With Summer just around the corner and the new year approaching, I’m pretty sure that if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already begun the journey of becoming extraordinary in 2025 and now you’re looking to take it even further in 2026.
Over the last few years of self-development, growth, and conquering many of my own fears, one truth has become obvious to me, you can’t become someone new without first being honest about who you currently are.
And it’s this idea, the relationship between identity, growth, humility, and who we’re becoming, that I’ve had to come back to time and time again. In fact, there’s one piece of literature that I like to keep front of mind single day for this reason.
It’s a verse from the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, Romans 12:3…
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
In other words, you cannot rise to a level you refuse to evaluate honestly.
And that’s why today, I want to share some of the biggest lessons that have shaped how I think, act, and pursue the person I want to become. Not because I’ve mastered them, hahaha, not even close, but because I revisit them constantly. It’s why I read, write, coach, reflect, and why you can trust me as your coach and Chief Experience Officer at VSC.
So today I write this blog so that we may make 2026 the year you become unshakeable and unbreakable. Not through hype and just sheer uplifting speech… but through understanding your biology, your psychology, and your patterns in a way you never have before.
So, let’s get started!
The first step to becoming who you dream to be is recognising who it is you dream to be, and what does that mean!
Maybe 2025 was the year you finally started training consistently.
Maybe you levelled up your nutrition.
Maybe you returned to the gym after a long layoff.
That’s incredible, but the next step is unfortunately even harder… holding the course!
Staying on the path long enough to change who you are, not just what you do. Because the truth is… Your body gets tired before your identity changes. We think growth is linear. But unfortunately, it most definitely isn’t. And some days we just ‘can’t even’ anymore, and if we let that poor self-talk win it is a recipe for complete derailment and our own fall from grace.
We see it time again, and unfortunately every positive behaviour you make, every meal tracked, every class attended, every day you choose the harder path moves you forward.
A positive habit might move you forward by 1%… but a negative habit can set you back 3–5% because it reinforces the identity you’re trying to escape.
Charles Poliquin once wrote a brilliant article called “The Myth of Discipline.”
And His argument was simple,
You don’t need more discipline.
You need fewer conflicting commitments, and better habits.
If you’re tired, stressed, under-recovered, distracted, or overwhelmed…
if your environment is working against you…
if your schedule is chaos…
discipline doesn’t stand a chance!
Success isn’t about forcing yourself to do the hard thing!
It’s about making it harder NOT to do the hard thing.
That’s structure.
That’s environment.
That’s clarity.
When life is set up correctly, willpower becomes irrelevant. And I would add that if we keep our eyes on the version of ourself we truly want to become, instead of looking the other way at the obstacles in our way, and the simple path of turning back to who we were, then it really is true, discipline isn’t what we need, new habits and the ability to push toward who we wish to become is the true super power.
Joe Dispenza puts it even more bluntly…
“Your personality creates your personal reality.”
If you want a different life, you need a different identity!
But the truth really is that your brain loves familiarity more than it loves success.
It will sabotage change if that change threatens who you currently believe you are.
This is why people say things like:
- “I’m just not a morning person.”
- “I’ve always struggled with getting up.”
- “I’m not disciplined enough.”
- “I can’t stick to things. I haven’t found what’s right for me”
- “That’s just who I am. I like change”
That’s not identity.
That’s conditioning.
Dispenza teaches that your thoughts create emotions… your emotions create actions… your actions create habits… and your habits eventually hard wire into your personality.
To become the person you dream of being, you must interrupt this loop long enough to create a new one. And I hate to say it (actually no I don’t) if you truly want success in anything in life you must not let emotions in, and look past the present, and see what decisions you make right now will have on the future!
Andrew Huberman, in his series of podcasts and online, has discussed research that reveals something game changing. That we can train ourselves to reenforce new, more positive habits, or worse, negative habits, every time we make a decision through an area in the brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex or the aMCC (which I have spoken about in previous blogs myself) and this is because the aMCC is the area of the brain responsible for:
- persistence
- staying with hard things
- effort output
- following through
- resisting impulses
- choosing long-term rewards over short-term comfort
The aMCC grows stronger the more you put yourself in situations that require effort… Every time you choose the harder option such as not snoozing the alarm, not skipping the workout, not eating the quick snack, not backing off when things get uncomfortable!You literally grow the part of your brain that makes follow-through feel natural instead of forced.
However, the aMCC is also responsible for the reverse. If you choose to snooze, skip workouts, eat those snacks, and back off when things are uncomfortable, you will strength your ability to make those kinds of decisions.
This isn’t mindset. This is mechanics. This is biology responding to your behaviour.
Every time you make a decision you are physically reshaping the brain of the person you are becoming, to either do more of the things you want to do, or more of the things you said you wanted to stop doing!
Put simply; the old you is built through repetition. The new you is built the exact same way.
And that brings us too our final point that come from James Allen and his book ‘As a Man Thinketh’.
Over 120 years ago, James Allen wrote,
“You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
Allen didn’t have Huberman’s neuroscience or Poliquin’s thoughts on discipline or Dispenza’s brain scans.
But he clearly understood something timeless!
Your thoughts become your outcomes.
Your outcomes become your identity.
Your identity becomes your destiny.
What you think repeatedly… you become eventually!
So, the question is, ‘How Do You Actually Change Your Life in 2026?’
Well after many years of research, reading and self-application of what I am writing about, here is the step-by-step guide for you to use leading into 2026…
Step 1. Evaluate yourself honestly.
Drop the ego and think past the present moment! Think past comfort and what you already know! And start to think about how what you do now will eventually affect your future. And never think you are not in a place to grow, learn or fail that will in turn make you better, and closer to where you want to be!
Drop the excuses. And do the things you need to do to become who you aspire to be, rather than keep doing the things you are doing and staying where you are. Unless you truly are happy there?
Step 2. Remove conflicting commitments
Make the hard thing the default option. Let your habits dictate your decisions and avoid your decisions dictating your habits.
Step 3. Create an identity worth leaning into
Choose who you want to be and behave as them, not as the old you!
Step 4. Train the aMCC daily
Do something uncomfortable every day. Choosing the habits that move you forward as much as possible! Reps build resilience. But remember reps also build more reenforced excuses.
Step 5. Protect the small wins
Aim for 1% better every day.
Small positive actions compound.
Small negative actions cannibalise progress.
The Goal for 2026 is not to bring in hustle culture.
It is not to be perfect.
Not to be superhuman.
Not to create a “New You” that is so extreme you aren’t you anymore.
The goal is to break the habit of being the ordinary you, you were before you started this pursuit and to become the extraordinary you, you aspire to be by design, not accident.
If you do this right, lean into discomfort, choose the harder path, reinforce the identity you want, and remember you can train habits through decisions just like you can train muscles in the gym, then 2026 won’t just be more productive for you. It will be the year you finally become the person you’ve always known you could be. And you will have the desire and drive to keep getting up, training your aMCC, getting after it, and become extraordinary!