Build a Sustainable Motivation System: From the 85% Rule to Gratitude Letters

🔥 Upgrade Your Inner Operating System for Lasting Motivation

You've designed your structure. Now you need fuel—something that makes showing up easier and keeps you showing up when the novelty fades. Today, I'll show you how to build a sustainable motivation system.

📊 Embrace the 85% Rule

We grow fastest not when things are perfect, but when they're almost perfect.

Machine learning researchers at UC San Diego discovered something counterintuitive. Systems learn best when they're right about 85% of the time. Not 100%, not 50%—85%.

Why 85%?

If you're succeeding all the time: The task is too easy. No adaptation, no evolution.
If you're failing most of the time: The task is too hard. Too much noise, not enough signal.
The sweet spot: That narrow band where you're stretched but not snapped. Where your abilities are just behind your ambitions.

Experiences Where You Grow

The experiences where you grow aren't the ones that feel effortless. They're the ones that sit just on the edge of your ability.

How to Launch Into 2026

Pick one goal you're working on right now (writing, running, coding, whatever)
Deliberately dial the difficulty so you're succeeding about 8 or 9 times out of 10
If it's too easy, increase the challenge
If you're failing constantly, dial it back

💡 Start living at 85%. That's where growth happens. It won't feel good. But that uncomfortable feeling isn't failure. It's the emotional signature of learning.

🌱 Redefine Discomfort as Learning

A few years ago, I decided to take some acting classes. Not because I thought I'd win an Oscar, but because I believed it would make me a better writer.

Believe me, it did not feel great. Especially at the beginning, I was awkward, rigid, clumsy. My brain kept firing the same alert: "Stop. You're doing something wrong."

But eventually, I learned that message wasn't a warning. It was a signal I was on the right track.

University of Chicago Research

Research from Ayelet Fishbach shows that real progress often feels deeply unpleasant. In her studies on how people pursue goals, participants underestimated just how much effort true learning requires.

When something feels easy: You're usually coasting
When something feels awkward, effortful, or slightly embarrassing: That's the sign you're growing

Effort, not ease, is the neurological cue for improvement.

The Next Time Something Feels Uncomfortable

Public speaking, writing a new chapter, having a difficult conversation... Pause and tell yourself:

"This isn't failure. This is what learning feels like."

Train your brain to see discomfort not as a stop sign, but as a mile marker on the road to mastery.

🎯 Design Friction Wisely

Willpower is overrated. If you're always relying on it, you're never going to win.

That's because your environment beats your intention almost every time.

What Behavioral Economists Have Shown

Adding or removing tiny bits of friction—a few extra steps here, some fewer steps over there—can shape your behavior more effectively than motivation alone.

Delete one app and your screen time plummets
Set up automatic savings and suddenly you're consistently putting money away

We're not weak. We're human. And humans follow the path of least resistance.

The Smart Move: Design That Path Intentionally

Here's a concrete idea for starting the year that takes just 5 minutes and pays dividends for months:

Pick one behavior you want to reduce and make it harder
Pick one behavior you want to increase and make it easier

That's it.

Examples

If you want to scroll less at night → Charge your phone in another room
If you want to eat healthier → Prep a bowl of washed fruit and put it at eye level in the fridge

💡 In 2026, spend less time trying to summon your will and more time reconfiguring your environment.

🤝 Use Public Promises

A strange thing happens when we tell another person what we intend to do. Our odds of actually doing it jump.

Not because the other person nags us. Not because we suddenly become more disciplined. But because we've created a tiny social contract—one our brains are surprisingly motivated to honor.

Journal of Applied Psychology Study

Participants who made specific promises to a single accountability partner showed significantly higher follow-through than those who kept their goals private.

The magic isn't in the announcement. It's in the relationship. A goal shared with one trusted person becomes more concrete, more binding, and more real.

The Twist

Shouting your goals to the entire world, posting them across social media often backfires. Public declarations can create a premature sense of accomplishment, draining the motivation to do the actual work.

Your Beginning of the Year Move

Pick one meaningful goal
Share it with one person
Ask them to check in with you every Friday with one question: "Did you do what you promised?"

Simple, quiet, incredibly effective.

🏆 Track Small Wins Daily

If you want to build unstoppable motivation this year, don't focus exclusively on the finish line. Focus on the next step.

Harvard's Teresa Amabile Research

In her landmark book "The Progress Principle," she analyzed thousands of daily work diaries and found a striking pattern:

People feel and perform their best on days when they experience small wins—tiny steps forward, even if they're modest or imperfect.

It wasn't praise that kept people going. It wasn't perfection either. It was progress.

Progress Loops

Small wins generate progress loops:

Progress → Positive emotion → More progress → More motivation

The trouble is, most work environments aren't built to let us see our progress. So we often overlook our progress and instead focus on setbacks and frustrations.

The Fix: A Progress Ritual

At the end of each day this year, take 60 seconds and write down three ways you made progress.

Doesn't matter how small:

Sent an email you've been avoiding
Read three pages
Went for a walk instead of scrolling

You don't need to look at the list again. It's the act itself that matters.

💡 Try this every day in January. By February, you'll have a ritual you'll keep for the rest of the year. Once you see your daily wins, your momentum becomes very hard to stop.

👥 Build a Challenge Network

Everyone loves a compliment. But compliments don't improve your work. The real upgrades come from the people brave enough to tell you uncomfortable truths.

Adam Grant's Idea: The Challenge Network

A small group of people who care about you enough to tell you when your work isn't good enough.

In his research, people who actively invite criticism from trusted peers learn faster and perform better than those who just collect praise.

Don't Just Ask "What Do You Think?"—Ask Something Sharper

"What's one thing I can do better?"

And make it a habit.

How to Do It in 2026: Feedback Fridays

Every week, send one piece of work (a draft, a slide deck, an idea) to one person in your challenge network. Along with it, ask a single focused question:

"What's one thing you'd change to make this better?"

You don't need a dozen critics. Two or three honest, thoughtful challengers will keep your ego grounded, your learning curve steep, and your work getting better and better week after week.

🎭 Curate Your Circle

Your challenge network sharpens your work. But your broader circle shapes your life.

You need to be careful because you can end up absorbing the attitudes, habits, and energy of people you never consciously chose.

Emotions and behaviors spread through social networks up to three degrees.

Happiness spreads
Discipline spreads
So do their opposites: stress, indifference, bad habits

Heading Into 2026

Don't just let your circle happen. Curate it.

Start with three roles:

Challenger: Someone who won't let you coast. Someone who pushes your thinking and tells you the truth.
Cheerleader: Not a flatterer. Someone who genuinely believes in you and helps you recover on the days you'd otherwise quit.
Coach: Someone who has already played the game you're trying to play. One or two steps ahead, able to see the patterns you can't see.

💡 Not a crowd, not a committee—a calibrated circle. Energy is contagious. Ambition is contagious. Courage is contagious. Pick the people who push you forward.

❌ Create a To-Don't List

We obsess over what to add to our lives. New goals, new habits, new tools. But one of the most powerful performance boosters isn't addition—it's subtraction.

Research has shown we have a hard time thinking subtractively. Our brains want to solve problems by doing more, not by doing less.

But we can overcome this cognitive bias with a to-don't list—a small list of things we should stop doing.

Every Quarter in 2026, Ask Yourself

"What's not worth my time?"

A recurring meeting that adds nothing?
A committee you've outgrown?
A project you're keeping alive out of habit, not purpose?

Your January Move

Pick just one thing that you will stop doing for 90 days. Put it on your calendar as a "to-don't." And honor that commitment.

💡 When people stop doing low-value tasks, their productivity and well-being jump dramatically. Subtraction frees up time, attention, and emotional bandwidth in ways addition never can.

🧘 Try Micro Sabbaths

Earlier, I told you to take a walk break. That's movement. That's creativity. A micro Sabbath is its calmer cousin.

It's not about motion. It's about stillness.

A micro Sabbath is a short, intentional pause where you stop feeding your brain inputs.

No phone
No laptop
No scrolling
No stimulation

Just 10 or 15 minutes of nothing: quiet, nature, breathing, or simply sitting in a chair without trying to achieve anything.

Attention Restoration Theory Research

Even brief moments of quiet or gentle natural attention lowers stress, restores cognitive capacity, and boosts creativity. It's the mental equivalent of clearing your cache.

This Year, Find a 30-Day Stretch

Once a day, take a 15-minute micro Sabbath with zero agenda.

Sit by a window
Stare at a tree
Lie on a couch
Do absolutely nothing
And don't apologize for it

💡 This isn't laziness. It's maintenance. Walks spark ideas. Micro Sabbaths restore your brain so you can actually use them.

💌 Send 26 Thank You Notes

If you want a practice that strengthens your relationships, boosts your well-being, and keeps you grounded through the ups and downs of the year, here it is.

Write more thank you notes.

Martin Seligman and Robert Emmons Research

Expressing gratitude, especially in the form of written letters, produces a lasting boost in happiness, reduces stress, and deepens connection.

In some studies, the positive effects lasted for weeks or even months. In one study, gratitude writers reported 25% more life satisfaction and even exercised more—about an hour and a half extra per week.

Not bad for a stamp and a few sentences.

The Beauty of Gratitude Letters: Simplicity

They don't require grand gestures or poetic writing. They just require attention.

Attention to the people who've helped you, supported you, taught you, challenged you, or somehow made your life a little better.

Your 2026 Challenge: Easy to Remember

Send 26 thank you notes this year. One every two weeks.

Handwritten is best
Short is fine
Simple, clear, sincere

That's all you need.

💡 You'll brighten someone's day, strengthen a relationship, and without fail, lift your own mood.

✨ Conclusion

You've built a sustainable motivation system:

Embrace the 85% rule — Growth happens at the edge
Redefine discomfort as learning — Effort, not ease, is the signal
Design friction wisely — Reconfigure your environment
Use public promises — Share with one person
Track small wins — Progress creates motivation
Build a challenge network — People who tell you the truth
Curate your circle — Challenger, cheerleader, coach
Create a to-don't list — The power of subtraction
Try micro Sabbaths — Restore through stillness
Send 26 thank you notes — Connection and well-being

These are the fuel to make 2026 the best year of your life. 🚀