How to Be the Best Version of You – and Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail
Most New Year’s resolutions fail for one simple reason: the person you are wouldn’t do the things you’re choosing to do.
You set a goal to eat strict for four weeks, hit the gym five days a week, or cut out all treats. It feels disciplined. It looks hard. But if it doesn’t match who you actually are, the wheels come off fast.
The fix isn’t more willpower. It’s finding the behaviours that fit the person you already are – or becoming someone new (which is possible but hard).
Here’s why this matters, told through my own experiences.
I’m a serial endurance swimmer, biker and runner. That’s my tribe. That’s what I do in my spare time. If that’s not you, good – don’t force it. This isn’t about copying me. It’s about spotting what lights you up and leaning into it.
That’s where the magic happens.
A few months back I realised I’d drifted. Work and life blur into one thing for me – health, activity, testing how I respond to new and old challenges, then sharing it with others. It’s what I do for a living and what I do anyway. But without big goals I start overeating, drifting, overdoing the wrong stuff. Salt and vinegar chips, fish and chips, diet drinks – my weaknesses are real.
So I set some goals to get back in my zone:
September: Sunshine Coast 70.3 triathlon – my first in 17 years. DONE. More fun and better fitness than expected.
November: Informal half Ironman from home with 16 young blokes raising money for Movember men’s mental health. 2 km swim, 90 km ride, 21 km run. DONE. Epic day.
December: K2 bike ride – 200 km around the hilly Coromandel with my other son and his mates. DONE. Brutal. The young guns dropped me on the first hill, but the slow group finished. Proper epic.
Saturday: Tauranga Half Ironman. DONE. An old favourite from my younger days. I raced it properly this time – 1st in age group on swim and bike, dropped to 3rd on the run. Podium finish and feeling alive.
Number 5 is coming in about 6.5 weeks: full Ironman New Zealand (3.8 km swim, 180 km bike, 42.2 km run). Right now half distance has me cooked, but I’ll stack the big sessions and see what happens.
From the outside this looks like a brutal grind. Discipline plus. But it’s not – not for me. This is where I thrive. It’s who I am. Same as the bodybuilder who lives for the diet and lifts, or the entrepreneur who shows up every day because that’s their natural mode. Yeah, there are tough bits, but it’s where we come alive.
Stop fighting yourself with goals that clash with your identity. Lean into what already excites you, set goals that pull you forward in that direction, and the “grind” becomes flow.
Who are you, really? What pulls you out of bed or keeps you going when it’s rough? Are you chasing resolutions that fight your nature, or ones that amplify it?
Get that right and behaviour change stops being a battle. It just becomes you being more of you.
