I went running 8 times in the first 5 months of this year, and then hit 40 over the next 3 months. The key was aiming lower.

Before I had kids, I ran pretty regularly and would complete over 300 miles per year. But it all fell off a cliff as my time filled up and my energy was sapped with a host of new daily tasks. My running bottomed out in the first half of this year when I had managed only 14 miles through May of 2026.

When I finally stepped back to think about how to unblock myself, I realized that even though my goal at one time had been fairly SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound), that I hadn’t evolved it as my situation changed. For many years I aimed to run for at least 30-60 minutes each time I went running; a specific target that used to be achievable when I had more time. But as my schedule changed, I consistently avoided running because I didn’t feel like I could carve out that long AND come back with enough energy for everything else I had to do.

Lowering my goal duration felt like admitting failure. But eventually I realized that comparing myself against what I used to be able to do just led to doing nothing at all. So I accepted that my goal now was running more often than 1-2 times a month, rather than logging a long run each time I go out. So I set a new target of getting out the door 4-5 days per week and doing only 15 minutes on each run. That way it would be very hard to say I didn’t have time or wouldn’t recover enough for everything else in my day.

It worked like flipping a switch. In the next 3 months I ran 40 times and completed 73 miles. I totaled 13 hours of running compared to January through May when I had managed only 2 and a half. 

And the light bulb really went off for me when I realized in July and August that I was actually starting to push my runs to 20, 25 or even 30 minutes. I was hitting my old bar; I just had to get unstuck to start seeing how that could become possible.

What does all this have to do with Thinking Empirically? The key reframing is to recognize that changing behavior means running an experiment on yourself. If you’re setting a clear, SMART goal, researching the best path forward and changing one thing at a time, and finding that you’re not getting the results you want, it’s OK to change the plan.

Changing a goal instead of abandoning it means you’re still moving in the direction that you want to go. I’m focusing on this because if you’re feeling like Thinking Empirically is a nice idea you’d never have the time for, the path forward is to start to focus on one or two situations where you can start to do something differently. Once you start the momentum, it will become more and more natural to do things in a new way.

So how do you pick your spots to get started? In my next post I’ll tackle the challenge of how to recognize situations when you need to think empirically.

I have a confession to make: it took me almost 3 years to launch Thinking Empirically.

At the end of 2023 I bought the domain name for this site and made a New Year’s Resolution to launch by mid-year. When the end of 2024 came around I hadn’t posted anything, but I renewed the domain name…and before I knew it, 2025 was over and I was again faced with renewing an empty site.

I had an idea I was passionate about. I believed in the importance of the mission. I love writing and teaching. I even drafted posts, created a launch calendar, and chose my website theme and layout.

So why was it so hard to publish the darn thing!?

Anyone who’s committed to exercising more on New Year’s Eve, only to realize by mid-February that they’re paying for a gym subscription they don’t use, knows exactly how I was feeling. The gap between intention and action is practically synonymous with being human. But when we can overcome it to achieve a truly important goal in a lasting way, the impacts can be huge.

I’m sharing my experience because if you’ve read the Thinking Empirically Framework you might be thinking that sure, it would be great to tackle problems with a more systematic approach…but then not consistently following through. The comedian Mike Birbiglia, facing a challenging reality that his persistent sleep walking might in fact be a real medical issue, summed it up well:

“I remember thinking, ‘maybe I’ll see a doctor’ and then I remember thinking, ‘maybe I’ll eat dinner,’ and I went with dinner for years.” 

I hope my personal story of launching Thinking Empirically illustrates that the failure to launch wasn’t about passion, will power, or belief. It was about intertia.

Change what’s ‘wrong’ with your situation

So what finally got me moving? Behavioral scientist Dr. Angela Duckworth explained the key insight on an episode of Choiceology with Dr. Katy Milkman:

“For a lot of my life, when things weren’t going well, I would say, “What is wrong with me? I’m not getting this work done. What’s wrong with me?” And now I say, “What’s wrong with my situation? This isn’t getting done. I keep procrastinating. What’s wrong with my situation? Is the task undefined? Do I need more advice? Am I not sleeping enough? What’s wrong with my situation?”

If you’re struggling to follow through on an intention, it’s easy to think it’s a failure of will power or self control. Defaulting to “what’s wrong with me” can become reflexive. This can quickly sap motivation by turning an opportunity to try something new into a challenge that feels insurmountable. In this way of thinking, if I want to tackle the goal I’ve set for myself, I’ve got to fundamentally change myself as a person.

To finally launch Thinking Empirically I didn’t change myself; I went on parental leave. Parental leave certainly didn’t mean more free time or more cognitive capacity; on the contrary, days were filled with constant to-dos and the sleep deprivation was real. But it shook up my day to day and gave me the freedom to think about how I could carve out an hour here and there to focus on writing.

Before my leave I had fallen into so many automatic, repetitive habits that it was hard to see how I could squeeze in writing without destroying the Jenga tower. But once the tower collapsed anyway and I was forced to remake it, it was easier to question why those habits had been there in the first place.

The experience opened my eyes to some of the excuses that were getting in the way of going after my goal:

1. I don’t have time: classic excuse. And the challenge, is that it’s always at least a little bit true.
   1. Solution: lower the initial commitment to generate early wins. Think about how you can make incremental progress with just 10 or 15 minutes of effort. As I’ll dig into in my next post, I was able to get myself back into running by shifting my goal from 30-minutes 3 times a week to 15-minutes 5 times a week. Just get out the door, even if briefly, on most days as a starting point.
2. I don’t know what to do: I’m a dreamer so I’m constantly thinking things like “wouldn’t it be great if I could make a better pasta sauce?” But the harder, less fun part is actually making the plan of how to do it.
   1. Solution: make your goal SMART. Who is it for, when will you use it, what are some existing examples that are similar to what I want? If you haven’t read it, check out the post on goal setting in the Thinking Empirically Framework. For me, making progress on my pasta sauce meant deciding it was for low-key, everyday dinners (not dinner parties), and needed to only require what was typically on hand in my pantry.
3. This isn’t going to work, or isn’t sustainable: I constantly fall into this trap. What’s the point of starting to run if it’s about to be winter and it will be too cold to run?
   1. Solution: focus on a growth mindset, allow yourself to “fail fast.” Maybe your solution doesn’t work, or only works for a week. Once the test and learn process is second nature, it won’t feel so overwhelming to use it time and again. 

When I was in my high school marching band playing at our school football games, there was a parent who would repeatedly yell “YOU GOTTA WANT IT!” That’s true, but it’s not enough. To truly change your behavior you also need a plan. In the next post, let’s dive more deeply into how to build implementation plans to make sure you truly make progress toward your goal.