An Excellent Wknd [26.01]
Some thoughts on staying connected to what matters
Hello, hi, 👋
Happy Saturday and Happy New Year!
Before we dive in, a few updates as we kick off 2026:
We’re changing our release schedule. Starting next week, episodes drop on Monday mornings instead of Tuesdays. And every other Thursday - beginning January 15th - we’ll be releasing interviews with writers and thinkers that explore how we can all better approach health, happiness, and living with our hearts on fire.
We’re also running a January special for the Chase Club. We’re offering 25% off an annual subscription this month. And just for fun, we’re putting together a couple of prize packs with gifts and discounts from our friends at CompTrain, Enlifted, and a few others. If you’ve been thinking about joining us, now’s a great time to do it. Anybody inside the Chase Club at the beginning of February will be automatically entered to win!
Alright, let’s get into it.
DIAL IT DOWN, DON’T DROP OUT
When life overwhelms you, the instinct is binary: either maintain your full routine or abandon it completely. All or nothing. Perfect or pointless.
This thinking destroys more progress than any external circumstance ever could.
The truth about sustainable habits is that they survive by shrinking, not by holding firm. When a new parent insists they can still train for two hours despite having an infant, they’re not being disciplined - they’re being inflexible. And inflexibility always breaks.
What keeps you in the game isn’t intensity. It’s refusing to quit entirely when intensity becomes impossible.
This means redefining what counts.
If you used to train for 90 minutes, can you do 20? If 20 feels impossible, can you do five rounds of pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats between diaper changes? If structured training disappears completely, can you bang out a set of kettlebell swings while your kid crawls around the living room?
None of this feels like real training when you compare it to what you used to do. That’s the trap. You’re not competing with your past self. You’re trying to maintain the thread of the habit so it’s still there when life stabilizes.
Movement snacks throughout the day accumulate more than you think. A set of pushups to failure. A set of pull-ups between rooms. Thirty seconds of kettlebell swings. They don’t replace a full training session, but they keep the pattern alive. They remind your body and mind that you’re still the type of person who moves.
The people who come back strongest aren’t the ones who maintained perfect routines through chaos. They’re the ones who did something - anything - to stay connected to the practice.
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🎧 Our 5 Factors Year in Review: Mindset, Sleep, & Connection (Part 2)
Wrapping up our annual Five Factors Year in Review with the three factors that often get deprioritized but quietly determine everything else - mindset, sleep, and connection.
📚 Excellence is a Direction You Face, Not a Destination You Reach
Clarity doesn’t arrive - it emerges through the work of articulation. This essay walks through the framework for defining who you’re becoming, who you refuse to become, and what principles guide you between the two. Because without that clarity, you drift.
❤️🔥 The Daily Chase
Brief, focused essays delivered each weekday morning to Chase Club members.
#171: Everyone Is a Learner
#173: The Speed to Center
As mentioned, we just published an essay about defining who you’re becoming, who you refuse to become, and what principles guide you between the two.
On Monday, we’re releasing some of the conversations that inspired it: three previous episodes about vision, anti-vision, and values that show this framework in practice.
If the essay gave you the blueprint, the episode will give you the raw material.
Until then, keep on chasing.
🤙🏼 Patrick
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