a rule where you only do the things you find hard to do "bundled" with things you absolutely LOVE to do, you suddenly stop going for a walk "to be healthy." You go for a walk so you can listen to the podcast.
The walk becomes effortless because your brain is focused on the reward, not the friction.
And that is sustainable.
If you want to change your life this year, stop trying to become a new person.
Lean into who you actually are.
You are not a project to be fixed. You are a human to be understood, including by yourself.
The goal isn't to become a different person. The goal is to be the most efficient, effective version of the person you already are.
Trust yourself. Lower the bar. Get on the Kid Bike. And watch how far you can actually go.
Rooting for the real you,
Hanna from Pulse
---
The philosophy of "More Me" is the core of Pulse Wrld, currently operating in Tallinn, Estonia. We don’t believe in "New Year, New Me" - only in truly authentic connections between ourselves and others. Try showing up as your Real Self, you might be in for a pleasant surprise.
