Sahil Bloom Gives You a Plan for 2026
Sahil Bloom walks through his personal annual review framework — seven reflection questions designed to help ambitious people extract meaningful insights from the past year and build a concrete plan for 2026. Rather than drifting into a new year without clarity, this episode provides a structured process that Bloom and successful founders use to identify what changed their minds, what drained their energy, what fears held them back, and what they learned — enabling them to operate at full power in the year ahead.
Key takeaways
- • Reflection on experience — not experience itself — is what drives learning and growth, making a deliberate annual review essential before setting new goals
- • Identify energy creators and drainers by reviewing your calendar from the full year and focusing on how you feel *after* activities, not during, to guide 2026 decisions
- • The fastest path to progress is often cutting boat anchors (limiting beliefs, draining people, unhelpful habits) rather than adding new habits or goals
- • Fear thrives in darkness; use fear setting exercises to deconstruct abstract anxieties into concrete downsides and upsides, revealing that most fears are overblown
- • When evaluating your year's wins and losses, highly ambitious people often overlook their hits while fixating on misses, creating an inaccurate view of progress
- • Invest in founders, not ideas — focus on backing exceptional people with the talent to attract others and pivot as needed, rather than getting attached to a specific business concept
- • Use ChatGPT as a truth-telling sparring partner by programming it to be thoughtfully critical rather than positive, helping surface blind spots in your boat anchors
Recommendations (3)
"I use Google calendar. Go look at my calendar from the beginning of the year."
Sahil Bloom · ▶ 9:02
"Tim Ferriss was the first person I saw talk about this. He had an exercise I think he called fear setting."
Sahil Bloom · ▶ 34:34
Mentioned (2)
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