I simply launched a wine app, which implies I’ve spent the final six months pondering obsessively about one factor: how do you take away friction from selections that shouldn’t be onerous?
The reply taught me one thing greater about rituals, and why so most of the ones we create on the finish and starting of the yr fail us.
Right here’s my founder story, however from the wine aisle.
Final December, I used to be standing in entrance of a wall of bottles, paralyzed. Not as a result of I don’t like wine. I do. I used to be paralyzed as a result of the whole expertise was designed to make me really feel small. The sommelier power, the gatekeeping language, the implied message that if I couldn’t identify the terroir, I didn’t deserve bottle. So I did what I at all times did: grabbed the identical protected selection, went residence, and informed myself I’d “department out subsequent time.”
However right here’s the founder perception I missed: I wasn’t really going to department out. The friction was too excessive. The stakes felt too actual. So I’d repeat the identical ritual, the identical bottle, the identical final result, as a result of at the least it was protected.
That is precisely how most individuals strategy their end-of-year and New Yr rituals. They really feel compulsory. Performative. Exhausting. You’re alleged to replicate deeply, set 10 bold objectives, create a imaginative and prescient board, set up a meditation follow. All of it sounds nice in concept. In follow? Most individuals abandon their resolutions by January fifteenth.
Right here’s why: we’re designing rituals for the particular person we predict we ought to be, not the particular person we really are.
As a founder, I’ve realized that one of the best merchandise take away friction round what folks really need to do. The identical precept applies to rituals. So as a substitute of telling you to rethink your whole strategy, right here’s what really works:
1. Audit Your Rituals for Efficiency vs. Authenticity
Earlier than the New Yr, write down your present rituals and practices. Your morning routine. Your goal-setting course of. Your end-of-day wind-down. The commitments you’ve made to your self.
Now ask: Which of those would I do if no one was watching? Which of them really feel genuine to how I really need to reside?
In case your reply is “truthfully, not many,” you’ve recognized your drawback. You’re residing another person’s ritual. I constructed Theodora as a result of I spotted I used to be performing wine experience as a substitute of simply having fun with wine. As soon as I eliminated that efficiency, every part modified.
2. Exchange Purpose-Setting with Three Core Questions
As an alternative of your 10-goal motion plan, do this framework:
- What do I really spend time on when nothing is required of me? (What you’re naturally drawn to.)
- Who do I need to spend extra time with? (What relationship issues.)
- What final result would make 2026 really feel like a win, stripped of all efficiency? (What success really seems to be wish to you, not what it’s alleged to seem like.)
Write these down. These three solutions are your actual ritual. All the pieces else is simply context.
Most individuals I do know abandon their New Yr’s resolutions as a result of these resolutions had been designed by another person’s commonplace of success. Once you construct from what really issues to you, the rituals stick.
3. Establish Your Friction Factors and Take away Them
As I used to be constructing the app, I requested myself: What stops folks from selecting wine they love? The reply was friction: too many choices, unclear labels, judgment for those who didn’t know the language.
So I eliminated it. Simplified the choice. Let folks be sincere about what they wished.
Do the identical along with your rituals. What will get in the way in which once you’re setting your objectives? Don’t decide your self for not being “disciplined” sufficient and as a substitute construct methods which are simple for you. Is it that you simply hate planning spreadsheets? Don’t use them. Is it that you simply really feel responsible about not journaling? Don’t journal. Discover the follow that really works on your mind and your life, not the one that appears good on Instagram.
The folks I respect most aren’t those with the fanciest routines. They’re those whose rituals are so well-designed for his or her precise life that the rituals nearly disappear. They only work.
Right here’s the underside line for anybody constructing a 2026 technique, whether or not that’s enterprise objectives, management growth, or private objectives:
Cease designing your rituals for who you suppose you need to be. Cease performing. Audit what’s really working, construct from what you genuinely care about, and take away the friction that’s protecting you caught repeating final yr’s selections.
Good rituals don’t really feel like work. They really feel like they had been made for you, as a result of they had been.
As we head into the New Yr, that’s the framework I’m providing: Cease attempting to look the half. Begin designing the rituals that really transfer you ahead. All the pieces else is simply noise.
