By the end of the first week of January, 23% of people will have already abandoned their New Year’s resolutions.

And if you’re reading this, you’re probably not one of them.
You’ll push through. You’ll make it work. You’ll add the morning routine, the journaling practice, the meditation app, the new productivity system.
Because that’s what you do. You achieve. You deliver. You make things happen.

You’ve built a business or you have created a team that looks successful from the outside. You’ve hit revenue goals others dream about. You’ve created something meaningful.

But let me ask you something:
How many times have you set a goal, achieved it, and then immediately moved the goalposts?
How many “one more thing” strategies have you implemented, thinking this would be the one that finally lets you breathe?
How often do you celebrate a win for about five minutes before your brain starts scanning for the next problem to solve?

Here’s what I see consistently with the high-performing founders I work with:
They come to me exhausted from years of adding more to their plate. More systems. More optimisation. More “if I just do this one thing differently, everything will click into place.”
They’ve read the books. Hired the coaches. Implemented the frameworks.

And still, beneath all of it, the same patterns are running the show:
∙ The perfectionism that won’t let you celebrate a win because it’s never quite enough
∙ The anxiety that keeps you checking Slack at 11pm “just in case”
∙ The guilt when you take time off because there’s always something more you could be doing
∙ The belief that if you just work a bit harder, push a bit more, you’ll finally feel like you’ve made it

Sound familiar?

You Don’t Have a Strategy Problem
One of my clients - a seven-figure founder - said it perfectly during our first session:
“I kept thinking I needed better strategies. Better time management. Better boundaries. Turns out I needed to understand why I kept sabotaging the ones I already had.”
She had the habits. The morning routine. The blocked calendar. The team to delegate to.
But she was still operating from the same internal programming that got her to six figures - the one that says your worth is measured by your output, rest is earned through exhaustion, and if you’re not constantly moving forward, you’re falling behind.

You can’t optimise your way out of misalignment.
Adding more habits, more routines, more productivity hacks to a foundation that’s already fractured? That’s like rearranging furniture in a house with cracked foundations.
It might look different. But it won’t hold.

What Actually Changes in 2026
The founders and leaders who create sustainable success - the ones who scale without burning out, who lead without losing themselves, who build businesses that actually support their lives instead of consuming them - they understand something fundamental:
The issue isn’t what you’re doing. It’s why you’re doing it from a place of depletion instead of intention.
They stop performing success and start building it from the inside out.
They recognise that sustainable growth requires psychological rewiring, not just tactical tweaks.
They understand that their nervous system, not their to-do list, is running the show.
And here’s the thing - this isn’t about working less or lowering your standards or becoming some zen version of yourself who doesn’t care about results.
It’s about understanding the internal operating system that’s been driving every external decision you make.

The Real Question for 2026
As you’re setting your goals for this year, ask yourself:
Are you trying to achieve your way into worthiness? Or are you building from a place that already knows you’re enough?
Because the version of you that built what you have now? She got you here. She’s capable, driven, resilient.
But she’s also exhausted. Stretched. Operating at capacity.
And she’s not going to get you where you want to go next.

What Happens When You Shift the Operating System
When my clients do this work - when they actually address what’s running behind the scenes - here’s what changes:
They still have ambitious goals. But they’re not chasing them from a place of proving something.
They still work hard. But they’re not using busyness as a proxy for value.
They still care deeply about results. But their worth isn’t attached to them.

And perhaps most importantly?

They stop recreating the same internal chaos with different goals attached to it.

2026 Doesn’t Have to Be More of the Same
You don’t need another habit tracker.
You don’t need another morning routine.
You don’t need another productivity framework.
You need to understand why you’re still running the same patterns and expecting different results.
The goals you’re setting right now - are they coming from the version of you that’s already arrived? Or from the one that’s still trying to prove something?
Because that distinction? That’s everything.

Ready to understand what’s really running the show?

Take The Elevation Index to discover your current operating system and what’s actually holding you back from sustainable success.