What you’re reading today

What we actually admire when we call high performers “obsessed”.
How passion shapes persistence and performance.
And 4 practical steps to keep returning to work that matters.

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"He is obsessed with his work.”
"You need to be obsessed and work hard."

We use the word obsession with both positive and negative connotations. We admire people who obsessively, relentlessly follow an idea or a purpose. We made obsession a precondition for performance. We placed it at the foundation of focus, commitment, discipline. Obsess or else.

We may be mistaking obsession for something else. And we may not need obsession to make it.

So, what exactly are we celebrating when we praise obsession?

Obsessions. Many of us found ourselves caught in their net at some point. Obsessing over a person, an activity, a thought or even a food. A recurrent intrusive thought, image, craving that keeps showing in our mind.

Obsession may be a manifestation of OCD, but it can also occur outside of it. We can all have it. Not with the same frequency, intensity and duration as in OCD.

You can have obsessive-compulsive symptoms, though not meeting OCD criteria. In a study, out of 124 non-clinical participants, 80% of them reported experiencing obsessions.

But this is not a conversation about clinical obsession. Let’s see what happens when obsession leaves psychology and enters the language of performance?

We say “X is obsessed”. Are we referring to their thoughts or their behaviour?
In psychological terms, obsessions are cognitive and live in our thoughts. And thoughts are difficult to observe from the outside.

Most often, we call someone “obsessed” based on the behaviour we observe; assuming it reflects a specific way of thinking.

Being “obsessed” with the work usually means someone who:

/ continues a project even after the novelty fades
/ works consistently, with visible results
/ invests time while sacrificing immediate rewards for a long-term objective
/ sees setbacks as temporary obstacles rather than reasons to stop
/ keeps showing up when others have already given up

What we can actually observe is not the obsession itself, but that someone keeps going despite setbacks.

So I started wondering: could some of what we call obsession in high performers actually be a mix of persistence and passion?

Instead of asking, “How do I become obsessed with my work?”, perhaps we should ask, “What conditions help me persist in work that matters?”

Persistence is the pursuit of a goal, often in the face of adversity.

But what feeds persistence?

/ Someone may continue because they genuinely love what they are doing. They want to keep doing it. This is passion.
/ Someone may continue even when they do not feel particularly motivated that day. This is discipline.

Passion gives us a reason to return.
Discipline helps us return even when motivation fluctuates.
Together, they can support persistence over time.

At this point, it may help to place these ideas on a simple map.
Passion belongs to the first branch. Discipline can be part of the second, alongside other self-regulation strategies.

For now, I want to dig into how passion leads to persistence.

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How passion shapes persistence and performance

We tend to see passion through a positive lens, as if caring deeply about something is automatically good for us. We may even excuse rigid or aggressive behaviour because we interpret it as a sign of passion. But passion can take very different forms.

Some people pursue their goals with flexibility, while others become rigidly attached to them. This distinction is at the core of the dualistic model of passion developed by psychologist Robert Vallerand. The model distinguishes between harmonious and obsessive passion. It is an important framework for research on how passion shapes goal pursuit, persistence and performance.

With harmonious passion, the activity is important and deeply meaningful. But it doesn’t have to take over the rest of your life.
You can remain engaged while still making room for other goals, relationships and sources of vitality.

Harmonious passion is not a lower-intensity version of passion. It does not mean caring less.
You can invest enormous amounts of time and energy in a pursuit. The difference is that the activity remains something you choose.
You can redirect your attention when something else requires it.
You can disengage and re-engage. You can work relentlessy and have fun along the way. Moments of relaxations or shifts in focus don’t diminish the intensity of your engagement.

Obsessive passion is different. The activity is no longer only something you love doing. It also becomes something you feel pressured to keep doing.

The difference is not in the intensity. It is in the freedom to engage or disengage.

Someone with harmonious passion can work intensely and still make room for other parts of life. Someone driven by obsessive passion may find it difficult to do so. The activity can become so closely tied to their identity that it becomes difficult to step away from it, even when they need to.

From the outside, two people may look equally committed. Both may work late, tolerate setbacks and keep showing up. The amount of effort tells us very little about their relationship with the work. Can they still choose when to engage and when not to?

Passion, obsession and performance.

What about performance? Obsessive passion is seen as the price we pay for exceptional results. But is it?

The research does not give us such a simple answer. Both harmonious and obsessive passion have been linked to deliberate practice, which in turn predicts performance. Obsessive passion can clearly make us invest enormous effort. In some contexts, particularly in sport and the arts, it can support performance.

But it can also activate processes that work against performance. Obsessive passion has been linked to performance-avoidance goals - I need to avoid failure or appearing incompetent, rather than mastery goals - I want to become better at this. Along the way, this can negatively affect performance.

In work settings, the picture is mixed.
Harmonious passion has been associated with better performance through cognitive absorption. You become deeply absorbed in the work
While obsessive passion relates inconsistently to performance: sometimes not at all, and in some studies even negatively. Obsessive passion has also been associated with impulsive or destructive behaviours that can damage interpersonal relationships and professional reputation.

In other words, obsessive passion may support performance through effort and deliberate practice, but harmonious passion supports the same pathway, without the same internal pressure.

Obsessive passion may contribute to performance. But it does not appear to be a necessary condition for it.
Harmonious passion supports high effort, deliberate practice and performance too. But it still leaves room for disengagement and other pursuits.

Obsession and exceptional performance can exist on separate pages.
More engagement does not always translate into better performance.

Passion does not mean being ON 100% of the time.

Harmonious passion includes the ability to engage deeply and to disengage when something else requires your attention.

Stepping away from the work does not mean caring less about it.

Knowing when to disengage creates room for recovery and makes it possible to return with refreshed resources.
Read here about recovery

If obsession is not the key ingredient, let’s review what makes sustained performance possible.

/ A goal tied to an activity we genuinely value.
/ A harmonious relationship with it.
/ Structures that helps us return, alternating between engament and disengagement, to secure persistence.
/ And enough flexibility to adjust how we pursue it.

Make persistence your edge.

1. Choose what deserves your persistence

Not every goal deserves the same amount of your time, energy and attention. Before building routines around it, ask yourself whether you would still want to pursue it after the novelty fades.
The idea is not only to choose something worth pursuing, but something you can remain deeply engaged with without making it consume everything else. This is where passion can grow.

For example, before committing the next six months to a personal project, ask yourself: Would I still want to do the actual work if nobody knew I was doing it? Is it meaningful enough to me?

2. Pre-decide when and how you return

Do not renegotiate the goal every day based on how motivated you feel. Decide in advance when you will return and what the minimum version looks like on difficult days.
The point is not to preserve the same intensity every day. It is to preserve the possibility of returning.

For example: I work on my project twice a week. When I have less time or energy, I still give it 20 minutes instead of skipping it completely.

3. Make returning easier than restarting

Before you stop, define exactly where you will start next time: the next paragraph, question, action or decision.
Do not end with “I’ll continue tomorrow.” Define what “continue” means.

For example, leave yourself a note: Next time, start here. Add the first concrete action so you don’t have to reconstruct the whole project every time you return.

4. Adjust the conditions before judging yourself

When returning becomes difficult, investigate what changed. Do this before turning the setback into a verdict about your character.
Sometimes the goal still matters. The conditions around it need to change.

For example, if you have skipped your project for three weeks, don’t immediately conclude that you lack discipline. Check whether the time, frequency or amount of work you planned still fits your life. Readjust, recommit.

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What you need to remember

You do not need to become obsessed with your work.

You need goals tied to activities that still feel worth coming back to after the excitement fades. Meaningful goals that fuel passion.
You need a harmonious relationship with the work that allows deep engagement without letting it take over everything else.
You need structures that make returning easier, and enough flexibility to adjust how you pursue the goal when life changes.

And perhaps this is what we have been admiring all along when we praise someone for being “obsessed”: their ability to return, again and again, long after the novelty is gone, despite the setbacks.

Their persistence.

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Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

References:

_{/ Obsessive-Compulsive Symptomatology in Community Youth: Typical Development or a Red Flag for Psychopathology?, R. Barzilay et al., 2019
/ Abnormal and normal compulsions, P Muris, H Merckelbach, M Clavan, 1997
/ A review of obsessive intrusive thoughts in the general population, Lisa-Marie Berry, Ben Laskey, 2012
/ Abnormal and normal obsessions, S Rachman, P de Silva, 1977
/ The two faces of persistence: How harmonious and obsessive passion shape goal pursuit., R Vallerand et al, 2023
/ On Passion for Life Activities: The Dualistic Model of Passion, R Vallerand, 2010
/ Les passions de l’ame: on obsessive and harmonious passion., R Vallerand et al, 2003
/ Flexible and rigid persistence: Relations with passion, vitality, and intention to stay in university teachers, Z Ruiz-Alfonso et al, 2023
/ The consequences of job crafting and engagement in the relationship between passion for work and individual performance of Portuguese workers, Joana Vieira dos Santos et al, 2023
/ A Tale of Passion: Linking Job Passion and Cognitive Engagement to Employee Work Performance, Violet T. Ho et al, 2009
/ Obsessive passion, competence, and performance in a project management context, Adesuwa Omorede, S. Thorgren, J. Wincent, 2013
/ On the role of passion in performance, R. Vallerand et al., 2007
/ Passion and performance attainment in sport, R. Vallerand et al., 2008}

Actually, our minds tend to reduce complex biological processes to a simplistic model, as if we had many on/ off switches installed in our body: on/off for carbs and fat burning, on/off for autophagy, on/off for muscle building and muscle breakdown. On/ off for stres and recovery.

Biology rarely works in binary states. Except perhaps life and death; and apparently, even here, biology has some exceptions. :)

We tend to think of recovery as resting.

I’ve had a hard week, so I’ll sleep more over the weekend.
I’ve worked all day, so I’ll sit on the couch in the evening.
I’m really stressed, so I’ll take a day off.

But the body doesn’t work like that, with a single tank that we empty and then simply fill back up.

Let’s take the example of breaks during a workday.
When you spend hours moving from task to task, meeting to meeting, without real moments of disengagement, fatigue accumulates. By the end of the day, you have fewer cognitive resources available, it becomes harder to focus and make decisions, and you may become more reactive to stress.

With these depleted resources you decide what to eat for dinner, whether you’ll still exercise, how much patience you have left for the people around you, or whether you’ll spend another hour mindlessly scrolling on your phone before falling asleep.

A lack of recovery at 11 a.m. can end up influencing the choices you make at 7 p.m.

The same is true inside the body. We know about the digestive, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, and immune systems. We tend to see them as separate chapters in a biology textbook. The body doesn’t use them separately.

For example, bacteria in the gut microbiome ferment the fiber you eat and then produce, among other compounds, butyrate. Butyrate helps maintain the intestinal barrier and interacts with the immune system. The microbiome also modifies bile acids: they help us digest fats, but they also act as signaling molecules involved in regulating glucose and lipid metabolism.

Something that starts with what you ate can have downstream effects across the digestive, metabolic, and immune systems.

Your daily output - the energy you have to get things done, how you respond to stress, how much patience you have with your kids or your partner, how you perform in a workout - depends on many processes that are constantly interacting.

And some of your output for today may be influenced, in this very moment as you’re reading this, by decisions you make now or later in the day: whether you eat lunch or skip it, go from call to call instead of taking a 10-minute break, scroll for an hour instead of going for a walk, or skip your workout and watch a movie instead.

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You can’t switch recovery on and off. It is intertwined with periods of activity and stress. Further on, you can’t isolate recovery into a single activity.

You can’t compensate for an entire day without breaks with 30 minutes on the couch at night. You can’t compensate for chronic stress with a day off or a weekend. You can’t compensate for a lost night of sleep with a warm bath on Sunday evening.

All of these can help, of course, but recovery requires a continuous approach. Recovery is an ongoing process.

Recovery is the result of multiple systems functioning well and working together, repeatedly receiving the resources they need.

That’s why, for me, recovery increasingly means moving from intention to action and, ideally, to deliberate, strategic planning.

intention → action → deliberate, strategic planning

I don’t leave recovery for when I’m already exhausted. I intentionally plan for it: daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually.

Subscribe for more on rest vs. recovery, recovery strategies, and how to design the recovery tempo.

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The definition of creativity remains controversial in the academic world. It can be about originality, novelty, usefulness, surprise, aesthetics. One or of these at once. Some researchers insist on matching originality with effectiveness. But this is also debatable. The need for effectiveness in art or writing for the pleasure of writing is irrelevant.

Arguably, one element is critical in creativity: originality. With a touch of surprise. How do we get there? How can we push our brain to produce original ideas that may surprise someone, but first ourselves, to say a-ha!

We can train our brain to better prepare it for creative purposes.

What you will find today in our deep dive about creativity:

1/ How our brain frunction when we are creative.
2/ The wondering minf and its role in creativity
3/ Creativity, explained.
4/ How to train for creativity. Tools.
5/ A fascinating window for creativity: the edge of sleep
6/ The flow state and creativity. Some highlights.

This is the brain we want, to become a creative person

One main differentiator of a highly creative person is the simultaneous activation of 3 large brain networks, called tri-network, during the creative process:

1/ the default mode network (DMN)
2/ the salience network (SAL)
3/ the central executive network (CEN)

This is the triple-network model. Each contributes to distinct cognitive processes to generate and evaluate ideas and they usually work in opposition. Creativity is not about the maximal coupling between these regions, but rather about dynamically switching between them.

• Default mode network, linked to our internal processes. Several regions of our brain are involved in our emotional processing, what we feel as individuals, our memories, our values system, our morality and value judgement, beliefs, spirituality, what we think about the world, what we learned from the interaction with the environment, thoughts from the past linked to the future, rumination, scenario building. It’s about us, who we are at our core.

  • DMN is active when we think about ourselves, we dream, we let the mind wander. It happens when we disengage from external stimuli and simply let our thoughts fly off.

  • When we talk to someone and our mind wanders, losing connection with the active conversation, our DMN is activated.

• Central executive network, activated during cognitive tasks: we solve complex problems, we adjust our activities to the context, we make decisions.

• Salience network helps us switch between task oriented (CEN activated) thinking and default mode thinking through a complex mechanism that prioritizes what is important for us in the moment. You know that moment when we drive or walk and our mind is away and we are on auto-pilot. If all of a sudden something unexpected happens, our salience network quickly makes the switch from one network of mind wandering (DMN) to the other, task-focused, decision-oriented (CEN).

As we can see, throughout the day, our mind oscillates from ideas generated through DMN, via imagination, towards spontaneous thinking, to set up priorities, then to CEN for selecting viable ideas.

The cornerstone of creativity is being able to switch effectively, fluently between the three systems.

Wandering, but not too much. With intention.

Almost half of the time we spent daily, our thoughts are wandering, unrelated to the present moment. Not being in the present moment and having a constantly wandering mind brings emotional costs. A mind that frequently runs from the present is taxing for our wellbeing. That is because a wandering mind usually thinks about unpleasant or neutral topics. The perceived level of happiness is lower when we wander vs when we think about our current activity, when our thoughts and actions are aligned.

A study on the impact on happiness of a wandering mind concludes: A human mind is a wandering mind and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

I would say: excessively wandering, when mind-wandering moments happen right when we are in the process of doing something. BUT taking deliberate moments of wandering from our current activities is a step in our creative process.

Creativity, put it simply

In a simplified model, creativity happens in stages, through an interplay between goal directed and undirected attention. We engage in cognitive tasks, switching between tasks to connect ideas. We make use of divergent thinking to transition to DMN specific activities to arrive to an original creative insight. Finally, we return to more controlled thinking to evaluate, refine, and select the ideas worth pursuing.

Time spent experiencing creative goal‐directed attention followed by undirected attention is the optimal sequence for maximizing both the usefulness and novelty of creative outputs.
_{(see study by Gillian B. Yeo et al, below)}

How do we train our brain flexibility to improve creativity?

We will get through the following tools

1/ mindfulness meditation
2/ deliberate moments of mind wandering
3/ walking
4/ cognitive training
5/ metacognition
6/ task switching

• Studies show a relevant influence of mindfulness meditation, as well as movement (aerobic, yoga) combined with meditation. In mindfulness meditation, we focus on what we are feeling and experiencing in the present moment, without judging it in any way.

  • To better enter into a mindfulness meditation, you can imagine that your thoughts and sensations are like leaves falling onto water or clouds passing across the sky.

  • One month of mindfulness training increases functional connectivity between key nodes of the default mode, salience and central executive networks.

• Take deliberate moments of mind wandering, after focus sessions. DMN activation is important for our moments of daydreaming and reflection that boost creative a-ha insights.

  • We can schedule breaks and allow our minds to wander freely. It is an opportunity to be more creative and generate interesting ideas. I have long running sessions each weekend that bring many insights.

  • Let’s be careful to limit mind-wandering when we need to focus on a cognitive task. If we tend to drift off, the task is probably too boring or too demanding, and the salience network reprioritizes what we are doing and switches to the DMN.

  • Let’s not fall into the trap of spending too much time in DMN activity by worrying about the future or dwelling excessively on the past.

  • Mind-wandering is not inherently creative. But under the right conditions, letting attention move away from a problem can facilitate incubation, spontaneous associations and creative insights.

• Walking is one simple solution to generate creative ideas. We can walk on a treadmill at the office, on the street, or in nature — the impact is similar. It is walking, rather than the environment, that triggers the cognitive processes involved in divergent thinking.

  • This shows, once again, how much movement matters for humans. Numerous studies show the positive impact of physical activity on cognitive performance in the medium and long term (e.g. a lower risk of cognitive decline).

  • The increase in creative output when walking is estimated at 60% compared with sitting at a desk.

  • After walking, there is a residual creative boost: we can return to our desk and continue performing a creative task, or go into a brainstorming session after a walk.

• Another way to improve divergent thinking is cognitive training focused on creativity. There are different methods: SCAMPER (challenging questions focused on originality), making random connections between objects or ideas, or schema violation, where you come up with a completely atypical alternative scenario (to develop fluency and flexibility) etc.

• Train metacognition, which is involved mainly in the last phase, of evaluating and refining ideas. (I wrote about Metacognition, our human superpower and how to improve it).

  Metacognition, the human superpower

• Task switching generally comes with reduced cognitive performance because of constant switching and refocusing. Still, when we want to generate creative ideas, we can switch between two creative tasks. Task switching can enhance both divergent thinking and convergent thinking. Studies show that temporarily setting a task aside reduces cognitive fixation. Still, task switching should not be excessive and focus sessions should be long enough, because interrupting the creative flow is damaging to creative ideation. Excessive switching risks producing many superficial or conventional ideas rather than the deeper elaboration that true originality requires. Creativity is enhanced by both switching and persistence: explore one direction deeply enough, then deliberately shift perspective when you become stuck.

• In short, switch deliberately, don’t multitask. If you want to multitask, do it like this:

  • Focus when you are executing.

  • Persist when ideas are still developing.

  • Switch deliberately when you become cognitively stuck.

A fascinating window for creativity: the edge of sleep

Have you ever woken up with a great idea just before fully opening your eyes? Or had a brilliant thought just as you were falling asleep, only to wake up in the morning and… total blank?

Our brain goes through two special states — one in the morning and one in the evening — in which logical thinking loosens and imagination comes alive. Learn to recognize and make use of these moments, and you can turn them into unique sources of ideas and solutions.

The hypnagogic state, before sleep. This is the moment when you are no longer fully awake, but not completely asleep either. Thoughts flow freely, strange images (hallucinations) can appear, as well as unexpected connections.

Thomas Edison, Edgar Allan Poe and Salvador Dalí used to take afternoon naps while holding a metal object (a ball or a key) in their hand, so that they would wake up as soon as the object fell and made a noise. At that moment, right on the boundary between wakefulness and sleep, their minds were freer, allowing creative and original ideas to emerge.

How to use this state:

• Before falling asleep, ask yourself an open-ended question (e.g. “How could I solve...?”).

• Spend 2–3 minutes with your eyes closed, without putting any pressure on yourself.

• Keep a notebook next to your bed. Don’t assume you’ll remember the idea the next day. Even if it seems like a genius idea and you are sure there is no way you could forget it, chances are you will (it has happened to me many times). Sometimes the ideas seem to make no sense and we can give them meaning later; other times, they are completely fantastical and bizarre.

The hypnopompic state, immediately after waking-up. This is the 1–5 minute window when you are awake but still in a haf awake - half dream state. It can be fertile ground for ideas, new perspectives and personal insights.

How to use it:

• Don’t get out of bed immediately. Stay still for a moment and notice what comes to mind.

• Let your thoughts flow without judgment. Your mind is still relatively unconstrained.

• Write down or record whatever comes up: a sentence, a solution, a metaphor. It doesn’t have to make complete sense, the meaning may emerge later.

The complex relationship of flow and creativity

The flow state adds another layer of complexity. In a flow state, we are deeply absorbed in what we are doing, with intense task-focused attention and reduced self-consciousness, almost the opposite of mind-wandering. Yet flow has also been associated with creative performance.

This shows that creativity does not require one optimal brain state. Different stages of the creative process may benefit from different states of mind.

The flow state is consistently associated with subjective feelings of creativity and with self-rated creative output across visual art, music, dance, and design tasks.

Flow emerges as a unique neurocognitive phenomenon marked by selective DMN suppression and enhanced ECN engagement. Such network reconfiguration fosters creativity through DMN-ECN synergy while providing emotional stability via reduced self-monitoring and negative affect.

Subject to another post :)

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Archimedes famously exclaimed Eureka! with excitement, when he realized that a body immersed fully or partially in a fluid experiences an upward force equal to the weight of the fluid displaced. He had this revelation while taking a bath. According to the story, he jumped out of the bathtub and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting, “Eureka!”

Newton was inspired to formulate his law of universal gravitation while sitting under an apple tree and reflecting on the falling fruit. As a side note, the tree under which Newton may have sat can still be visited in the orchard at Woolsthorpe Manor in the UK, where he grew up.

Our best ideas often come to us when we are taking a shower, running, or simply letting our minds wander. It is not a coincidence. Now you know why.

_Sources:

• _{Ingredients of Creativity: Originality and More, Selcuk Acar, 2017}

• _{The Process Definition of Creativity, Adam E. Green, 2023}

• _{Potential Originality and Effectiveness: The Dynamic Definition of Creativity, G. Corazza, 2016}

• _{Defining Creativity: A View from the Arts, Anthony K. Brandt, 2021}

• _{A wandering mind is an unhappy mind, Matthew A. Killingsworth, Daniel T. Gilbert}

• _{Mindfulness meditation increases default mode, salience, and central executive network connectivity, Benno Bremer et al., 2022}

• _{Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity, R Beaty et al, 2018}

• _{Dynamic switching between brain networks predicts creative ability, Qunlin Chen et al, 2025}

• _{A neurocognitive framework of attention and creativity: Maximizing usefulness and novelty via directed and undirected pathways, Gillian B. Yeo et al, 2024}

• _{Give your ideas some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking, Marily Oppezzo, Daniel L Schwartz, 2014}

• _{Mind-wandering as creative thinking: neural, psychological, and theoretical considerations, K. Fox, R. Beaty, 2018}

• _{“Switching On” creativity: Task switching can increase creativity by reducing cognitive fixation, Jackson G. Lu et al, 2017}

• _{Salvador Dalí: Hypnagogic Hallucinations in Art, Mina Caraccio, 2023}

• _{Enhanced functional connectivity between the default mode network and executive control network during flow states may facilitate creativity and emotional regulation, and may improve health outcomes, K Barnett, Fabian Vasiu, 2026}

Thoughts about thoughts.

This is metacognition.

In its academic definition, metacognition is even more powerful. It extends beyond thinking awareness and includes awareness on our knowledge and abilities, emotions and motivation.

Metacognition is a human superpower. Being able to analyse our thoughts is a first step for habit formation, learning, critical thinking, creativity and wellbeing.

We need to be aware that we possess such a power and learn to use it to our own advantage. How? By regularly analysing our thoughts, feelings and actions. Then, planning, monitoring, evaluating, and self-regulating accordingly.

Basically, we can split metacognition into 2 dimensions:

1/ the knowledge we gain about how we think - analysing

2/ the regulation or control of our thinking - planning, monitoring, evaluating

Being aware is a complex process that consumes cognitive space. Plus, we need to be comfortable dissecting our thoughts. But it’s worth the effort if we want to show up for ourselves.

Metacognition is a condition for self-actualisation

If you are not familiar with Maslow’s pyramid, self-actualisation is at the peak of human development: becoming who you are capable of becoming and fulfilling your potential.

1/ Metacognition facilitates change

Sometimes we practice it instinctively, but it becomes more valuable when we use it deliberately, on a daily basis.

When we analyze how we think and identify why we think, feel or act a certain way, something fundamental happens: we can change. We can change a reaction or an action in the moment. We can change in the long term, forming new habits.

Metacognition at work: For example, I feel the urge to eat. I ask myself the key question: why? I realise that I need to start working on an important project and I feel anxious. When I feel anxious, I tend to eat my emotions. By assessing this, with awareness, I can decide to reframe my response. Maybe I call a friend. Or journal about it.

From this experience, I can plan to respond in a similar controlled manner next time I feel the same. I write down my intention: next time when I feel anxious about a project I will journal about it.

This is called an Implementation Intention. It is a self-regulation technique that can be used as a metacognition technique for adopting new habits.

2/ Metacognition is a precondition for higher order thinking.

It sounds very elitist. But I am sure everyone would like to reach it.

By definition, higher-order thinking is our capacity to take new information, interrelate it with prior knowledge, and manipulate it to solve problems or make decisions in complex situations.

You should aim for it, as it opens the doors to the holy grail of the modern world: creativity.

How? Creativity is a process that we can summarise, intentionally simplified, as: focus, focus, focus, then take a break, relax and boom, you just connect the dots. That is why our creativity sparks in the shower after a day of work. I will write a separate article about the mind and creativity soon.

When we develop our higher order thinking, we connect ideas, we become more creative and find innovative solutions to our everyday problems. Higher order thinking is considered a key predictor of success.

3/ Metacognition supports self-regulation and the motivational processes involved in pursuing our goals.

These are essential for discipline and habit formation over time. It helps us stay aligned with our goals on long term.

How can our thinking support habits?

Monitoring - identify and track opportunities for behavior change

Knowledge - understand when and how to act

If-then planning - link target behaviors to stable cues, increase automatization.

Problem - solving - identify barriers and develop strategies to overcome them

4/ Metacognition makes us better learners. It enables us to identify the depth and the gaps in our knowledge, facilitates the process of acquiring new information, makes us choose effective learning strategies.

A surprising insight is that metacognitive abilities not only make us feel good, increasing our wellbeing, but also improve our memory. This seems to be relevant for aging people, as well.

Do you want to improve your metacognition?

1/ Take deliberate time to reflect, quite often. Reflect on what you are thinking and feeling. Surprise yourself investigating a specific moment in time: What am I feeling now? What am I thinking? Why? Should I do something differently? How?

Over time, you become better and better at being aware of being aware.

2/ Practice mindfulness. This is an expected answer, as mindfulness brings our attention into the present, focusing on what we are thinking and feeling, in a non-judgemental way. Our mind frequently oscillates between ruminating about the past and anticipating the future, making scenarios, scanning for negative signals, threats and risks. Mindfulness interrupts these mental processes and trains us to return our attention and thoughts to the present.

Meditation is also a useful strategy because it helps improve attention.

3/ Journal, reflect. Write about your wins and losses. Analyse what happened. Think about the learnings and new potential strategy that you can use next time.

Reflective writing can also happen online. Research suggests that blogging, and for sure we can include Substack reflective posts :), can serve this purpose.

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When Metacognition works against us

Metacognition does not always work to our advantage. Studies indicate that certain maladaptive metacognitive beliefs can sustain addictive habits, including alcohol use, nicotine use, gambling, online gaming, and problematic internet use.

When we tend to overthink, we can develop maladaptive coping styles: rumination, worry, thought suppression, that maintain psychological distress.

These negative adaptations reduce our perceived ability to control our thoughts. Basically we lack the belief that we can redirect the thoughts and emotions in a constructive way.

As discussed, mindfulness, as part of metacognitive therapy, is a useful intervention to enhance metacognitive awareness for regulation.

Metacognitive abilities develop over time and can be deliberately strengthened. Childhood is therefore a critical period for cultivating them.

It is essential to work with our children to form metacognition skills

We cannot talk about learning or developing critical thinking without enhancing our metacognition skills. Becoming a self-aware thinker is a process that should be encouraged in school, guided by teachers, and at home, by parents

There are several tools that adults can use, provided that they develop the necessary awareness themselves:

• debriefing the way of thinking,

• moving from the difficulty of “I can’t” to “what information I need/ what skills I am lacking”,

• elaborating on thinking process of the children, paraphrasing and developing the idea

• leading them through problem solving, with strategies, alternative solutions

• inviting them to think aloud and explain the process of thinking (goals, plans, strategies, means to be used)

• adult modelling, by sharing our planning, describing the goals and objectives

• and giving reasons for the following actions, designing the road to getting an answer in uncertain situations

That is why it is of utter importance to talk to our children and create space to accompany them through their thinking processes.

Metacognition as a skill will make the children better learners at school and, overall, in life, developing what is called “an educated intellect”. They will be better equipped to face the world.

Applying specific tools during everyday interactions at home will also strengthen the parent - child bond and make parents less judgemental and more empathetic towards their kids.

With strong metacognitive ability we can calibrate our confidence: being confident when we are correct and remain uncertain when wrong, to facilitate better learning, decision-making, and interpersonal interaction.

Metacognition is foundational to learning, decision-making, self-regulation, and mental health.

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What thought, reaction or behaviour have you noticed recently that you could respond to differently?

Turn that awareness into an implementation intention: If ___ happens, then I will ___.

References:

• _{The concept and instruction of metacognition, Eleonora Papleontiou-louca}

• _{A Systematic Review of Higher-Order Thinking by Visualizing its Structure Through HistCite and CiteSpace Software, Jun Liu et al, 2021}

• _{Efficacy of memory training interventions targeting metacognition for older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis, E Sella et al, 2022}

• _{The Importance of Metacognition for the Promotion of Global Wellbeing, L Varshney, 2021}

• _{Metacognitive monitoring in academic self-regulation of future psychologists, Vadym Lyubomyrskyі, 2026}

• _{Setting the Stage Metacognition and Cognitive Therapy, Adrian Wells, 2022}

• _{Metacognitive beliefs in addictive behaviours: A systematic review., Tristan Hamonniere, 2018}

• _{Modelling the Contribution of Metacognitions, Impulsiveness, and Thought Suppression to Behavioural Addictions in Adolescents, Y Efrati, 2021}

• _{Boosting behavioral adaptability to enhance older adults’ mental health/well-being and quality of life using a habit-based metacognitive self-help intervention, L Brinkhof, 2025}

• _{Habit Formation and Behavior Change, B. Gardner, 2019}

• _{A comprehensive assessment of current methods for measuring metacognition, Dobromir Rahnev, 2025}

• _{Developing Student Metacognition through Reflective Writing in an Upper Level Undergraduate Anatomy Course, Valerie Dean O'Loughlin, 2020}

If the first months of the year didn’t go as planned, you have two choices.

• You can look back with frustration or disappointment, pretend nothing happened, and avoid facing reality.

or

• You can choose to look ahead with optimism. Five months is still a generous amount of time if you decide to use it well, to your advantage.

And since The Odyssey is having a moment these days, here’s a planning exercise inspired by the idea of a journey:

The Odyssey Plan.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, authors of the book Designing Your Life, teachers at Stanford’s Life Design Lab, use this design thinking exercise to help students imagine and articulate their possible future.

The Odyssey Plan is a 5- to 10-year planning exercise. It is particularly useful during periods of transition or whenever you want to rethink the direction of your life.

Bill Burnett explains the process in detail in his YouTube series. The condensed version looks like this: instead of creating one plan, you create three.

Your Plans for the Future

Plan 1/ What would your life look like five years from now if you continued on your current path? What if nothing dramatic happened and you kept doing what you are doing now?

Plan 2/ What would your future look like if Plan 1 disappeared completely and you had to change direction? What risks would you take? What career change would you make?

Plan 3/ What would your life look like if there were no constraints related to money, time, social status, connections, or anything else? What would you do if you had complete freedom to choose?

For each version, imagine your daily life. The people around you. What you would learn. The experiences you would have. The environment you would live in.

Build Your 10-year Future

In the extended version of the exercise, you imagine your life 10 years from now. You can combine elements from all three plans if that inspires you.

Give it a short name (no more than six words). Create a simple logo or symbol for it.

Then evaluate it from four perspectives:

· Resources: Do you have the necessary resources (time, money, connections, and skills) to make it happen?

· I Like It: How much do you like this plan?

· Confidence: Regardless of your current resources, do you believe you could make it happen?

· Coherence: Does it reflect your values and principles? Does it feel authentic?

Write a letter from your future self

This is one of my favourite parts of the exercise.

Imagine that ten years have passed.

Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of your future self. Describe three important things you’ve accomplished and reflect on how you got there.

It’s essentially a message from your future self to your present self, thanking you for everything you did over those years.

Prototype before you commit

The next step is to identify the elements of your plan that you will test first. The authors call these tests prototypes.

You test them in the real world (rather than just in your imagination) to find out whether what you have planned is truly what you want.

There are two ways to test your prototypes:

1/ Conversations. Talk to people who are already doing what you want to do, so you can understand the process, their experiences, and what that reality actually looks like.

2/ Experiments. Start experimenting, on a smaller scale, with what you have in mind.

Design your future

Bill Burnett concludes that once you have a clear direction and start talking about it, the world begins to present opportunities that were always there.

Burnett recalls (ex-Apple) Alan Kay’s famous quote,

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

The Odyssey Plan reminds us that the future isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we design.

Now it’s your turn to design your future.

I will guide you to redefine the way you approach your priorities, recalibrating energy and managing your time more intentionally, so you can make the most of your capabilities.

For the past three years, I’ve been developing a practical framework for redesigning the way we think, work, recover, and make decisions. I call it The Asymmetric Edge. A framework built around small, targeted changes that create disproportionate results.

Here you’ll find ideas at the intersection of:

• performance psychology

• cognitive science

• nutrition for the brain

• movement and recovery

• decision-making

• leadership

• systems thinking

Everything is designed around one question: What strategic move will create your biggest advantage?

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You will design a personal system that can withstand pressure. I will show you how to build it. I will bring inspiration from real life examples.

Every post and note will help you and inspire you to build your personal operating system to think more clearly, protect your energy, make better decisions.

To make your big things happen.

Subscribe to build your Asymmetric Edge.
Dana

The pressure became unbearable. She was overwhelmed.

A conversation with her manager didn’t bring any relief. Mostly because her manager didn’t have the leadership capacity to deal with the situation.

Not long after, she said enough is enough and started looking for a similar job in a different company. At first, she was happy, she felt valued. It was like stepping out into the daylight. One month passed. Then two. Three. She became busier and busier. The working hours, longer and longer. Colleagues’ requests mutiplied. The situation was identical.

Recently, I had a conversation with another colleague. Same story. Great perfomer, always reliable, giving 110%. Overwhelmed. “I cannot sleep, I cannot detach, I just can’t take it anymore”. She is also moving to another company.

Changing companies can release the pressure. For a while.

High performers are usually spotted-on early in a team. With every project delivered on time, with every situation handled gracefully, with every unexpected issue led informally come more visibility, more expectations, more responsibilities. The next project, situation, or issue will land on the desk of the best people to be solved. External pressure is getting bigger and bigger.

The better you become at handling pressure, the more pressure finds its way to you.

Usually, the first reaction of high-performers is to push harder, more time, more effort. This is what got them there: working after hours, during holidays, late in the evening, early in the morning. Sacrificing the time with the partner and the kids. The fitness classes. The lunch breaks.

One day, the internal system reaches its limit.

When external pressure keeps increasing, working harder and harder eventually stops working. Sometimes, when you are on the verge to break down, you don’t even need another company. You need a system redesign.

Sit down and look at every area of your life: priorities, habits, rituals, rules, boundaries and mental models. Reframe them, starting with your identity, vision and values.

You don’t have to transform or reinvent yourself overnight, like some secret hero. You need small, targeted interventions that add up and create disproportionate effects. Asymmetric moves.

At some point, extraordinary performance is no longer directly correlated with extraordinary effort. Your system begins to consume too many resources.

To make consistently big moves, you need to support them with a system designed to prioritise what matters most to you, reduce unnecessary effort and make smarter choices. You can keep moving at speed, even when the external world becomes crazier and crazier.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll show you how to do exactly that.