Beyond Goals and Resolutions: 6 Strategies for a Better Year

In this special year-end episode of Behind the Brilliance, Lisa presents six evidence-based strategies for designing a year that feels good while you're living it. Moving beyond traditional goal-setting advice, this episode explores the psychological architecture behind sustainable achievement: why updating your self-concept matters more than willpower, how to engineer habits that survive bad days, and why strategic incompetence is a sophisticated choice rather than a failure. Lisa shares a liberating perspective on deciding what deserves optimization versus maintenance and makes the case for building celebration into your system. If you're tired of aspirational new year hype, this episode offers a more strategic, psychologically grounded approach to having a great year.   TOPICS COVERED Identity architecture: Why self-concept determines behavior success Designing habits for bad days, not ideal conditions Addition by subtraction: The power of strategic elimination Intentional incompetence: Permission to not master everything Minimum effective effort: Maintenance vs. optimization modes Building celebration into your achievement system The relationship between identity and execution Engineering consistency by removing friction Distinguishing between habits you need vs. habits you think you should have   THINGS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE  Lisa's newsletter, CUE Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz Atomic Habits by James Clear Obvious to You (video) by Derek Sivers Minimum Effective Effort (essay) by Lisa