August Bradley

Life Design Letter

Hello Life Designers,

Interpreting what happened in 2025 and channeling that into massive progress in 2026 can be life changing. In this issue, I share a breakthrough framework to do this effectively. Let's dive in!

Announcements

NLD '26 Cohort Starts Jan. 5th

The Notion Life Design (NLD Pro) January '26 cohort is now open — implement the PPV Pro life operating system to kick off 2026. You get full access to the core training immediately upon joining, and our live implementation sessions begin on January 5.

The NLD program and Pillars, Pipelines & Vaults system have reached new heights. We'd love to have you with us!

Essay

The Annual Arc: Your Year as a Story, Not as a Scorecard

Most people approach Annual Reviews like accountants — auditing wins and losses, tallying completed goals against abandoned ones. But this transactional lens obscures something crucial: your year wasn’t a list of discrete events. It was part of an unfolding narrative, a chapter in who you’re becoming.

When you review a year as a story arc, you stop asking whether you were productive enough and start asking how you've evolved — how you, as the protagonist, are confronting and overcoming life’s challenges. How you’re driving toward a point you aspire to, despite the obstacles.

Consider this shift: instead of asking "What did I accomplish?" ask "What conflict defined my year?" Every compelling narrative has an antagonist. The antagonist in your annual arc isn't failure — it's often the gravitational pull of comfort, the seduction of staying small, or the numerous micro-negotiations where you traded what you wanted for what felt safe.

Every year has themes. Not goals, but motifs: constraint, expansion, recovery, ambition, patience. Themes repeat themselves until they’re understood.

When you reconstruct your year as a story, patterns emerge that checklists conceal. Those arbitrary moments of frustration? They're the same theme repeating, asking to be addressed. The unexpected situation that derailed your plans? Perhaps it's not a deviation — it's the plot twist revealing what you actually value, or a higher mission, or a hurdle to overcome in your larger story arc.

This approach gives meaning to everything, including what didn't work. In narratives, the protagonist must face resistance to transform. Your setbacks aren't evidence of inadequacy; they're the necessary tension that reveals character and triggers a breakthrough.

As you design 2026, don't just set goals. Identify the narrative arc you want to author. Who do you want to be at year's end? What internal shift must you undergo? What recurring obstacles must you finally confront?

Because life isn't a ledger to balance, it's a story to tell. You're both the author and the main character determining what happens next.

The “Year as a Story” Approach

👉 Name your antagonist(s) from the past year in a word or phrase: comfort, need for approval, lack of speed, avoidance. Say it out loud, write it down.

👉 Identify three scenes over the past year in which your antagonists appeared.

👉 What were the turning points throughout the year?

👉 What was your theme for the year?

Planning 2026: Write down how you want and intend to act when the antagonist next shows up. What do you want the theme to be for 2026? Who do you want to be in December 2026 relative to who you are now? What changes do you want to see in yourself and in your story?

Tech TOOL Roundup

My Favorite Devices for getting Fit & Healthy in the New Year

These are the fitness, health, and wellness smart devices I rely on most heavily. I have no connection to any of these companies, they're just tools I find helpful.

Withings Smart Scale

This is the best smart scale I know of, and it works great. Auto-tracks and accumulates all of your weigh-ins, but also provides a lot of additional information such as body composition. This is the cornerstone of tracking daily for me. About once a year, I'll do a more accurate test with a DEXA scan and VO2max.

Indoor Smart Bike

I've been getting my cardio in consistently. High-tech indoor bikes make this possible without miss. Peloton is the most famous (it's a spin-class simulator), but I prefer the ones more oriented toward road bike simulators — the two best that I know of are the Zwift bike (best value) and the Wahoo Kickr bike (the ultimate). I load up the Zwift world-building riding visuals on a TV in front of me (synced with the bike for full immersion). Of course, I much prefer riding outside when possible.

Whoop

I dislike their subscription business model, and how they deceived longtime customers by backtracking on previous promises. But this really is the best all-around, easy-to-use, consistent activity and sleep tracker I've seen. It's still my go-to.