For years, I had a problem that looked like a discipline problem. It wasn't.
I was working as a global product manager — constant travel, late nights, early mornings, flights every week. The job came with a lifestyle. Dinners that ran long, drinks because that's what you do, hotel rooms and airport lounges and the kind of exhaustion that builds up slowly until one day you realise you haven't felt like yourself in a while.
At the same time — family. Golf. Trying to stay fit. All the things that matter most, always competing for whatever energy was left after everything else had taken its share.
"I kept trying the same things and expecting different results. All or nothing. Every time."
The all-or-nothing pattern had been with me since I played professional golf. Train completely, compete seriously, perform or don't. That mindset works on a course. In real life, with a job and a family and a body that needs more than four hours of sleep — it breaks you.
The three shifts that changed everything
1. Stop asking how to do more. Start asking who you want to be.
The first real shift came when I stopped trying to add habits and started thinking about identity. I didn't want to "eat less." I wanted to be a person who owns what goes into their body. That small change in framing changed every decision downstream.
2. Stop guessing. Start measuring.
The second shift was data. I started tracking everything — weight every morning, calories, macros, workouts. Not to obsess, but to stop lying to myself. The data showed me things I hadn't wanted to see. I was eating the wrong things at the wrong times. Small adjustments made a bigger difference than any extreme programme ever had.
3. Consistency over intensity.
The third shift — the one I'm still working on — is accepting that progress isn't linear. One new habit at a time. Small steps forward, every day, without stopping. The 5k became a 10k target. The 10k will become a half marathon. There is no finish line. That's the point.
What a good day looks like now
Wake up before the alarm — rested. Spend time with family in the morning. Go into the day with steady energy. Take on the hard tasks first. Don't push anything forward that can be done now. Everything flows.
That's what I'm building toward. And I'm documenting everything — the experiments that work, the ones that fail, the habits I'm still trying to fix, and the mindset shifts along the way.
Procrastination is still my biggest struggle. I'll be honest about that too.
Change is hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it. But small steps forward, every day — that's how you get there.
The only way to lose is to give up.
— Niclas / Stockholm