Meta Description: Discover Chris Williamson’s proven framework for setting New Year’s resolutions that stick. Learn why 91% fail and how to be in the 9% who succeed with this complete annual review guide.

Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail (And How to Fix Yours)

The statistics are brutal: 23% of people quit their New Year’s resolutions by the end of the first week. By January’s end, roughly half have abandoned their goals entirely. Only 9% maintain their resolutions for the full year.

But according to Chris Williamson, one of the world’s leading podcast hosts, this time between Christmas and New Year remains invaluable—if you approach it correctly.

“There is no special magic super secret squirrel source in January 1st. But it is a good moment to check in because life tends to slow down a little bit.”

The Single Best Question for Planning 2026

“What would have to happen by the end of 2026 for me to look back and consider it a success?”

This powerful question, recommended by Williamson, typically reveals only a few genuine priorities—not the overwhelming laundry list most people create.

“I think that really helps to just give you a bit more perspective and it usually comes down to only a few things. You don’t usually have so much in your mind when you do that.”

The Fatal Mistake: Addition Without Subtraction

The first rule of goal-setting: In order to pick something up, you have to put something down.

Think of your capacity like a buffet plate. You can’t assume your stomach will expand infinitely just because you pile on more food. Similarly, don’t assume you can simply add new habits and goals without removing something from your current workload.

“Setting the bar unrealistically high does not increase your performance. You can probably lose 20 pounds and get a boyfriend. You can’t do that AND move cities AND start a new business.”

“Don’t assume that just because you’ve loaded more onto your workload plate, your work capacity will expand to be able to fit it into your stomach. That’s not the way that it works.”

Three Critical Questions for Self-Reflection

1. The Movie Screen Test

“If your life was a movie and the audience were watching, what would they be screaming at the screen telling you to do?”

Leave the relationship
Quit the job that’s draining you
Have that difficult conversation
Start that business

“It is obvious. Leave the relationship. The job is not working for you. The killer’s hiding in the cupboard.”

The answer is usually obvious—we just avoid confronting it.

2. The 85-Year-Old You Question

“How would I spend my day if I wanted to make 85-year-old me as miserable as possible?”

Examine your current behaviors:

Excessive phone use
Unproductive mornings
Isolation when things get difficult
Not advocating for your needs
Poor boundary-setting

“What would I do to make 85-year-old me as miserable as possible? How would I spend my day? And in what ways am I already doing that? Well, a lot of those are going to cross over. That Venn diagram is not going to be as far apart as you might think it is.”

Now compare this to what you’re already doing. The overlap reveals your starting point for change.

3. What Thoughts Did You Repeat Too Many Times?

“What are some of the thoughts that you repeated too many times this year? What are the things that came up over and over? That little voice in the back of your head, that conversation that you need to have?”

Identify the recurring mental loops that plagued you this year. These repetitive thoughts reveal:

Conversations you need to have
Emotions you’re unprepared to feel
Changes you’re avoiding

The Deferred Life Hypothesis: Why You’ll Never “Arrive”

Stop waiting for life to begin. The deferred life hypothesis describes the dangerous belief that “my life will begin when…”

When I get the promotion
When I lose the weight
When I meet the right person
When I have more money

The harsh truth: There will never be a time when you have no problems. Problems are a feature of life, not a bug.

“What if your problems in life are never ever going to go away? What if problems are always going to be there? What then? Oh wow. Well, I’m never going to arrive. That means I need to start living now.”

“Deferred life hypothesis is basically the sort of common belief that our life hasn’t yet begun. That what’s happening now is a sort of prelude. It’s an intro to our life truly beginning. And upon reflection, what a lot of people realize is that this prelude that they run through was a mirage that sort of faded as they approached and they were actually just running toward the end of their life.”

The Unteachable Lessons of Success

Some lessons can only be learned through experience:

Money won’t fix your happiness problem
Fame won’t fix your self-worth
You should see your parents more
Time in a hammock is never wasted
External accolades don’t fill internal voids

“You try and tell people that money won’t fix your happiness problem or fame won’t fix your self-worth problem. You should see your parents more. Time in a hammock is never wasted. You don’t love that pretty girl. She’s just hot and difficult to get. Like all of these things are only lessons that you can learn once you’ve got there.”

“It takes a long time to realize that you don’t fix internal voids with external accolades. The problem with that is it’s an unteachable lesson.”

As Naval Ravikant says: “It’s far easier to achieve our material desires than to renounce them.”

Hidden vs. Observable Metrics of Success

We constantly trade hidden metrics (peace, time with family, health) for observable metrics (salary, job title, possessions).

“A lot of the time we’ll trade a hidden metric for an observable metric. Something that’s observable would be your job title, what your salary is per year, how many people know you, your bank balance, the size of your house, the car that you drive, things people can see.”

Examples of Hidden Costs:

Longer commute for higher salary:

Hidden metric lost: Time with family, reduced stress, pursuit of passions
Observable metric gained: Bigger paycheck

“One of the problems that you encounter with that is that the length of your commute is one of the most correlated stats with your happiness. Longer commutes reliably make people more miserable.”

More stressful career:

Hidden metric lost: Peace of mind, sleep quality, weekend presence
Observable metric gained: Better title, more money

“What about the peace of mind that you have as you go to sleep at night? What about what that does to your health and the quality of your relationships and your ability to be present on a weekend? Because you’re not able to turn your phone off because your last job was 9 to 5, but this one is 24/7.”

The Mexican Fisherman Parable illustrates this perfectly: An American businessman tells a Mexican fisherman to expand his fishing operation, work harder, build a business—so he can eventually retire and… fish a little each morning and spend afternoons with his family. Exactly what he’s already doing.

“So well then you would be able to retire and fish a little on a morning, catch some fish, and then spend the afternoon with your family.”

The Annual Review Template: Your Roadmap to Success

Download Chris Williamson’s free annual review template at chriswillex.com/re

Key Sections Include:

Reflection:

How has this year gone?
What went well and why?
What went badly and why?
What lessons did I learn?
What habit or system accounted for most of my success?

Memories:

Best surprise
Best meal
Coolest new experience
Favorite new city/friend
Most intense day

Planning:

What would make 85-year-old me miserable?
What makes my day go great?
What do I think is productive that isn’t?
What IS productive that I don’t realize?

Final Thoughts:

What would have to happen by end of 2026 for success?
Who do I need to become?
Knowing what I know now, what advice would I give myself 12 months ago?

“Without a structure, you’re just like cast out adrift, freewheeling everywhere, and you have no idea what to do.”

Highest ROI New Year’s Resolutions

1. No Phone in the Bedroom (15% Quality of Life Increase)

Why it works:

Prevents starting your day in reactive mode
Eliminates pre-sleep scrolling
Improves sleep quality
Increases morning productivity
Forces more meaningful evening activities

“It’s an instant 15% quality of life increase. Because when you start your day, if you use your phone as your alarm, you roll over, you turn the alarm off, and immediately you’re looking at your phone. You haven’t got up, you haven’t got moving, you’re not hydrated, you’re not seeing sunlight in your eyes, you are hit in the face by the world telling you what’s happening as opposed to you having a tiny little microcosm of peace, this little oasis for you.”

The hard truth: Who you truly are is revealed by the YouTube videos you watch between 10 PM and midnight when you can’t sleep.

“That’s who you truly are. By the way, people think that who you are is, you know, your journal entries, your diary entries. No, no. Who you truly are are the videos that you watch on YouTube between 10 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. at night when you can’t sleep. That’s who you really are.”

2. Morning Walk (Even 5-10 Minutes)

Benefits:

Morning sunlight regulates circadian rhythm
Walking reduces fear response (calms amygdala)
Builds consistent habit with low barrier to entry

“Morning sunlight in your eyes, even if you don’t have the sun. Even if you’re somewhere dark and cold and wet, doesn’t matter. Getting up and doing ambulation, so walking through an environment while your eyes scan left and right seems to tune down your fear response. It makes your amygdala just a little bit more calm.”

3. No Caffeine Within 90 Minutes of Waking

The science: Your adenosine system isn’t dominant in the first 90 minutes—your adrenal system is. Delaying caffeine prevents the afternoon slump.

“It seems like the adenosine system isn’t dominant during the first 90 minutes of the day. Your adrenal system is. So adenosine is the receptors that deal with caffeine and tiredness. Caffeine binds to it and it stops you from feeling tired.”

4. Six Months Alcohol-Free

Why six months specifically:

Long enough to experience true benefits
Having an end date makes it psychologically manageable
90 days minimum; 30 days too short

“The reason that you need to put an end date on it is that you have it’s like running a race where you know that there’s a finish line. If there’s no finish line, it’s really hard to run the race.”

The hidden domino effect: Alcohol impacts sleep quality, which affects food choices, which reduces workout consistency, which worsens sleep further—creating a destructive cycle.

“It meant that I got worse sleep that night and then because I got worse sleep that night, I ate more poorly the next day because my dopamine system or whatever the cortisol system was all messed up and then I podcasted worse. I didn’t go to the gym the day after that because of that because I felt really bad. I then slept worse and I could track all of this on my Whoop.”

“So many people want to build habits. They want to build meditation routine. They want to go to the gym more consistently. They want to improve their eating habits. They don’t realize that the thing that’s stopping them from doing that is sat at the bottom of the glass of wine that they have four nights a week.”

5. 10-Minute Walk After Every Meal

Benefits of postprandial walks:

Regulates blood glucose
Aids digestion through contralateral movement
Transforms heavy meals from uncomfortable to energizing

“What it does is it helps to regulate glucose. It gets your blood sugar moving. Your stomach because of the contralateral movement of how your arms and your legs work, the muscles actually cross across your stomach, which helps you to digest food.”

The Never Miss Two Days Rule

James Clear’s best habit principle: One missed day is an error. Two missed days is the start of a new habit.

“This is the best rule when it comes to habits. Never miss two days in a row. Like you are not going to be able to go to the gym every day. There will be one day when an absolute catastrophe occurs. You ate some dodgy sushi last night. You can’t go. But what you have is one missed day is an error. Two missed days is the start of a new habit.”

This alleviates all-or-nothing thinking:

You WILL miss days—plan for it
If you missed yesterday, you MUST do it today
Perfection isn’t the goal; consistency is

Completable vs. Incompletable Resolutions:

❌ “Go to the gym every day” (completable—one miss ends it)
✅ “Consistency in the gym” (incompletable—get a shot at it daily)

“2017 it was go to the gym every day and I got about four or five months in, I missed a day, the resolution’s done because it was a completable resolution in an area of my life where I need an incompletable resolution. So 2018, my resolution became consistency in the gym. And this is when everything changed because consistency is a goal I get a shot at every day irrespective of what happened yesterday.”

Productivity Truths for High Achievers

Productivity Dysmorphia

The inability to see your own success—sitting at the intersection of burnout, imposter syndrome, and anxiety.

“There’s a wonderful idea called productivity dysmorphia. So, it’s the inability to see your own success. It’s like to acknowledge the volume of your own output. So it sits at the intersection of burnout, impostor syndrome, and anxiety.”

Signs you have it:

Wake up already feeling behind (productivity debt)
Best-case scenario is getting to zero, never winning
Can’t think of days where you felt truly productive

“A lot of people have this sense of productivity debt. They wake up every day feeling as if they’re already behind. And only if they dominate their entire day perfectly can they drag themselves back up to some minimum level of acceptable output. And only then can they go to sleep that night without feeling like a loser. This means that your set point is loss and the best thing that you can do if you crush the day is get to a draw. You never win.”

The truth: If you’re reading this 2+ hours into a self-improvement podcast, you probably don’t need David Goggins screaming at you. You need permission to give yourself a break.

“There is a huge cohort of people on the internet who do need David Goggins screaming in their face, telling them to go harder and sort their life out. The sort of people that listen to your show and listen to Modern Wisdom are probably not in that camp.”

The Two Reasons for Procrastination

1. You don’t know what to do

Solution: Define the next physical action
Example: Don’t “write book”—”open laptop” → “open Word” → “write one sentence”

“As far as I can see, there’s two main reasons for procrastination. The first one is you don’t know what to do. So, you have this big book in front of you, but nobody’s ever written a book. They’ve written a sentence and then that sentence has accumulated over time into pages and paragraphs and then a book appears.”

“You do a next action. So, I’m procrastinating over a task. What is the next physical action that I can do that pushes me toward that goal? I need to write an email. Well, you better go and open your email client. Right? If you don’t have your email client open, it is impossible for you to send the email.”

2. You know what to do but don’t know how

Solution: Google it, use ChatGPT, ask an expert
It’s a skill issue, not a character flaw

“Second thing, you know what to do, but you don’t know how to do it. So you can sit down in front of the spreadsheet and you know that you’ve got to do a VLOOKUP on this spreadsheet. We have no idea how to do a VLOOKUP… ChatGPT, Google, ring a boss, ring a friend that is an expert in Excel.”

The One Thing Rule

Start every day asking: “If I could only achieve one thing today, what would it be?”

This is usually:

The scary thing
The thing you’re avoiding
The big project you don’t know how to start

“Best question to ask yourself. If I could only achieve one thing today, start of every day, if I could only achieve one thing today, what would that be? You’re only allowed to do one thing. And it’s the big thing. It’s usually the scary thing. It’s usually the thing that you probably don’t want to do.”

You’ll rearrange kitchen cupboards to avoid the conversation with your boss or the difficult project.

“How many times does someone go and clean the cupboard in the kitchen that hasn’t been touched for 6 months? Rearrange. I’ll rearrange all of the plates because they don’t want to have that conversation with their boss because they don’t want to face that particular piece of work which is like big and scary and I don’t really know how to tackle it, how to begin. You will do everything that doesn’t need to be done in order to avoid the one thing that does.”

The Lonely Chapter: What Nobody Tells You About Growth

The lonely chapter describes when you’re too developed to resonate with old friends but haven’t yet built new connections.

“The lonely chapter describes a time in your life where you’re so developed that you can’t really resonate with your old set of friends, but you’re not yet sufficiently developed that you’ve built a new set of friends.”

Examples:

You quit drinking; friends at the pub make jibes about it
You start going to the gym; friends still talk about Xbox
You pursue personal development; old circle doesn’t understand

“You have decided to stop drinking. Your New Year’s resolution is 6 months. I’m going to stop drinking. You can go out with your friends that want to go to the pub on an evening time, but you feel a little bit ostracized. They’re having digs at you and jibes at you. Oh, come on, mate. Only one beer. Who do you think you are?”

The harsh reality: On your journey of personal growth, you may need to leave friend groups behind multiple times throughout your life. This isn’t a value judgment—it’s the natural consequence of change.

“The initial sad reality is that on your journey of personal growth, at some point you may need to leave a group of friends behind who aren’t growing at the same pace as you. But the really sad reality is that if you do it a lot, you may have to do this multiple times throughout your life.”

The Missing Piece in Every Origin Story

Your self-belief will waver constantly.

The hero’s journey makes it seem like once you commit, your conviction never slips. In reality:

Your entire journey is steeped in doubt and self-pity
The uncomfortable feelings are supposed to be there
You can do things without self-belief—just do them anyway

“Seems to me that on every hero’s journey, as soon as they make the commitment to go from where they are to where they want to be, their self-belief never wavers. Like, sure, there’s ups and downs in the journey and the progress, but their conviction doesn’t slip… In my experience, that’s not the way it is at all. Like your entire journey of personal growth is just steeped in doubt and self-pity and uncertainty and it tarnishes the whole experience.”

“You can just do things. You can just do it anyway. You can do it tired. You can do it with no self-belief. You can do it when you don’t want to. You can do it when you think it’s not going to work. You can just do things.”

The Region Beta Paradox: When Worse is Better

Concept: If you walk distances under 1 mile but drive distances over 1 mile, you’d paradoxically reach 2 miles faster than 1 mile.

“Imagine that if you were going to travel less than a mile, you’d walk it. If you’re going to travel a mile or more, you would drive it. Paradoxically, you would travel 2 miles quicker than you would travel one mile.”

Applied to life: Worse situations force action; mediocre situations permit comfortable complacency.

Examples:

Sketchy apartment with mold (but cheap, convenient)
Unfulfilling relationship (but not abusive)
Soul-crushing job (but cushy, easy money)

“The person who lives in an apartment and it’s in a kind of a sketchy area of town and there’s a little bit of mold on the ceiling and the housemate’s kind of a bit weird, but it’s really cheap and they quite like the bed and it’s not too far from their work.”

The danger zone: Things aren’t bad enough to leave, but nowhere near good enough to stay. This gray zone can trap you for years.

“This zone of comfortable complacency that people get into is where they can sit for a very long time. And this is a really dangerous one. Things aren’t bad enough to be bad, but they’re nowhere near good enough to be good.”

Question: Can you quit when it’s just “meh”? Or do you need catastrophe to catalyze change?

Finding Love: Psychological Stability Matters Most

What to Look For in a Partner

1. Psychological Stability After emotional disruption, how quickly do they return to baseline?

Flight canceled → ruins entire trip? (Low stability)
Flight canceled → recovers in hours? (High stability)

“After some sort of emotional perturbment, after something happens, how long does it take for them to get back to baseline? So, let’s say that we’re going on holiday and the flight is cancelled and it’s a big deal because their family is going out there. Is that the sort of thing that happens and then there is a reversion to baseline within a few hours or is that the sort of thing that blows up the entire trip?”

2. Conscientiousness

Thoughtful about you specifically
Remembers details
Demonstrates care through actions

3. Moderate Agreeableness

“Yes, and…” personality
Open to plans and new experiences
Not so agreeable they have no boundaries

4. Moderate Openness

Willing to try new things
Not so open that wandering eyes become an issue

“You want someone who’s moderately open so that they’re prepared to go and do new things. As soon as you get into high openness that’s when wandering eyes come in.”

5. Safe Harbor Quality A relationship that feels like home—a refuge from the world where you’re loved for who you are, not what you do.

“You want somebody who feels like home. You want a relationship that feels like a safe harbor that you can wall yourself off against all of the ills of the world. Your business can fall apart. Your health can decay. Your friends can abandon you. But you know that at home there’s someone who loves you for who you are, not for what you do, and they’ve always got your back.”

Making Yourself Attractive: The Gym is #1

Chris Williamson’s highest ROI decision for attractiveness: Going to the gym.

Why it works:

Reliably increases physical attractiveness
Benefits you even if the relationship doesn’t materialize
Builds discipline and confidence simultaneously

“What decision did you make in your life that made you more attractive than any other decision? Going to the gym… I like it. It makes me healthier. It makes me feel powerful. It added to my frame… I think not only is it something that’s great for me, it’s something that really very reliably makes you more attractive to women.”

For women: Cultivate receptiveness. In a post-MeToo world, men are terrified of approaching. Make interest VERY obvious—treat male interest like an inexperienced golden retriever that needs clear signals.

“I think especially in a post-MeToo world, a lot of guys are very scared of approaching. Guys have always been scared of approaching women. But in a post-MeToo world, they’ve been taught that anything short of a hell yeah is a no, get away from me so that you don’t make the girl feel uncomfortable.”

“You have to treat a man and his interest kind of like slightly inexperienced golden retriever. It needs to be very loud, very obvious signals of interest from you.”

Why UK vs. US Mindsets Differ on Success

American mindset: Want you to succeed in case you take them with you

UK mindset (worst parts): Don’t want you to succeed in case you leave them behind

“The way that I would put it is Americans want you to succeed in case you take them with you on the journey. And the worst parts of British culture don’t want you to succeed in case you leave them behind.”

The tall poppy syndrome in British culture means:

Risk-taking isn’t celebrated the same way
Success is often met with cynicism, not congratulations
Same number of top universities as US, but 80% fewer entrepreneurs

“We have the same number of universities in the top 10 in the world as America, but we produce 80% fewer entrepreneurs. And what is entrepreneurialism? It’s like vision. It’s risk-taking. It’s being prepared to do something that hasn’t been done before.”

Williamson’s message to UK strivers: You’re fighting not just the normal challenges of growth, but additional cultural gravity. Power to you.

“To the people in the UK that are doers and are builders and are actually making stuff happen, like you have one of the hardest jobs in the world, because not only have you got to get over the lonely chapter, the challenge, the difficulty, the procrastination, the getting up early, I’ve got to stop drinking, caffeine 90 minutes after waking, holy shit there’s so much on my plate, you have this additional gravity of a culture that doesn’t tend to celebrate success and risk-taking in quite the same way.”

Suppression Isn’t Strength: The Emotional Lesson

One of the biggest lessons: “My emotions are legitimate and denying myself that is not helping anything at all.”

“One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken away from this year is suppression isn’t the same thing as strength. And it’s a good thing for guys who feel their emotions to show that they feel their emotions, right? Like I’ve been at some of my lowest points over the last 12 months. It felt like my better self was slipping through my fingers. I realized my emotions are legitimate and denying myself that is not helping anything at all.”

For men specifically: It’s good for guys who feel emotions to show they feel emotions. Suppression ≠ strength.

“I feel big emotions, for instance. And for a long time I was very ashamed of them and I wouldn’t get below the neck and I would use intellect to like protect myself from feeling my feelings. And on stage anybody that’s come to see my live show I get teary every night. I get teary telling the same story… I think that’s like a good thing. I think it’s a good thing for guys who feel their emotions to show that they feel their emotions.”

Balance needed:

Wonderful upside in conquering, achieving mastery, driving yourself
But not “fuck your feelings, hustle until your eyes bleed”
Mindfulness and emotional awareness matter too

“There is a wonderful upside in trying to conquer and trying to achieve mastery, trying to really drive yourself to go and do stuff. But I’m not like fuck your feelings, just hustle and grind until your eyes bleed either.”

The Shame of Small Fears & Small Victories

Small Fears

We feel ashamed of modern anxieties:

Worried about sending a message
Nervous before public speaking
Anxious about difficult conversation

The truth: Our nervous system has been repurposed from bears to boundaries. It doesn’t know the difference between rejection from the tribe (death in ancestral times) and rejection from a WhatsApp group chat.

“The sort of fears we have in the modern world are both smaller and more complex at the same time. Yes, they’re not about life and death, but our nervous system has been repurposed from bears to boundaries and it does not know the difference.”

“It feels like you saying your truth, saying, ‘I don’t think that this job’s working for me,’ or you said something that doesn’t land with me, and you crossed a line. That feels like you’re about to be rejected from the tribe, even if the tribe is now just a WhatsApp chat.”

Small (Boring) Victories

Learn to take pleasure in:

Going for a walk when you felt terrible
Being kind at the supermarket
Maintaining gentleness with yourself
Seeing a golden retriever as the best part of your morning

“Boring victories is something that I’ve had to learn to take pleasure from this year. You know, is today the grandest accomplishment of your entire life? No. But you went for a walk or you were kind to that person at the supermarket or you were gentle with yourself when you became frustrated.”

The shame: “How feeble must your life be that THAT was meaningful?”

“I had to get over the shame of small pleasures that somehow me feeling proud about the way that I showed up in a tiny minute way that nobody else saw was sort of a comment of the smallness of my life. Oh, you must not have a lot going on. Like how feeble, how weak, how minuscule must your life be? That seeing that golden retriever was the best part of your morning.”

The reality: Denying yourself happiness from small things is holding your happiness hostage. You can’t only pick up $100 bills—you need to value the pennies too.

“I realized that that was worth being happy about and that denying myself the opportunity to be happy about something small is basically me holding my happiness hostage. Like until the bank deposit is sufficiently large, the ledger doesn’t kick in. Like I can’t pick up pennies. I can only pick up $100 bills.”

Chris Williamson’s Hardest Year: The Mold Story

The Personal Health Crisis

Two goals for 2025: Don’t let the show drop + Fix my health

“After all of this, all this big Modern Wisdom review thing, all I did, my only two goals for this year at the start of this year were don’t let the show drop and fix my health. That was it. That was all I wanted. Nothing else. Don’t let the show drop and fix my health.”

The challenge: Toxic mold poisoning affecting:

Energy – Sleeping 13 hours, still exhausted
Mood – Swimming in melancholy
Cognition – Forgetting how to tie shoes, forgetting friends’ names

“I lived in a house that had toxic mold. I got mold poisoning, which a lot of people in America have, and it’s so brutal. A ton of other stuff. And I spent a long time, the best part of two years, with two jobs. One was the show, the other was trying to fix my health.”

“Mold does typically lots of things, but three things. Energy, mood, and cognition. So it makes you tired all the time. It makes you low mood. And it makes you forgetful. Like there was a day when I looked down and I forgot how to tie my shoes. Couldn’t remember how to put my shoelaces together in order to tie my shoes.”

Why it felt like a cosmic joke: The illness attacked the exact three areas (energy, mood, cognition) that his entire identity and self-worth depended on.

“That’s why I said personal curse. It felt like it felt like somebody had designed a pathology just for me and it would hit at all of the places that I took my self worth from.”

The lonely battle:

Didn’t discuss publicly for months to avoid admin burden of well-wishers
Going to bed at 7 PM for six months
Inverted cortisol (higher at night than morning)
Felt like “my better self was slipping through my fingers”

“Going to bed at 7 o’clock at night for six months, unable to sleep because I was wired but tired because my cortisol was inverted. Cortisol was higher at night than it was in the morning. So no matter how long I slept, I was never able to feel rested in the morning.”

“It felt like my better self was slipping through my fingers like it was being ripped away from me due to some thing that I hadn’t done. It felt so unfair, so comically unfair, like literally like a personal curse that had been hit at me.”

What Remained When Everything Was Stripped Away

When cognitive ability, energy, and mood—the things Williamson valued most—were taken away, what was left?

Kindness (genuine, not performative)
Sensitivity (not weakness, but strength)
Resilience in boring, normal ways
Showing up despite everything

“If you take everything I value now that gives me self-worth, what remains? Well, that was a question I had to ask myself this year and what did remain? Somebody who’s kind, somebody who’s genuinely kind and sensitive. And I always thought that sensitivity was a weakness, but it’s not. At least not for me. Somebody who is resilient in a very normal way.”

The realization: “I didn’t give up on myself.”

“I’m really proud. I’m really really proud that I kept showing up. I didn’t give up on myself.”

Alain de Botton’s wisdom: “The best men are those who have been broken.”

“Alain de Botton says, ‘The best men are those who have been broken.’ And this year has definitely broken me.”

Current Status

From a 3/10 twelve months ago to 7-8/10 now. Both goals nearly accomplished: show didn’t drop, health improving.

“Are you doing better now? I am. Yeah, I am. If I was at a three 12 months ago, I’m probably at a seven to an eight now. So, don’t let the show drop and fix my health. Like, I got close to doing both of those.”

Stop Taking Life So Seriously

The liberating truth:

No one is getting out alive
In three generations, no one will remember your name
You don’t know your great-grandfather’s name
Life is inherently ridiculous and guaranteed to end

“Stop taking life so seriously. No one is getting out of this game alive. And in three generations, no one will even remember your name. And if that doesn’t give you liberation to just drop your problems for a moment and find some joy, I don’t know what will because there’ll never be a time when there’s no problems in life.”

Do you know what this means? You might as well enjoy the ride.

The provisional life trap: Waiting for “real life” to begin. The belief that once duties are handled, THEN you’ll fully live.

“There is this belief that once life’s duties are out of the way, then you can finally start doing the thing you want to and fully living your life. It’s called the provisional life. This sort of strange feeling that you’re not yet in your real life. For now, you’re doing this thing or that, but there’s always the fantasy that at some point in future the real thing will come about.”

John Paul Sartre’s warning: “I have led a toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on. And I have just noticed that my teeth have gone.”

The Agency Question

The most important component of human joy and endeavor: Agency.

The belief that you have the ability to impact your surroundings.

“I think agency. I think the belief that you have the ability to impact your surroundings. Because the opposite of agency is you basically holding your hands up and saying, ‘I’m at the mercy of the world. You happen to life. Life doesn’t happen to you.’”

Without agency: You’re at the mercy of the world, holding your hands up in defeat.

With agency: Life doesn’t happen TO you. You happen to life.

Final Wisdom: Generate Evidence, Not Self-Belief

Self-belief is overrated. Ryan Holiday: “Generate evidence instead.”

“I think a lot of people assume that self-belief is kind of the answer to what it is that they’re looking for… You can just do things. You can just do it anyway. You can do it tired. You can do it with no self-belief. You can do it when you don’t want to. You can do it when you think it’s not going to work. You can just do things.”

“You can have no self-esteem and show up anyway. You can have no self-belief and things still go well. Ryan Holiday says, ‘Self-belief is overrated. Generate evidence.’ Fuck yeah. I want evidence. Want an undeniable stack of proof that I am who I say I am.”

The truth about starting:

You don’t need self-belief to begin
You don’t need to feel ready
You don’t need permission

After a year, if you write 500 words a week, you’re a writer. The license to call yourself that comes from consistent action, not confidence.

“Fuck write write 500 words a week. Start a Substack and write 500 words a week. You can probably do that. You can probably find 500 words a week. It’ll take you half an hour. Write 500 words a week. After a year, you’re a writer. Congratulations. You’re a writer. You have the license to be able to call yourself a writer.”

Use what you have:

The chip on your shoulder from school bullies
Your need for validation
Your desperate desire to be seen
Your self-hatred (at first—then replace it with healthier fuel)

“When inertia is at its greatest, I think you have to use what you have. I’m going to see what happens if I do this little thing.”

When inertia is highest (at the beginning), use whatever fuel you’ve got.

Your 2026 Action Plan

Download the free annual review template: chriswillex.com/re
Answer the critical questions:
- What would have to happen by end of 2026 for success?
- What would the movie audience be screaming at me to do?
- How would I make 85-year-old me miserable?
Choose 1-2 BIG goals maximum (not 10)
Subtract to make room for addition
Implement high-ROI habits:
- No phone in bedroom
- Morning walks
- Delayed caffeine
- Consider 6-month alcohol break
- Post-meal walks
Remember the Never Miss Two Days Rule
Generate evidence through consistent action

The Uncomfortable Truth

Change is uncomfortable. The lonely chapter is real. Your self-belief will waver.

But here’s what else is true: Every single person who went from where they didn’t want to be to where they did had to go through this. The doubt is supposed to be there.

“I can promise you that every single person who has gone from a place where they didn’t want to be to one where they did has had to go through this lonely chapter and deal with all of this.”

Don’t wait for certainty. Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Don’t wait for life to begin.

In the words of Chris Williamson:

“Stop taking life so seriously. Life really is happening right now. Don’t wait. This life really is happening right now.”

“There is a kind of urgency that I think we could all do with and that’s not to put pressure on people so that they feel like a failure if they fall short. It’s not to deny the fact that people have got real legitimate resource and time constraints that mean that they can’t do a thing. But don’t wait. This life really is happening right now.”

MODERN WISDOM ANNUAL REVIEW TEMPLATE

Select All text on this page then copy & paste it into your Notes App of choice.

There is no doing this right. There is no pressure. Just write what comes into your head.

REVIEW

How has this year gone?

What went well?

What went badly?

Why?

What lessons did I learn?

What habit or system accounted for most of my success?

What are the most valuable ways I spend my time?

How can I find more time for this?

What brought me the most happiness?

How can I help these activities to happen more often?

Who are the people that had the greatest impact on me?

How can I see and collaborate with them more?

What did I expect to complete, but didn’t?

Is this still an important goal of mine? If so, how can I make future follow-through more likely?

What are the least valuable ways I am spending my time?

How can I prevent myself from continuing to spend time in this way?

How have my goals or priorities shifted over the last few months?

Is there anything I am still doing that is no longer in alignment? Why?

MEMORIES

Best Surprise:

Best Meal:

Coolest New Experience:

Favourite Weekend:

Favourite First Meeting:

Favourite New City:

Favourite New Emotion:

Favourite New Walk:

Favourite New Friend:

Favourite Tour:

Favourite Day:

Most Intense Week:

Best Sex:

Favourite Artist:

Favourite Song:

Favourite Quote:

PLAN

What would I do this year if I wanted to make 85 year old me miserable?

What would 85 year old me wish I did more of?

What are the things I do to make my day go great?

What things make my days go terribly?

What do I think is productive that isn’t?

What is productive that I don’t realise?

What do I want to do less of with my time?

What do I want to do more of with my time?

What does an ideal normal day look like? Write it out.

What conversations do I need to have?

What are the habits I’m committing to starting and stopping?

FINAL THOUGHTS

What would have had to have happened by the end of next year for me to look back on the year and consider it a success?

Who do I need to become for next year’s chapter of my life story to turn out the way I would write it?

Knowing what I know now, what advice would I give to myself 12 months ago? (pssst – you probably still need to hear this now)

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES & REFLECTIONS…

Resources & Links

Free Annual Review Template: chriswillex.com/review
Chris Williamson’s YouTube Channel: Modern Wisdom https://bit.ly/4j1xhIh
Recommended Episode: Naval Ravikant Interview
Chris Williamson Tour: Australia, New Zealand, Bali (March 2026)
Original Interview: The Diary of a CEO – YouTube

Remember: You’re already spending tons of time worrying about the past and future. This is just a structured opportunity to do it productively—and actually make 2026 the year everything changes.

The question isn’t whether you’ll have problems. The question is: Will you let them stop you from starting?

“Congratulations for making it through all of this. There’s a lot of uncomfortable things to face with conversations like this. It really forces you to reckon with parts of your direction.”

This comprehensive guide is based on Chris Williamson’s interview on The Diary of a CEO podcast. For the complete conversation and additional insights, watch the full video on The Diary of a CEO YouTube channel.

Chris Williamson’s Complete Guide to New Year’s Resolutions That Actually Work (2026 Annual Review)