#1 Excellence Expert: Avoid The BIGGEST New Year Goal Traps
Focus on winning more workouts than you lose, not the gold medal. The biggest trap in pursuing goals is the all-or-nothing mentality when plans meet reality. Instead of obsessing over outcomes, break big goals into component parts and focus on small, consistent steps. Like Olympic champion Keli Hump
2h 2mKey Takeaway
Focus on winning more workouts than you lose, not the gold medal. The biggest trap in pursuing goals is the all-or-nothing mentality when plans meet reality. Instead of obsessing over outcomes, break big goals into component parts and focus on small, consistent steps. Like Olympic champion Keli Humphries says: each four-year Olympic cycle becomes quarters, months, days, and individual workouts—just try to win more than you lose.
Episode Overview
Brad Stoltberg, researcher and performance coach, discusses sustainable approaches to achieving excellence in 2026. The conversation explores the paradoxes of high performance: balancing discipline with self-compassion, caring deeply while staying detached, pursuing intensity while finding joy, and striving for excellence while remaining grounded. Key themes include process-oriented thinking, managing multiple identities, the myth of balance, and how curiosity serves as an antidote to fear.
Key Insights
The Planning Fallacy and All-or-Nothing Thinking
The biggest trap with New Year's goals is setting big audacious targets with initial motivation, then abandoning them when reality interferes. Plans consistently go 40% haywire (the planning fallacy). Instead of giving up entirely, focus on consistency through the smallest possible steps—the bigger the goal, the smaller the steps should be.
Values-Aligned Goals Create Sustainable Motivation
Goals should align with 3-5 core values (like health, creativity, community, mastery). Define what each value actually means to you personally. The goal itself matters less than how pursuing it allows you to embody your values daily. You spend 99.99% of your time climbing the mountain (the process), not at the peak (the outcome).
Process Mindset: Break Down and Forget the Big Goal
Set your big goal, break it into component parts, then largely forget the big goal to avoid overwhelm and impatience. Focus on small daily steps and victories. When you catch yourself stressing about timelines or distant outcomes, redirect attention back to the immediate process. Olympic athletes break four-year cycles into years, quarters, months, days, and individual workouts.
The Identity House: Multiple Rooms Prevent Fragility
Build an identity with multiple rooms (athlete, parent, creative, community member) rather than one single identity. When one room floods or catches fire (injury, failure, setback), you have other rooms to inhabit. You don't need equal time in each room, but never let important rooms get too moldy. This allows you to go all-in on pursuits without your entire sense of self being on the line.
Humble Badass: Self-Discipline AND Self-Compassion
Elite performers combine extreme self-discipline with deep self-kindness. These aren't opposing forces but complementary qualities. Without self-compassion when you fail, you won't sustain self-discipline—the pressure becomes unbearable and you won't step back into the arena. The process of doing hard things naturally softens you and teaches kindness.
Curiosity as the Antidote to Fear
The brain pathways for panic/rage and curiosity/problem-solving are zero-sum—they can't both activate simultaneously. Shifting to a 'brave new world' mindset of curiosity literally changes your neurology to reduce anxiety and fear. Even Kobe Bryant, known for fierce competitiveness, said he played not to win or avoid losing, but 'to learn things, to figure the game out.'
Balanced in the Macro, Not the Micro
High performers describe their most satisfying periods as times of complete imbalance—going all-in on winning a medal, opening a restaurant, writing a book. Yet across their entire life, they appear balanced. Instead of trying to do everything always, embrace seasonality: focus intensely on one or two pursuits for a season, then shift emphasis over time.
Notable Quotes
"A goal is the peak of the mountain. You spend 99.9999% of your time on the sides of the mountain, right? Actually doing the climb. So much of life is lived in the process of going there and that's where the goals that you work on also work on you."
"I think the biggest trap that people tend to fall into with any fresh start, but perhaps particularly at the beginning of a new year, is you've got all this motivation right off the bat and you set this big audacious goal. And the idea of the goal is great. It's really fluid in your head. You've got a plan for how it's going to work, but then that plan meets reality and life gets in the way."
"Dan Kahneman won a Nobel Prize for the planning fallacy, right? We plan and things go 40% haywire all the time. And the same is true with our personal goals."
"I asked Keli Humphries, one of the best winter Olympians of all time for America... she immediately told me that, well, the Olympics happen every four years, but every four-year cycle is broken down into two two-year cycles... Each of those quarters are broken down into months. Each of those months are broken down into days. And some days I have one workout. Some days I have two workouts. I just try to win more workouts than I lose. And that's the path to a gold medal."
"Kobe Bryant... was asked if he's the kind of player that plays not to lose or if he's the kind of player that plays to win. And he said, 'I'm neither. I play to learn things. I play to figure the game out.'"
"There's fascinating neuroscience that shows that the pathways in your brain that are associated with panic and rage and that are associated with curiosity and problem solving, they're zero sum. They can't both be on at the same time."
"The times when people say they are at their best and feel the most alive are also the times when they are the least balanced."
"You've got to be grounded to soar."
Action Items
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1
Evaluate Goal-Value Alignment
List 3-5 core values (creativity, health, community, discipline, etc.) and define what each means to you specifically. Then assess whether your current goals allow you to embody these values in the daily process, not just at the outcome. If misaligned, adjust or release the goal.
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2
Implement the Process Mindset Framework
Take your big goal and break it into component parts (skills, habits, systems needed). Focus daily attention on these small steps, not the distant outcome. When you catch yourself stressing about timelines or the end result, consciously redirect to: 'What's the next workout I need to win?'
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3
Build Your Identity House
Map out the different 'rooms' of your identity (parent, athlete, creative, community member, etc.). Ensure you're maintaining minimum effective doses in important rooms even when focusing heavily on one area. Never let your identity house shrink to just one room.
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4
Practice 'Brave New World' Curiosity
When facing fear or a challenging situation, pause and say 'brave new world' as a mantra. Actively shift from asking 'Will I succeed/fail?' to 'What will I learn? What's interesting about this?' This neurologically shifts you from panic pathways to curiosity pathways.