No wonder “new year, new me” ambitions can feel overwhelming on this first Monday of January.
It is freezing cold, and the news cycle is gloomy and serves as a reminder of how much lies outside our control. In that context, sweeping transformation goals can feel unrealistic and emotionally tone-deaf.
Perhaps this is precisely why the work needs to start somewhere much smaller yet more significant.
Rather than asking Who do I want to become this year?, a more workable question might be: What can I notice -and perhaps challenge-, right now?
One place to begin is with our thoughts, and with any small wins the week might still offer. In neuroscience, this capacity is known as metacognition: the ability to observe and name thoughts as they arise and pass. Research shows that this process engages the prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotional responses generated by the limbic system. In practice, this means that noticing a thought (“I can’ rather than automatically believing it can soften its emotional grip.
This is not about positive thinking. It is about creating space.
Neuroscientist and author Nicole Vignola explores this in her Big Think talk,
A Neuroscientist’s Guide to Reclaiming Your Brain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcbxIoERm6w
Vignola describes our perception box as the set of stories we hold about who we are, what we are capable of, and what feels possible or permissible for us. These beliefs are shaped over time, through experience, observation, and repetition. They are often limiting, yet they are not fixed.
Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to change throughout life, consistently attending to different thoughts, behaviours, and interpretations can quite literally rewire neural pathways. What we repeatedly practice -mentally and behaviourally- becomes easier, more familiar, and eventually more automatic.
Vignola uses a helpful metaphor: moving from narrow, overused paths to building new highways. The old path exists because it has been walked so many times. The new one, at first, is barely visible, especially in the fog. And our brains, shaped by negativity bias and confirmation bias, will try hard to steer us back. Familiarity, even when limiting, often feels safer than uncertainty.
Yet each small win noticed, each thought observed rather than believed, lays a little more road ahead.
What does this look like in real life? A few years ago, I began to think and act differently about turning up alone to networking and social events; introducing myself proactively and initiating collaboration rather than waiting to be invited in. A small step for humanity, perhaps, but a significant one for me. It subtly shifted how I saw myself and what I believed I could handle.
More recently, a friend started to challenge her belief about going alone to the theatre. She accepted invitations, turned up, and stayed. These were not dramatic acts of reinvention, but they led to new connections, unexpected enjoyment, and a broadened sense of identity. With that came the courage to try slightly bigger things.
A client recently shared he was reframing his thinking around ambition, from something negative and selfish to an urge and curiosity to grow.
This is how perception boxes expand and shift.
At the start of a demanding year, realistic optimism may not mean radical change. It may mean choosing the next visible stretch of road, especially when the fog is thick, and trusting that new pathways form through repetition, not resolve.
So perhaps the question for this week is not What must I change?
But rather: What thoughts will I notice? What small wins will I allow to count?
And how might that begin to alter what feels possible?
