BONUS | 7 Simple Stoic Habits That Will Transform You In 2026

Welcome to the daily stoic podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com. Here we are at the end of one year and the beginning of another. And I think it behooves us to ask ourselves, what do we have to show for it? Did we do what we set out to do? Did we meet those resolutions, make those goals? Were we the person we were capable of being in 2025 or in any year? And I think if we're honest with ourselves, we have to say that we weren't. In fact, I would say that neither you or I are anywhere near our full potential. What happened? Well, we got busy. Life happened. Motivation faded. Old habits die hard. Same patterns reasserted themselves. In today's episode, I wanna talk to you about doing it differently. I wanna talk to you about how you can make 2026 or any year whenever you're watching this the best year yet. Because this can be a turning point. This can be the moment that you make changes. This can be the time that you finally answer Epictetus' famous question, how much longer am I going to wait to demand the best of myself? How did the most powerful man in the world start and end his days. He spent them alone, whether he was in his palace in Rome, whether he was on the front with the Roman army, whether he was traveling, whether he was sick, whether he was tired, didn't matter. Marcus Aurelius spent time with his journal. In fact, Meditations, his famous book survives to us totally unique from all other philosophy books. He wasn't writing it for you or for me, he was writing it for himself. He was taking time out of his day, out of his busy life to work it out on the page. This habit of journaling is one of the most basic but most powerful practices you could start this year. In my book, Stillness is the Key, I talk about Kennedy in the missile crisis. Russia had just moved ballistic nuclear missiles into Cuba, and there, in a moment, the world is now on the brink of nuclear war. Kennedy is just one bad decision away not from losing an election, but destroying the planet, killing millions of people. So what does he do to handle this immense stress? He does the same thing that Marcus Aurelius is doing. He pulls out a pad of paper and he doodles. He he writes notes. He he works it out on the page. …