Marcus Aurelius may have been very powerful. In fact, he was extremely powerful, but he wasn't perfect. He struggled like you and I. He drifted from the person that he wanted to be, the person that he knew that he could be. So it's an interesting passage in meditations.
He says, like, you're a beast. You're a monkey. He's lamenting how low he has fallen.
But he says, in a week, you can be a god if you rediscover your beliefs, if you recommit to the logos, to philosophy. I think he was commenting on something that maybe we all feel towards the end of the year, which is we kind of run out of gas. We're coasting a little bit.
We've drifted far from who we want to be, what we're capable of being. But the good news is we can start fresh. We can come back to that.
The logos, philosophy, wisdom, virtue, that potential we have, it's still there. We just have to pick it back up. We just have to come back to it.
Marcus Willis would talk about how no one can do this for you. He says, be your own savior while you And to me, there's no better time to do that than a new year. Seneca tried to kick off each new year with the kind of metaphorical cleansing, but then also an inspiring challenge.
He would throw himself in the Tiber River, the freezing cold river that ran through Rome on the first of the year. Here we are, January is upon us. One of the things I do to kick off each new year is a series of Stoic-inspired challenges. At Daily Stoic, we call it New Year, New You.
And it's 21 days of Stoic-inspired challenges. And in today's episode, I want to give you some stoic practices, some stoic ideas to kick off the new year right, to become a new you, to become the God that you're capable of being this year. So let's get after it.
You have to treat the body rigorously. Maybe it doesn't feel like philosophy has a lot to teach us, but it does. The stoics were active. They hunted and wrestled and lifted weights and ran.
These were active. Active people, mens sano, incorpora sano, right? A strong mind and a strong body. So look, a lot of people set resolutions to work out in the new year. They wanna be healthier, they wanna feel better, and no one needs to tell you why you should eat healthy and work out.
You got that, right? Look, when you picture a philosopher, you probably think of some ancient figure in a toga or a college professor in a tweed jacket. You're not thinking like an...
active person. But in the ancient world, philosophers were warriors and athletes and hunters and boxers and wrestlers and distance runners. They did hard things. They pushed their physical limitations. Socrates was a soldier.
He was admired for his ability to endure cold weather. Marcus Aurelius wrestled and hunted. Cleanthes was a boxer.
Epictetus lifted weights. Seneca started each year with a cold plunge. He threw himself in the freezing Tiber River. But the Stokes didn't just do this because they wanted to have big muscles and show off. It wasn't vanity for the Stoics at all.
Seneca said we treat the body rigorously so that it is not disobedient to the mind. For the Stoics, physical practice was a metaphor. It was a path to mental toughness. One of the best ways you increase your mental capacities is by doing things that are physically challenging. The Stoics wanted to push themselves day by day, build the muscle that says, I can do hard things.
The thing that says, I'm in charge. So as you're thinking about your resolutions for the year, picking something and starting with something that says, hey, I do what I say. I keep these promises to myself.
I push myself. I don't listen to that voice that says, oh, it's cold. I'm tired. I don't want to.
What you learn in a physical practice is who you are and what you're capable of. What you really learn is that you're capable of more than you think you are. This morning, I got up, I dropped my kid at school, and I went swimming in Barton Springs, and it was cold.
and it was a long swim. It was hard. I would have liked to stop earlier, but I didn't. I forced myself to do something.
I pushed myself further than I wanted to. Then I carry that energy back towards the rest of my day, towards any other challenges that I'm gonna experience. And when you push yourself physically this way, when you build a physical practice in your life, you are helping yourself be healthier and stronger and all of that. You're also getting mentally stronger. You're building your capacity to deal with challenges.
to endure, and you are becoming a more well-rounded, strong, and resilient figure. You got to get help. Whenever I speak to military groups, I like to tell them one of my favorite quotes in meditations.
Because Mark Surilis was a soldier, he fought in wars, he led the Roman army. And one of the few quotes he has where he directly references this experience, he says, like a soldier storming a wall. You have a mission to accomplish.
And if you've been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up, so what? I like so what? Like so what does a lot of heavy lifting there? He's saying it with a shrug that there's nothing shameful about it. It's not a big deal.
It's to be expected. It's perfunctory. Whether we're talking about going to therapy, asking for advice, bringing on someone to your team, asking a question about something you're not sure about, right? This is the secret.
When other people ask us for help, we're not like, oh, fuck that guy. We're like, oh, I'm glad you asked. And then we help them.
We're honored when our friends come to us and need things from us. Give us a chance to help them. And then for some reason, we don't afford ourselves that same privilege.
People would be glad to help us. People are waiting for us to ask. There's a quote in this book I like, The Boy, the Fox, the Horse, and the Mole. And he says, asking for help isn't giving up.
He says, asking for help is refusing to give up. Like, things are not going to work. You're going to run into trouble. You're not going to know how to do things. You're going to have questions.
You're going to struggle. Are you going to sit with that? Are you just going to stay the same?
Or are you going to ask for guidance and help and insight from someone who's been there, who knows better? But look, you're going to have to be. brave enough to do that.
If you're resolving to be better this year, you're probably not going to just get there on your own. Find out someone who's been there before. Find out someone who's further ahead.
Find someone who knows how to solve this problem. We're in this mission together. We're comrades.
Get help. A lot of people resolve to read more. I want to read more this year.
I want to read one book, 10 books, 50 books, 100 books. You know what Epictetus would say to that resolution to just like... increase the raw amount you're reading.
He says, I'm not impressed knowing that you read. He says, I'm not even impressed if they read all night long. He says, I need to know what the focus of this energy is. He says, I need to know what you're reading. It's not how much you read, even that you read.
It's what you are reading. Of course, look, spending hours and days in front of books is better than watching stupid internet videos or just listening to podcasts that blather on, but it can still be a waste of time. Seneca said that too many good brains have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge. Seneca thought it was super important to read, but he said we got to linger on the works of the master thinker. So as you're thinking about reading this year, as you're thinking about getting better, don't just resolve to just consume a lot of raw information.
Think about what books you need to reread. Think about really big, important books that you're going to actually struggle with and stay with, that you're going to get something out of. It's not just about impressing people on how much... you put on your Goodreads.
It's about actually getting better. It's filtering what gets in your brain. It's asking yourself, can I use this? How am I going to use this? What am I learning from it?
Now where everyone's going to have different personalities, different interests, different obstacles, different areas they're trying to improve in. Look, I own a whole bookstore. I got lots of books for you to recommend. I have a million other videos on what books you should read.
The point is, don't just think about reading as a numbers game, but it's really finding stuff that works, that makes you better. Spending that time and directing that energy intentionally. Think about how many books you're going to quit in 2025 because they're not good enough, because they're not delivering on what they're supposed to. I want you to be intentional as a reader this year.
Then and only then will you improve. I just spent a couple of weeks on the road. I stayed in some really nice hotels, but mostly I just wanted to get home and sleep in my own bed, specifically on my eight sleep. I love the alarm feature. It vibrates you to wake in the morning, like softly and soothingly instead of your phone.
I have the Pod 4 Ultra, which is like the best of the eight sleeps. It even raises up when you want to sit and read. If you want to make it cooler or hotter, you just like tap it on the side.
I just love this thing. I don't sleep as well without it. I'm worried about adjusting to the time difference, but I know I'm going to have a great night's sleep on my eight sleep.
If you want to take your sleep and your recovery to the next level, which is to me, a really important part of your your practice not just pushing yourself hard physically but also rest and recovery check out the eight sleep pod for ultra go to eight sleep.com slash daily stoke and use code daily stoke to get 600 bucks off and the offer ends soon so don't miss out trust me your body will thank you and i'm exhausted so i'm gonna go sleep on my mattress now I'm going to give you a magical habit to start this year, a habit that solves child problems and spouse problems and work problems and health problems and so many problems. And it's just to get outside and go for a walk. We should take wandering outdoor walks, Seneca advised, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.
The Buddhists, they talked of walking meditations, that meditation wasn't just a thing you did while you were sitting, but Walking through a beautiful forest, walking along the ocean, walking in a parking lot, it doesn't really matter. Gotta get moving. I'm not saying going for a walk will solve all your problems.
I'm saying there are very few problems in life that are not improved by taking a walk. Kierkegaard wrote a letter to his depressed sister-in-law. He says, above all, do not lose your desire to walk. He said, every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and I walk away from illness. He says, I have walked myself into my best thoughts.
He says, I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. There were schools of philosophy that... All they did was take walks.
The philosophical teacher would walk, the students would walk alongside, and they would talk. The point is the Stoics got outside, they got active, they got moving. Take a walk.
It matters. It is a foundational habit that will make you better this year. You got to be able to concentrate. If there was one skill you could cultivate this year, things that would help you across whatever you're struggling with, whatever you're dealing with this year.
something that is increasingly rare in today's world, to me it would be the ability to concentrate, the ability to focus. Marx really struggled with this, as we all do. It's too busy for all of us, even in the ancient world. He said, you gotta concentrate every minute like a Roman. He says, I'm doing what's in front of you.
He says, with precise and genuine seriousness, you gotta be able to do this tenderly, willingly, with justice. You gotta be able to. Concentrate. Cal Newport, my friend who I've had on the podcast many times, would talk about this idea of deep work.
Deep work is the rarity today. To lock in, to do the thing in front of you, to be present. Instead, we're distracted because we've got all these things on our plate.
We've got our phones. We've got emails to respond to. Our mind wanders. What about this? What about that?
Right? So we're not doing the thing in front of us. And the ability to look, to focus, to lock in, it's where peak performance and insights and breakthroughs all come from.
I open Stillness is the Key with this famous story about Seneca. He's in his apartment in Rome. It's in a noisy building.
He can hear the things on the street going below. His life's falling apart. There is literal and metaphorical noise around him.
But he writes to a friend that what he did was he toughened his nerves against these things. He says, I force my mind to concentrate and I keep it from straying to things outside itself. He says, all outdoors may be bedlam provided there is no disturbance within. This isn't something you just magically get. It's cultivated through a meditation practice, through a journaling practice, through discipline.
We have to be able to tune out our surroundings. We have to access our capacities on demand, despite the difficulty, despite the distraction. You may be sure that you are at peace with yourself, Seneca wrote, when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it's flattery or a thread or empty sound buzzing about you.
No one's going to be perfect at that. You're not probably ever going to get at that state. I am not. But Seneca got to a place where even a deranged emperor, even fame, even emotions, even random construction noise from outside his window, none of it could interrupt him.
And thus, every beat of the present moment is his for the living. And that's what we're trying to do. We got to winnow our thoughts, Marcus Aurelius says, narrow our gaze to what matters and commit to it.
If there's anything worth cultivating this year, it's that ability to concentrate. to focus, to be where we are while we are there. Show me a man who isn't a slave, Seneca once said, pointing out that even slave owners were chained to the responsibility of maintaining their enormous slave estates.
He said, look, this one's a slave to sex, another to money, to ambition. He says, we're all slaves to hope. What stoicism is at its core is freeing yourself from this. form of mental slavery.
Pull yourself out of the ignorance of your addiction. Become aware of the power that this thing has over you. The cup of coffee, the cigarettes, the checking your email incessantly, the phone, whatever it is. You do not want things to have power over you.
If you do not have the freedom to not do a thing, then that thing is more powerful than you. And in some ways, the habit itself is less important than the fact that it is. making us dependent on us. That thirst, that craving, that's the thing to be worried about.
Look, some things are addictions you got to totally steer clear of. Then maybe some things you got to take a break from and you can come back to recreationally. But it's the need you want to be suspicious of. The need, the lack of freedom to abstain, it is the source of your suffering.
You cannot be great, you cannot have a great year, if you are in the throes of an addiction. Whatever the bad habit is. Whatever is ruling your life, socially acceptable or not, you must quit being a slave this year and you must start now.
Stop trying to be perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good enough this year. In the winter of 1931, the great choreographer Martha Graham, she was hopelessly bogged down in this dance series she was working on.
She'd been working on it for months and months and months. She was a notorious perfectionist. She despaired of being able to finish. She was worried that she'd wasted her Guggenheim fellowship. She was convinced it wasn't going to be good enough for her reputation, the critics, the vision in her head.
The winter is lost, she said as she whimpered in self-pity. The whole winter's work is lost. I destroyed my year. The work's no good.
She just wanted to throw it all out. And this is despite the fact that the dancers thought it was good, her friends thought it was good. All she could see was what was wrong with it. All she could see was the ways that it wasn't perfect. And this trapped her in this kind of creative prison that ultimately was preventing her from putting the thing out.
And this is a tragic fate of so many talented people because we become great. because of our incredibly high standards, standards that are often much higher than anyone else. But inside this virtue is also a terrible vice. Prevents us not only from enjoying it, but impossible to ship the thing and then start the next thing because it's not good enough, because there's always more they can do, because it doesn't measure up.
It was Churchill who said that perfectionism is better spelled paralysis. We get stuck. It's actually a form of the resistance. It's a deep commitment to the work, but it's actually a profound fear and aversion.
to doing the work and finishing the work is part of the work. It's not humility. It's not obsession.
There's nothing positive about this perfectionism. There's something narcissistic about it, something insane about it, something inherently self-absorbed about it. So we have to cultivate this year the self-discipline to ship, to finish, to move forward, to focus on progress and not perfection.
The Stoics remind us we don't abandon a pursuit because we despair of perfecting it. No, we just try to get better every day. We try to improve a little bit by a little bit.
And then actually this perfectionism, this idealism is kind of a cowardice. It protects us from having to do the hardest part, which is finishing. Just because the Stoics didn't believe in perfectionism, didn't believe in settling either.
Epictetus said, is it possible to be free from error? No, but it is possible to be a person stretching to avoid error. That's what stoicism is. That's the mantra for the year.
Trying to be better, trying to grow, trying to improve. That means finishing. That means moving forward. That means accepting that you're not perfect, that it's never going to reach the ideal, but you can still strive and grow and change and have the courage to ship and finish and put yourself out there.
Pick a word to live by in 2025. If a man knows not which port he sails, Seneca said, no wind is favorable. That's a little stoic practice for the year. Let's choose a word to live by in 2025, a port to aim towards, a north star, a clarifying bit of language that helps us color our thoughts and decisions for the year.
In yoga, practitioners set an intention before each session. In Meditation practitioners can use a mantra to focus their mind. For the Stoics, they tried to come up with what they called epithets for the self, single words that could be touchstones for character. Some of Marcus Aurelius's were upright and modest, straightforward, sane, cooperative.
Every year, what I try to do is come up with a word that I want to shoot for, aim for, hold up as my North Star for the year. I've picked stillness as a word. I've picked systems as a word. I wanted to get better at organizing and structuring things.
Less was a really important word for me. I wanted to do less because by doing less, I could do more. In times of chaos and dysfunction and disorder, when we have so many choices and so many directions we can go, a word for the year can help give us clarity and purpose and priority.
Some words that might be good for you in 2025. Maybe you're someone who needs to slow down and trust the process. How about patient? Maybe you need to get better at standing strong.
How about steadfast? How about kindness? How about bravery or courage? What about generosity?
You want to cultivate a more generous spirit this year. Maybe the year is going to be challenging. Maybe you just came off a challenging year. How about resilient? Maybe you want to build better habits.
How about discipline? There's a million words you could choose. For me in 2023, we picked less because I was exhausted at the end of the year.
I was doing too much. I was overcommitted. Then I felt like my health and my family and my quality of life couldn't face another year of the same.
So our goal was less. Less commitments, less drama, less busyness, less screen time, just less. And by less, I think we ultimately ended up getting more.
More stillness, more presence, more connection, more fun, more focus. And I think we did a pretty good job. Last year, my word was systems. How can I set up systems? How can I bring people on to operate those systems?
Because I didn't want to wing it so much. I didn't want to be caught off guard. I didn't want to be making the same.
problems or doing the same thing from scratch each time. I have a word for 2025. I think I'm still working on it. I'm probably going to share it in the new year, new you challenges.
This is one of the things we build into the challenge. Like how do you find your word for the year? And I would love to have you join me and thousands of other Stoics in this awesome challenge.
You can sign up now at dailystoic.com slash challenge. The idea though, is once you pick that year, write it on an index card, put it on the wall. I don't know, get it tattooed, get it framed, make it your word. phone screen wallpaper, set it as your computer password, put it on a post-it note on your desk, journal about it every day.
The point is to come to it over and over and over again. It kind of becomes a North Star, a touchstone. And we're not just picking like some nice sounding word.
It's about choosing a principle, a concept, something clarifying that can guide your behavior throughout the year so that when you're tired, when you're stressed, when you're afraid, when you're confused, when you got lots of options, the word brings you back to your best self. It tells you what. to do.
You gotta stop putting things off. Epictetus'question was, how much longer are you going to wait to demand the best of yourself? In meditations, Mark Srealis talks about how, look, we know we could be good now, but instead we choose tomorrow.
We tell ourselves this lie. I'll do it later. I'll do it tomorrow.
I'll do it when things calm down. I'll do it when things go back to normal. I'll do it when the weather gets better. No, do it now. Procrastination is this habit.
that Seneca says all fools have in common. Oh, it's getting ready. They're putting it off.
Don't do it later. Do it now. That's what a stoic does. That's what a strong person does.
They do it now. They muster the willpower, the strength, the discipline to do it now and not later. Because, look, the best time to have started this stuff was 10 years ago, was last year, was last week.
Okay, but the second best time is now. So do it now. I've come to see that... All the success in my life is a lagging indicator of good choices or good actions I took a while ago. So one of the things that keeps me up at night, one of the things I try to remind myself is if I want to have good results next week, next year, the next phase of my life, I got to be doing good stuff now.
I got to be paying in to the system that I want to take out from later. What are the deposits you're making? And procrastination is the opposite of making a deposit, right? It's saying I'll make the deposit later. Don't do it later.
Do it now. It's a foundational habit for the year. Before you go, just remember what Seneca said. He said, the one thing all fools have in common is they're always getting ready to start.
Right? We tell ourselves this lie, I'll do it later. I'll come back to this later. But will you?
And wouldn't you be better off just doing it now?