The 2026 Project: A Year-Long Plan for Sustainable Life Improvement Through Monthly Experiments and an Experimental Mindset

Mia's Digital Diary

Introduction [00:00-00:57]

• Mia introduces her "2026 Project" as a way to implement life improvements, likening it to a video game expansion pack with small, manageable content bites.
• She frames it as a personal growth initiative rather than a quick transformation.

What is the 2026 Project? (and what it's not) [00:58-02:12]

• Distinction from dramatic change videos: The project is not about rapid, aesthetic transformations ("change your life in 30 days").
• A sustainable approach: It's a slow-and-steady, year-long life improvement project that prioritizes practicality, sustainability, and internal well-being.
• Designed for challenges: It accounts for factors like ADHD and fluctuating motivation levels, which can hinder rigid goal-setting.
• Core definition: The project is a series of pre-planned life improvement "experiments" tailored to specific life goals over 12 months.

Why Monthly Experiments? [02:13-03:26]

• Addressing goal-setting difficulties: Mia explains her personal struggle with setting and tracking specific, linear goals despite being a "goal girly" who loves vision boards and planners.
• Questioning traditional success: She finds that even when hitting linear goals, the outcome can feel unfulfilling.
• An alternative approach: Suggests de-centering linear goals and preconceived notions of success in favor of a more experimental approach.

The Experimental Mindset [03:27-06:19]

• Inspiration: The concept is adopted from Big Think's video "Fix Your Destructive Mindset in 15 Minutes," which identifies three subconscious mindsets that hold people back.
• Three hindering mindsets:
  • Cynicism
  • Perfectionism
  • Escapism
• Mindset grid: These mindsets can be plotted against two characteristics: ambition and curiosity.
  • Escapism: high curiosity, low ambition.
  • Perfectionism: high ambition, low curiosity.
  • Cynicism: low ambition, low curiosity.
• The "sweet spot": The experimental mindset is characterized by high ambition and high curiosity.
• Key aspects of an experimental mindset:
  • Open to uncertainty, seeing it as an opportunity to explore, grow, and learn.
  • Views failures as data points for learning.
  • Embraces not having a rigid plan and not knowing what's coming next.
  • Allows for designing a life that is conscious and connected.
• Personal relevance: Mia has had to reframe her mindset due to ADHD, finding that rigidity is incompatible with her brain and leads to sadness.
• Core takeaway: The project focuses on setting experiments to uncover how one wants to live their best life, rather than setting rigid goals based on predictions.

  

Step 1: Mindmap [06:20-08:09]

• Purpose: To explore personal motivations, goals, and influences, and identify areas for improvement.
• Process: Creating a mind map before seeking external inspiration to ensure internally driven points.
• Focus on intention: It's crucial to focus on the underlying intention rather than specific outcomes (e.g., financial security instead of just buying a house).
• Examples of identified areas: Health, mental health, digital hygiene, creative hobbies, writing, cognition, financial security, and career purpose.
• Influence: The book "Moral Ambition" inspired considerations about career impact and skills utilization.

  

Step 2: Visualization & Vision Boarding [08:10-11:02]

• Power of visualization: Acknowledges visualization as a powerful tool, supported by neuroscience.
• Brain's value tagging system:
  • Explained by Dr. Izzy Cely's video on the neuroscience of visualization.
  • Our brains process vast amounts of information but our conscious mind handles only a fraction.
  • Value tagging is where the brain recognizes information as important based on emotional significance or relevance to goals.
  • This system filters information, forwarding important data to the conscious mind.
• Practical application: Placing vision boards in regularly seen locations (e.g., planner, desk, phone screen) to provide consistent visual reminders of goals, thereby leveraging value tagging.
• Outcome: By the end of mind mapping and vision boarding, a clear idea of life areas for focus in 2026 is established.

  

How to Cultivate an Experimental Mindset [11:03-12:15]

• Four-step framework (scientific approach):
  1. Observe your current situation.
  2. Ask a research question.
  3. Design a tiny experiment.
  4. Analyze results and decide on next steps.
• Commitment pact: A self-agreement to undertake a small, purposeful experiment for a specific duration.
• Habits vs. experiments:
  • Habit: Something known to be good and intended indefinitely.
  • Experiment: Something whose effectiveness is unknown, undertaken to discover if it works for you.
• The focus is on trying things out and learning, without the pressure of permanent commitment.

My Notion Setup [12:16-13:47]

• Template structure: A Notion template with two main sections.
  • 1. Quarterly month-to-month view: Dedicated pages for each month of 2026 to track experiments with brief notes. It accommodates experiments spanning multiple months.
  • 2. Experiment idea dump: A central list of potential experiments that can be dragged and dropped into monthly pages, allowing for flexibility and addition of new ideas throughout the year.
• Flexibility: The setup emphasizes that the plan is not rigid and can change, aligning with the experimental mindset.
• Resource bank: Notion also serves as a resource bank, storing links and content relevant to experiments (e.g., a content bank for "being my own algorithm").
• Integration: While Notion handles big-picture overviews and resources, Mia prefers a physical planner for day-to-day tracking.

  

Some of My Experiments! [13:48-15:40]

• Examples of experiments Mia plans to try:
  1. Latch hooking for 15 minutes a day: To explore the cognitive benefits of crafting.
  2. Being my own algorithm: Curating weekly media consumption to avoid endless scrolling.
  3. Keeping a commonplace journal for 3 months: A renewed attempt to consistently collect quotes and knowledge.
  4. Going analog with media: Trying to replace digital streaming (e.g., Spotify) with physical media (CDs, books) to assess its impact.
  5. Daily 30-minute yoga video.
  6. Not using phone for the first hour or two of the day.
• Philosophy: The goal is to simply try these things to see what works and what doesn't, understanding that even "failures" provide valuable data.