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Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday!
tl;dr They say whether you believe you can, or believe you can’t, you’re right. It’s not just hope that carries a belief to fruition. It’s how you act as a result of those beliefs that creates your reality.
It’s that time of the year when people want to change their beliefs about who they are. With 2026 around the corner, the thought is starting to emerge about who we can be in the new year. The goals that went unfulfilled, the success we had, and the undesirable habits we haven’t been able to kick simmer into this big stew of emotion. And nothing suits cold weather quite like stew.
Two types of people are revealed during this time. The first are those who are mostly content and will ride this wave of emotion through the new year, only to keep things the same until life forces them to change. And that’s totally fine if you are content with that. The other type of people will be those who have a vision of who they can be and take the actions required to make that a reality, even when progress feels as slow as watching paint dry.
The beauty of life is that we have complete control over our actions. Don’t like your job? Change it. Don’t like your city? Leave. Don’t like how you feel in your body? Move it. Even though the results we get may be beyond our control, we have total control of the actions needed to optimize for them.
People misconstrue this notion, particularly around the new year. They set “goals” and “resolutions”, hoping for more out of life, knowing they can do better. But the largely overlooked part of desiring change is the action needed to create it.
Instead of setting a New Year’s resolution this year (an end goal), resolve to take action (an action goal). For example, instead of resolving to have more wealth by the end of the year, resolve to save $50 from every paycheck. An action goal is quantifiable, tangible, and trackable. In contrast, an end goal gets metaphorically stored in the closet after New Year’s until you have to shamefully dust it off in 12 months from now.
Action is the difference-maker between those who reach their goals and those who don’t. It distinguishes the talkers from the movers. It alleviates fear and quells anxiety. It can make the life we dream of real.
Those who act like life is good have a good life. Those who act like life is miserable have a miserable life. Your actions create your reality.
Consider the janitor who gets such fulfillment from his job because he knows the people who benefit from a clean workplace. Every task he does is with fervor for excellence because he takes pride in his career. He has created a wonderful life for himself.
Now contrast the CEO who is miserable and hates the life she has created for herself. She works nonstop, hasn’t made time for her relationships, feels chronically fatigued, and talks about how awful her life is. Her words and actions have created that alternate reality for her.
Your actions will similarly create your reality. If you act like life is good, you will act from a place of abundance and joy. That doesn’t mean you leap out of bed every cold morning ecstatic for the traffic on the way to work. But it does mean you wrestle with your mind when those thoughts arise, recognizing that you fought hard for the job you have, how good it is to have a roof over your head, and the power you have to change the situation at any time.
Our actions are so powerful. When we can visualize the life we want and break it down into teeny-tiny actions that we can take every day to create it, we have our recipe for success. Small habits like making your bed and listening to a personal development podcast can lay the breadcrumbs needed to build it. But the key is to identify the actions required to get the result you want. Merely hoping for the result is as good as waiting for a genie to grant your wish.
So remember life is good, even when shitty things happen. As long as we have control over our actions, we have the power to change our circumstances. So next time you catch yourself with a victim mentality, remember the choices you make are yours to leverage. And as you gear up for the grand finale of 2025, consider the actions needed to achieve your desired resolution.
If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM.
This week, my podcast recommendation is new from Shankar Vedantam’s Hidden Brain, “The Paradox of Pleasure.”
With that, let’s take the actions necessary to have a fulfilling end of the year.
Until next time,
Shannon
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