We spend a lot of time thinking about what helps us perform better. We focus on sleep, nutrition, discipline, mindset and routines. And all of these things matter. But there's another part of performance we don't always talk about: our relationships. Think about a time when something was weighing on you personally. Maybe you were worried about someone you love, going through a difficult period in your relationship, or simply feeling disconnected. Did it stay neatly in your pe

There was a point in my life when getting a job at the United Nations felt like making it. I had worked hard for it, imagined what it would feel like, and when it finally happened, I was genuinely proud. But eventually, it became normal. And I think that's one of the strange things about achievement: we can spend years wanting something, finally get it, and then become so used to it that we barely notice it anymore. Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation — our tendency to

I’ve been thinking about the advice we hear so often: never give up. It sounds good. And sometimes, we really do need to hear it. But I’ve also wondered whether there are moments when continuing isn't resilience at all. Sometimes we keep pushing because something matters to us. And sometimes we keep pushing because walking away feels like admitting that we failed. Those two things can look very similar from the outside. You can spend years pursuing a career because it genuine

We often think we need more confidence before we can trust ourselves. But maybe it works the other way around. Self-trust is built through experience. Every time you make a decision, act on it, deal with the consequences and adjust when necessary, you give yourself evidence that you can handle what comes next. And this is an important distinction: trusting yourself doesn't mean believing you'll always make the right decision. It means knowing that even when you get it wrong,

We often treat discipline as a personal trait: you either have it or you don't. But what if discipline is partly a design problem? The easier a behaviour is to access, the less effort it takes to repeat. And the more friction we put between ourselves and a behaviour, the less automatic it becomes. So instead of constantly asking yourself to try harder, ask: How could I make the behaviour I want easier — and the behaviour I don't want slightly harder? Sometimes changing your e

We often assume that overthinking happens because we care too much about making the right decision. But sometimes, there is something else underneath it: We are trying to make uncertainty feel safe. The problem is that thinking is very good at generating possibilities. It is much less good at guaranteeing outcomes. You can research the new job, talk to five people, make a spreadsheet, calculate the risks and still not know whether leaving will make you happier. And this is wh

Most of us have experienced the same frustrating moment. You know exactly what needs to be done. You know delaying it will only make things harder. And yet, somehow, you still put it off. For years, I thought procrastination was simply a discipline problem. If we could just become more organised or more motivated, everything would fall into place. The more I read psychology and the more I coach people, the less convinced I became. Perhaps procrastination isn’t primarily a pro

You’ve probably already noticed some of your patterns. The way you react under pressure. The decisions you keep repeating. The situations that somehow keep leading to the same outcome. And yet, awareness alone rarely changes them. That’s because patterns are not just behaviors. They become predictions. The brain is constantly trying to create efficiency. The more something is repeated — a thought, an emotional reaction, a behavior — the more familiar it becomes. And over time