The Two Percent New Year Challenge

Post Summary

• We’re launching the Two Percent New Year Challenge on January 1st.

• It’s a sustainable, science-backed path to help you build health, fitness, nutrition, and mindset habits that will improve your entire year.

• The Challenge will run from January 1st to 31st in the chat and is exclusively for Members of Two Percent.

• Don’t go comfortably into 2025—join The Challenge.

• Today’s post will explain the details of the Two Percent New Year Challenge:

  • Why we’re doing it.

  • The science and philosophy behind why it works.

  • How you can participate.

Housekeeping

• Full access to the Two Percent New Year Challenge is for Members of Two Percent.

• Become a Member to get full access to The Challenge and all Two Percent posts and podcasts and our full backlog of actionable information.

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Podcast/audio edition

• Listen on your preferred player here.

• Click the video above to watch on video.

The Two Percent New Year Challenge

The New Year often inspires us to take on giant resolutions:

Hit the gym seven days a week. Meditate 40 minutes daily. Avoid carbs until Memorial Day. Reduce our screen time to zero.

It sounds great in theory—but more than 90 percent of people quit their big New Year’s resolution before February.

Oversized goals usually fail for two reasons:

1. They push us too far out of our comfort zone, too fast, for too long.
   We’re not ready to go from 0 to 60 overnight. It upends our life. The stress accumulates—and we tap out. The worst part: Quitting can trigger what’s called “the disinhibition effect,” leaving us us worse off than when we started.

2. They ignore the supporting tools and foundation needed to support change.
   By focusing entirely on one aspect of change, we miss other skills and small acts that improve our overall skillset and create conditions for change.

Lasting change isn’t about extremes. And it’s not a solo, it’s a symphony¹.

I believe change is fueled by accumulating uncomfortable acts in different disciplines. Ones that work together to expand your skillset and comfort zone. Each should get you one step closer to progress—but not hurl you over the edge.

That’s how you build a foundation for success—not just in January but for life.

Enter the Two Percent New Year Challenge

Two Percent New Year Challenge Details

Some of you might want to lose weight this year. Others may want to consistently exercise or improve your mindset, health, or productivity.

The Two Percent New Year Challenge can help with all of these goals.

Here’s how it works:

• Each weekday in January, Members will get a new challenge in the Two Percent chat on Substack. Here’s a link to the chat.

• Each challenge is designed to accomplish two goals:

  • 1. Push you just enough—but not too much—to build habits that stick and expand your comfort zone.

  • 2. Give you different tools that build a foundation of lasting change. For example, some daily challenges will focus on fitness or nutrition. Others will deal with mindset or behavioral psychology.

• Once I post the daily challenge, your job is simple: Complete the challenge for the day.

• You’ll need to be a Member of Two Percent to participate.

Join us. Don’t go comfortably into 2025.

And even if you are planning a heroic New Year’s resolution, you’ll still benefit from the Challenge. The Challenge will add more tools to your toolbox—increasing the likelihood of sticking with your big resolution.

Have fun, don’t die, see you in the chat.

-Michael

1. Three examples: It’s much harder to stop eating junk food if you haven’t leveraged some behavioral psychology to understand what triggers you to eat junk in the first place. It’s harder to stick to a big new exercise routine if you haven’t built a solid foundation to support an increase in exercise. It’s harder to journal if you haven’t engineered your environment to lessen distractions.