| | | | | January 10th, 2026
Hello Subscribers,
I’ve been writing about New Year’s resolutions and goal setting for a while now.
What I know is this:
WHAT you are trying to accomplish pales in comparison to WHO you need to become to actually accomplish it. We focus so much on the former and so little on the latter.
Anyone can lose weight temporarily but to keep it off and to truly transform yourself, you’ll need to create a new identity. A mental transformation to ensure a physical manifestation.
At the core of this identity are our values and virtues, the foundation for your mindset. If we don’t do serious work here, our gains will be superficial.
While someone with weak virtues may succeed in the short term, without “resilience,” “ownership,” and “integrity,” they will surely lose as the game progresses. We’ve all seen this unfold.
With that in mind, here are my top virtues for creating a strong character this year. |
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The Virtues of 2026 | | | |
1. Integrity
Integrity is doing the right thing, all the way from the small stuff (such as following your diet) to the big stuff (like becoming a better moral human). You already know what you must do here, and you’ve probably talked or thought about it tons. Do your actions match your words? This is the clearest test of integrity. When we are unable to practice what we preach, we violate our own truth.
We must get honest with ourselves before we can get honest with others. You know what are the right actions; now all that is left is to do them.
2. Humility
Humility is freedom from the ego. When we are too attached to our ego, we are unable to think clearly. When we are unable to admit that we are wrong, and when we instantly and instinctively defend the bad actions of ourselves or others, we are blinded from the truth. Related, when we “one up” others and believe our own hype, we create an image that is impossible to live up to (and so we don’t).
So slow down, stop the automatic excuses, embrace looking silly, actually listen to people, and view yourself from a third-person perspective from time to time. Awareness will set you free.
3. Courage
Courage is acting in spite of fear. Without courage, integrity and other virtues will not matter, and you’ll cave to the pressure. The point is not becoming fearless, but learning how to persist regardless of these fears.
Everyone likes to think they would have been on the good side of WWII but if you were born German, the odds are that you would have acted just the same as everyone else. Group conformity affected them just as it is affecting us now. Do you have the courage to be different and stand up for what’s right? This will require sacrifice.
4. Duty
Duty is an obligation to serve your family, team, and community. We all have certain strengths, and we all have something to give (and probably something only you can give). Find out what that is.
The more you can do this and think about others, not only will you contribute to the greater good but you'll think about yourself less. For our current mental health epidemic, this is key. Sitting depressed at home may be your body's signal to get outside and help someone. Put others first to engage your higher self.
5. Ownership
Ownership is taking responsibility for your life. While it is easy to blame others for our faults, and it soothes our ego to play the victim, it won’t help us get where we need to go. In truth, it will make you worse. Part of this is because it turns the victimhood into a self-fulfilling prophecy. That is, the more you’ll play the victim, the more of a victim you will actually become. This is not very empowering.
Taking ownership is the anti-victim mindset. You must believe you can solve everything. You are, after all, the hero of your own journey.
6. Resilience
Resilience is being able to withstand failures and obstacles. In life, you are going to get punched in the face. How you respond will dictate the quality of your life. If you freak out over the little stuff, you are sure to crumble when it gets real. Continually doing hard things will give you the necessary frame of reference to prevent that from happening.
7. Challenge
Challenge is being motivated by difficulty and growth opportunities. Once you get knocked down, it is not enough to stand back up, you must get excited to stand up faster and stronger than ever before. This is how we take advantage of our failures.
Shortcuts don’t work, and we will waste a lot of time by looking for them. Instead, we must seek the long way. This is the path to mastery. What is gained easily is usually lost easily, but what is earned through difficulty tends to stay. Get excited to follow paths that no one else is willing to travel.
8. Judgment
Judgment is the ability to accurately assess reality and choose an appropriate course of action. We all have biases that blind us from seeing things as they truly are. To remove these filters, avoid letting your beliefs become who you are and instead, embrace the uncertainty of it all. If you are "right" all the time, there will be no clearer sign that your judgement is off.
Different situations will also require different approaches. If all you have is a hammer, though, all you will see is nails. For sound judgement, you must equip yourself with a full toolbox of options. For this, diversify your experiences and skills, and don't fall deeply in love with any of it.
9. Initiative
Initiative is being able to act on your own without being told. You are not a little kid, and you don’t need permission to fix things that need fixing (and there are a lot of them). In your family, community, and work, go first and lead the way. If you wait, you will already be too late.
10. Compassion
Compassion is feeling concern for another’s suffering and genuinely caring to relieve it. This also involves compassion for yourself. You are going to mess up — sometimes really badly — and the faster you can forgive yourself here, the faster you can get back to doing what is right.
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Why Virtues? | | | |
We don’t talk about virtues anymore, at least not like we used to.
In the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s, it was cool to work on one’s character in North America. I love reading older biographies because of this, such as Harry Truman’s Plain Speaking. Despite having some poor beliefs, people back then used to make a concerted effort to live a life of virtue. In today’s age, however, it seems like it has switched. Instead of striving to become a high-character person, our focus now has flipped to who can have the best beliefs. We used to be judged by our “temperance”, “grit”, “honor”, and “duty” (i.e. actions). Now we are judged by what side of the political aisle we line up on. One no longer has to be good as long as they appear good. This posturing, virtue signaling, and tribalism is definitely making us shittier human beings.
Our shared public virtues have been declining for some time. Because of this, you may have never given this much thought. I personally didn’t know what resilience was until I got into Stoicism or what ownership really entailed until I heard Jocko Willink on a podcast. Even with “Integrity”, I didn’t really explore this until I was 35 (and this was after a lifetime of sports). Institutions no longer talk about this, your work glosses over it, the media doesn’t use these terms, and unless you are actively seeking this out yourself, you probably don’t think about virtues and values at all.
Aside from its impact on our culture, the problem with this is that these virtues are critical for habit change. Whatever you are trying to achieve, you must become the type of person that does those things. To do this, you need to get to the root of your behavior. The root are these virtues. Once at the root, we can find role models that exhibit these virtues, which will help make these values come to life. Then we tap into these people whenever we need strength.
This is a tried-and-true path to success. If you are looking to develop a virtue such as discipline, you can tap into someone who represents this quality (such as Jocko, David Goggins, or George Washington) by mirroring their mindset and actions. For thousands of years, people have used this strategy to become a better person, such as living more like Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, and others. It works, and it's probably the best strategy we have. Find the virtues, find the people, and then integrate them into your character.
This is another reason why I am such a big proponent of reading, especially about figures from the past. History is replete with people from all backgrounds who are worthy of our admiration. They may not be perfect (none of us are), but they possess qualities that we can then draw from for inspiration and strength. Simply find someone who embodies the virtues you are trying to achieve, then try to live more like them.
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Future Proofing Your Character | | | | We spend so much time on beliefs and responding to people in the comments section of life, but what we are missing is action. The virtues I’ve included in my list are the ones I think we need the most to fill in this gap.
The reality is that we don't have to do much of anything anymore, and that trend is likely to continue.
As technology improves, our requirements for doing hard things will become less and less. We can already use AI to read, write, and act as our brain, use social media to appear like a good person (without ever having to be one), and who knows what human skills will be outsourced next. And as the world population increases, we are going to feel like it’s less and less our personal responsibility to actually do something about this. Because when there is a sea of endless faces around, "someone else will do it".
The debate used to be 1984 vs Brave New World for how the future would shape up. Now I think it's between Wall-E and Idiocracy. Things aren't looking good.
Unless we do something about it.
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I feel this is important, so I am going to spend this next year thinking and writing about this.
I still believe the Death Ground Strategy is the best overall goal-setting system out there, but I've always been bothered that it doesn't address character. You don't need to be a good person to put yourself On Death Ground and in fact, many would agree that some of the most famous examples (such as Cortez burning the boats) are kind of assholes. So, this is where my thoughts are going.
See you when I have something, and have a great year!
- Levi
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Book of the Month | | | |
Build The Fort by my good friend, Rob.
Your kids are only small once, so put down the phone, turn off the TV, and finally build that fort you've been talking about!
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