Issue #9: When New Year's Resolutions Actually Work (And Why Most Don't)

Last Friday, I hosted a Twitter Space about New Year's resolutions. We went deep for over an hour, and the conversation kept circling back to one uncomfortable truth: most people who set resolutions aren't actually trying to change their behavior. They're trying to bypass the harder, more fundamental work of updating their identity.

This issue is my attempt to unpack what we discussed in that Space and give you the systematic breakdown of why some people's resolutions stick while most quietly die by February. If you want the raw, unfiltered conversation, you can listen to the full Space here. What follows is the structured playbook extracted from that discussion.

Here's what I've noticed after years of watching people (including myself) wrestle with New Year's resolutions:

The people who succeed don't have more willpower. They don't possess some magical discipline gene. What they have is a completely different relationship with the resolution itself.

Most people treat a resolution like a wish they're making to the universe. "I hope this year I'll finally go to the gym." "Maybe this is the year I start that business." "I should probably learn that skill."

The people who actually follow through treat their resolution like an engineering specification for a new version of themselves. They're not hoping. They're building.

Let me show you the difference.

When most people say "I want to go to the gym 5 times a week," what they're really saying is: "I want to be the type of person who goes to the gym 5 times a week, but I currently am not that person, and I have no plan for how to bridge that gap."

They set the goal. They might even go to the gym on January 2nd. And then something happens around January 15th. They wake up one morning and their brain runs its usual diagnostic:

Input: Alarm goes off at 5:30am for the gym.

Internal State: "I'm not really a gym person. I've never been consistent with fitness. This feels forced."

Processing: The brain does a quick credibility check. It scans your history. It finds zero evidence that you're a gym person. It finds mountains of evidence that you're someone who starts things and quits them.

Output: Hit snooze. Skip the gym. Feel guilty. Promise to go tomorrow.

This is the Human Machine Framework in action. You're not lazy. You're not broken. You're a highly complex, stateful information processing system, and your current internal state (your identity) is filtering the input (the alarm) and producing the only output that makes sense given your programming.

You're trying to run new software on old hardware.

Let me walk you through the exact mechanism that kills most resolutions. I call it the ESR Loop, and once you see it, you can't unsee it.

The loop works like this:

IDENTITY → ACTION → EVIDENCE → INTERPRETATION → STORY → REALITY

Your current identity dictates which actions feel natural and which feel forced. If your identity is "I'm not a gym person," then going to the gym doesn't feel like you. It feels like you're playing dress-up in someone else's life.

But let's say you push through. You force yourself to go. You do it for three days straight. Now you have new evidence: you went to the gym three times.

Here's where it gets tricky.

That evidence is neutral. It's just data. But you don't experience it as neutral data. You interpret it through the lens of your existing identity.

Your brain says: "Okay, we went to the gym three times. But that's not who we are. We're just trying this out. Let's see how long we can keep up this charade before we return to our normal programming."

The interpretation creates a story: "I'm someone who tries to work out but always quits." That story becomes your reality. You quit. The loop tightens.

This is why willpower alone doesn't work. You're not fighting the gym. You're fighting your own identity's immune system, which is designed to reject anything that doesn't match your current programming.

During the Space, someone asked me point blank: "So how do I actually change? If my identity is blocking me, what do I do?"

Great question. There are two breaking points in the ESR Loop, and understanding both of them is critical.

The first way to break the loop is at the interpretation stage.

Remember, the evidence itself is neutral. You went to the gym three times. That's a fact. But the meaning you assign to that fact is not fixed. You chose to interpret it as "I'm faking it" or "This won't last."

What if you interpreted it differently?

Same evidence: "I went to the gym three times this week."

New interpretation: "I'm someone who's learning to prioritize fitness. Three times is more than zero. That's progress."

See the shift? You're not rewriting the facts. You're rewriting the story you tell about the facts.

This is the awareness shift. It's powerful, but here's the limitation: interpretation alone is fragile. Without new evidence to support the new story, your brain will eventually revert to the old interpretation. The old story has years of supporting data. Your new story has three gym sessions.

That's why you need the second breaking point.

The second way to break the loop is at the action stage, and this is where the real work happens.

You need to take actions that are so small, so undeniable, that your brain can't dismiss them. Actions that generate evidence your old identity can't explain away.

This is the Micro-Payment Method, and it's how you engineer momentum when you feel stuck.

Here's how it works.

Most resolutions fail because the gap between your current reality and your desired future is too large. It creates what I call Desire Debt. Your brain sees the mountain of work required and defaults to avoidance.

You want to "write a book"? Your brain calculates: 50,000 words times unknown hours times high failure rate equals overwhelming psychological debt. It shuts down.

The Micro-Payment Method reframes the goal as a series of daily micro-actions that are so small they're almost embarrassing.

Instead of "write a book," the micro-payment is: "Write one sentence today."

Not a paragraph. Not a page. One sentence.

The goal is not to finish the book today. The goal is to pay the smallest possible installment on your Desire Debt and generate evidence that you're the type of person who writes.

Here's what happens when you do this consistently:

Day 1: You write one sentence. Your brain registers: "We wrote today."

Day 7: You've written seven sentences. Your brain starts to notice a pattern.

Day 30: You've written 30 sentences (or more, because once you start, you often keep going). Your brain updates the story: "We write daily. Maybe we are a writer."

The identity shifts not because you convinced yourself with affirmations, but because you generated undeniable evidence through repeated action.

You didn't think your way into a new identity. You acted your way in.

During the Space, someone asked a version of the question I get all the time: "How do I become more confident?"

My answer surprised them: You can't think your way into confidence. You have to act your way in.

Confidence is not a feeling you summon. It's a conclusion your brain draws after you've accumulated evidence of your capability.

Let me show you the ESR Loop in reverse:

Current Identity: "I'm not confident."

Current Actions: Avoid eye contact. Stay quiet in meetings. Don't share ideas publicly.

Current Evidence: "I didn't speak up. I avoided the interaction."

Current Interpretation: "See? I'm not confident. That's just who I am."

Current Story: "I'm the shy one. The quiet one. That's my role."

Current Reality: You live small.

Now let's engineer the opposite.

New Action: Make eye contact with one stranger today. Just one.

New Evidence: "I made eye contact and didn't look away."

Forced Interpretation: "Huh. I did that. Maybe I'm not as incapable as I thought."

New Story (after repetition): "I'm someone who's learning to show up more boldly."

New Reality: You start taking up space.

The key is making the action so small that you feel embarrassed if you had to explain why you didn't do it.

"I didn't make eye contact with one person today" sounds ridiculous. That's the point. It removes all excuses.

The action is identity-incongruent. It contradicts their current story about themselves. Do it once, and it's an anomaly. Do it daily for seven days, and it's evidence. Do it for 30 days, and it's an identity update.

I need to be honest with you about something. For most of my life, I set New Year's resolutions and failed at them just like everyone else. I'd write them down in a journal, feel motivated for a week, and then quietly let them die.

2023 was different. I achieved almost all of my resolutions that year. Not because I suddenly developed superhuman discipline, but because I changed the system.

Here's what I did differently:

1. I reviewed before I resolved

I spent time in late December 2022 auditing the entire year. I asked:

This wasn't a vague reflection. I went through my calendar, my projects, my finances, my health data. I treated it like a diagnostic process.

The resolutions I set for 2023 weren't wishes. They were informed hypotheses based on evidence from the previous year.

2. I made them public

I wrote down my goals and pinned them on X (Twitter). This sounds simple, but it changed everything.

Every single time I opened X (which, let's be honest, was dozens of times per day), I saw that pinned tweet. It was unavoidable. I couldn't quietly abandon the goals without publicly admitting failure.

But it wasn't just about fear of embarrassment. People commented on the tweet. They asked me how things were going. They shared their own goals. The visibility created accountability, but it also created community.

This is the Visibility multiplier in the Identity Multiplier Engine formula:

Identity growth = (Knowledge + Proof) × Visibility × Action

Notice that Visibility is a multiplier, not an add-on. Without it, your progress stays private. With it, your progress compounds. Others see what you're building. Opportunities emerge. Your public record becomes proof of work.

3. I applied the Micro-Payment Method without knowing I was doing it

I didn't have the language for it back then, but I was instinctively breaking down my big goals into daily micro-actions.

I wanted to get better at writing. My micro-payment: tweet one insight per day.

I wanted to build my technical skills. My micro-payment: solve one coding problem per day.

These actions were small enough that I couldn't make excuses. And because they were public, I had skin in the game.

4. I kept my goals visible

This seems obvious, but most people write their resolutions in a journal and never look at them again. Out of sight, out of mind, out of action.

My pinned tweet meant my goals were always top of mind. I couldn't scroll Twitter without being reminded of what I said I'd do.

If you want your resolution to stick, it needs to interrupt your current patterns. Place it where you can't ignore it. Phone wallpaper. Bathroom mirror. Daily calendar notification. Pinned post on the platform you check most.

One of the most interesting threads about this discussion was around accountability. Someone asked me: "Do you need external accountability, or can you do this alone?"

My answer: It depends on your current identity state.

If you're already the type of person who follows through on private commitments, you can probably do this alone. Your internal integrity system is strong enough.

But most people aren't there yet. Most people need external accountability to bridge the gap until their internal system catches up.

This is why building in public works. When you document your journey openly, you create multiple forms of accountability:

Social accountability: Others are watching. You don't want to quietly quit.

Proof-of-work accountability: Your public record becomes a portfolio. You can't fake consistency.

Community accountability: People start following your journey. They ask how it's going. They cheer you on. They notice when you disappear.

But here's the nuance: external accountability is a scaffold, not a permanent structure. The goal is to internalize it.

You start by needing others to hold you accountable. Over time, as you generate evidence of your capability, you update your identity. Eventually, you become the type of person who doesn't need external pressure because your internal integrity system is strong enough.

The resolution succeeds because you changed who you are, not just what you do.

Let me tell you about a mistake I see constantly.

Someone sets a resolution. They write it down in a beautiful journal. They feel great about it. They close the journal and put it on a shelf.

Three weeks later, they've completely forgotten about it.

This isn't a discipline problem. This is a systems problem.

Your resolution is competing with everything else in your life for your attention. If it's not strategically placed where you'll encounter it daily, it will lose.

Think about it this way: Your current habits and behaviors are deeply grooved neural pathways. They're automatic. You don't have to think about them.

Your resolution is trying to create a new pathway. But new pathways require conscious attention and repetition until they become automatic.

If your resolution isn't top of mind, you won't give it the conscious attention it needs to become a habit.

This is why my pinned tweet worked. It created unavoidable, daily exposure to my commitments.

Find the equivalent in your life. What do you check every single day without fail? Put your resolution there.

For some people, it's their phone lock screen. For others, it's their bathroom mirror. For others, it's a daily calendar reminder that pops up at the same time every day.

The more friction you remove between intention and action, the higher your success rate.

Let me give you a concrete example of how this works in practice.

Imagine you want to become more consistent with exercise, but your current identity is "I'm not athletic."

Here's the standard approach that fails:

Here's the identity engineering approach:

What happens?

Most people discover that once they do one push-up, they do three. Once they do three, they do ten. But that's not the point.

The point is that after seven days, your brain has evidence that you're someone who exercises daily. The identity starts to shift.

Now you can increase the micro-payment: two push-ups per day. Then five. Then add a sit-up. Then a plank.

Six months later, you're working out regularly. Not because you forced yourself through sheer willpower, but because you slowly, systematically updated your identity through small, consistent, identity-incongruent actions.

You didn't become a gym person overnight. You became someone who exercises daily, which eventually made going to the gym feel natural instead of forced.

If you want your 2026 resolutions to stick, here's the systematic approach:

Step 1: Audit Before You Resolve

Don't just write down what you want. First, understand what worked and what didn't in 2025.

Ask yourself:

Use evidence, not wishes. Be brutally honest.

Step 2: Frame It As an Identity Update

Don't ask: "What do I want to achieve?"

Ask: "Who do I need to become to make this inevitable?"

If your goal is to build a business, the question isn't "How do I build a business?" It's "How do I become the type of person who builds businesses?"

The action flows from the identity, not the other way around.

Step 3: Make It Public

Share your resolution where you'll see it daily and where others can hold you accountable.

This could be:

The visibility creates both pressure and support.

Step 4: Apply the Micro-Payment Method

Break the overwhelming goal into the smallest daily action you can take.

The micro-payment should be:

Examples:

Step 5: Take Identity-Incongruent Actions

Identify actions that contradict your current story about yourself, and do them repeatedly until the evidence forces your brain to update the story.

If you think you're "not a creative person," create something small every day for 30 days.

If you think you're "not good with people," have one meaningful conversation per day for 30 days.

If you think you're "not technical," build one tiny thing per day for 30 days.

The actions don't have to be big. They just have to be undeniable.

Step 6: Review Weekly

Every Sunday, ask:

This isn't about judgment. It's about data collection. You're running an experiment on yourself.

Here's the part that most productivity content leaves out:

Even with all of this, you will still have days where you don't feel like doing it. Days where the micro-payment feels impossible. Days where you want to quit.

That's not a bug. That's part of the process.

The difference between people who succeed and people who quit is not that successful people never struggle. It's that they've built a system that makes it harder to quit than to continue.

When your resolution is public, quitting means admitting failure.

When your micro-payment is small, skipping it means you have no excuse.

When you've generated 30 days of evidence, breaking the streak feels like a loss.

The system creates the conditions for success. But you still have to show up.

That's the work.

Most people set resolutions by asking: "What do I want to achieve this year?"

That's the wrong question.

The right question is: "Who do I need to become to make this year's goals inevitable?"

Because here's the truth nobody wants to hear:

You don't need more discipline. You don't need more willpower. You don't need another motivational video.

You need a better operating system.

Your current identity is running version 1.0 software. Your resolution requires version 2.0.

The gap between those versions is bridged through systematic identity engineering: small actions, repeated consistently, generating undeniable evidence that forces your brain to update its story about who you are.

This isn't motivational advice. This is the mechanics of change.

The question is: Are you willing to do the engineering work?

P.S. If you want to hear the unfiltered, real-time conversation that inspired this issue, listen to last Friday's Twitter Space here. We went deep on all of this and more. And if you want to join the next one, follow me on X (@ehoneahobed) where I announce upcoming Spaces. The conversations are always worth your time.

P.P.S. Where are you running version 1.0 software while trying to execute version 2.0 goals? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.