Post Summary:
The Two Percent New Year Challenge begins on January 1st.
You’ll get daily challenges from January 1st to 31st inside the the Two Percent chat—short, meaningful actions that build real momentum in your health, fitness, nutrition, mindset, and life.
It’s not about smashing yourself with grand resolutions. It’s about stacking small, science-backed wins that compound to build a foundation for a stronger year.
The Challenge is for Members only.
If you want 2026 to feel different—better, clearer, more capable—this is your on-ramp. Join here:
The rest of this 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 it works.
The why:
Every January, millions of people declare war on their old habits and take on giant resolutions:
Hit the gym seven days a week. Meditate 40 minutes daily. Cut sugar 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.
And when we fail, we don’t just stop — we often rebound harder in the wrong direction, ending up worse than when we started. Psychologists call this the disinhibition effect1. We call it January 19th.
Oversized goals usually fail for two reasons:
The leap is too big.
Going from 0 to 60 overnight feels good for a week, then life hits back. Big goals upend our lives and push us too far out of our comfort zone, too fast, for too long. The stress accumulates. We quit, and quitting becomes the habit.Big goals ignore the foundation of change.
By focusing entirely on one aspect of change, we miss other skills and small acts that improve our overall skill set and create conditions for change. For example, fitness without recovery or nutrition habits. Productivity without sleep. Quitting sugar without addressing what triggers us to eat it. Hitting the gas in one area of your life is futile if you have your foot on the brake in others.
Lasting change isn’t about extremes. And it’s not about one move, it’s about building the proper support structure. I.e., it’s a symphony, not a solo.
Real progress comes from accumulating small, uncomfortable wins across different domains. 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 cliff.
Each of our challenges pushes your edge a little farther. Step by step, you’ll accumulate small wins, build skills, and be better able to navigate the coming year.
That’s how you build a foundation for success—not just in January but for life. And it’s the philosophy behind the Two Percent New Year Challenge.
How the Challenge works:
Every weekday in January, Members will receive a new challenge in the Two Percent chat on Substack. Here’s a link to the chat.
Each challenge will 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 a range of 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 don’t need to overhaul your life. Just do today’s challenge. Then tomorrow’s. Then the next.
Whether your goal is fat loss, fitness, mental resilience, less screen time, or better habits—this Challenge makes everything easier to stick with. You’ll build the infrastructure to sustain goals.
You’ll need to be a Member of Two Percent to participate. Become a Member here to join us:
Join us. Don’t go comfortably into 2026.
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 that you’ll stick with your big resolution.
Have fun, don’t die, see you in the chat.
-Michael & Duke
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Tomiyama AJ, Moskovich A, Haltom KB, Ju T, Mann T. Consumption after a diet violation: disinhibition or compensation? Psychol Sci. 2009 Oct;20(10):1275-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02436.x. Epub 2009 Sep 2. PMID: 19732383; PMCID: PMC2761536.
