EP 3577 What will be different this time next year?
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Release Date: 12/30/2025
The Strong Life Project Podcast
Most people don’t fail because they can’t do the work. They fail because they keep running from the thing they most need to face. In this episode, I break down why avoidance looks like comfort, but it quietly destroys your confidence, your relationships, and your results. If you keep distracting yourself, blaming timing, waiting to feel ready, or hoping the pressure will disappear, you’re training your brain to believe you’re not capable. Avoidance isn’t neutral. It’s a vote for the version of you that stays stuck. And the longer you do it, the heavier it gets. What you won’t...
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In this episode, I challenge the trap most people live in: judging your life by outcomes you can’t fully control. Results are noisy. They’re influenced by timing, other people, the economy, the algorithm, injury, weather, luck and variables you’ll never master. When you build your self worth, motivation, and discipline on results, you become emotionally fragile. You win and feel fine. You lose and spiral. That’s not high performance, that’s gambling with your identity. Instead, we go behaviour-based. Behaviours are controllables. They’re the daily standards you can execute no...
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In EP 3596 Haters are just unfulfilled, Shaun O’Gorman breaks down a blunt truth most people avoid: the loudest critics are rarely your real problem, your reaction to them is. This episode unpacks why “haters” so often show up when you start improving, building, or leading, and why their negativity usually says more about their own frustration than it does about your choices. Shaun explores the psychology behind projection, insecurity, and status threats, and how people who feel stuck will sometimes try to drag others back down to feel better about their own lack of action. You will hear...
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Fear isn’t just an emotion. It’s a biological alarm system designed to keep you alive. In this episode, I break down why fear can feel so paralysing, even when the threat isn’t real, immediate, or rational. When your nervous system reads danger, it prioritises survival over logic. That’s why you can know what to do and still feel stuck, avoidant, reactive, or frozen. We unpack the three common fear responses most people cycle through without realising: fight, flight, and freeze. Freeze is the one that looks like procrastination, overthinking, perfectionism, scrolling, shutting down,...
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Most people think the goal is to climb faster. Work harder. Get more done. Win more. But here’s the brutal truth: you can spend years doing everything “right” and still end up miserable if you’re climbing the wrong ladder. In this episode, I break down why high achievers often feel flat, restless, or secretly resentful even when life looks successful from the outside. It is not because you are ungrateful. It is because your direction is wrong. You have been optimising effort instead of alignment. We unpack the warning signs that you are chasing someone else’s definition of success:...
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In this episode, I unpack the parable of the Mexican fisherman and why it punches so hard if you’re ambitious, driven, and chasing the next milestone. A tourist watches a fisherman bring in a catch, then suggests “improving” his life: buy a bigger boat, hire staff, scale the operation, build a fleet, sell to a distributor, then one day cash out and retire to a quiet coastal village where he can fish a little, nap with his kids, spend time with his wife, and play guitar with friends at night. Here’s the twist: that “dream retirement” is already the fisherman’s current life. We use...
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In episode 3592 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun unpacks a simple truth that most high performers forget when life gets rough: you don’t control the ocean, you control your response. The “waves” are pressure, setbacks, conflict, fatigue, uncertainty, grief, and the problems that show up at the worst time. If you keep trying to stop the waves, you waste energy fighting reality and you miss the only leverage you actually have. This episode reframes resilience as a trainable skill, not a personality trait. Shaun explains why calm isn’t the absence of chaos, it’s the ability to stay...
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In EP 3591, Never miss two days in a row, you get a simple rule that stops small slip ups turning into a full collapse. One day off happens. Life hits. Motivation dips. But the second missed day is where the identity damage starts. This episode breaks down why your brain treats two missed days as permission to quit, and how to interrupt that pattern before it becomes a new normal. You will hear the difference between a mistake and a mindset. Missing one workout is a scheduling issue. Missing two is often a story you start telling yourself about who you are and what you do. The point is not...
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In EP 3590 of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman pulls apart the deferred life hypothesis: the quiet belief that real living starts later. Later when the kids are older, when the business is stable, when you’re leaner, calmer, richer, or finally “sorted”. It sounds responsible. It is often disguised avoidance. This episode names the cost of that pattern. When you keep postponing joy, connection, health, and meaning, you don’t stay neutral. You drift. The goalposts move, the workload expands, and your nervous system learns that relief only arrives after the next milestone. For...
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In EP 3589, Sometimes you can just do what you can do, I unpack a truth most people resist until life forces it on them. There are seasons where you are not going to be at your best, and pretending otherwise just adds guilt, stress, and self sabotage. Sometimes you are carrying fatigue, grief, pressure, illness, family strain, or just the mental load of being human. In those moments, the goal is not peak performance. The goal is staying in the game. This episode is about stripping things back to what is controllable. Your next decision. Your smallest repeatable action. Your non-negotiables....
info_outlineMost people hope next year will be better. High performers decide it will be different and then do the work to make that true. In this episode of The Strong Life Project, Shaun O’Gorman challenges you to take an honest look at your patterns, excuses, and standards. If nothing changes in how you think, act, and show up under pressure, nothing changes in your life.
This episode is a direct call to responsibility. Not motivation. Not inspiration. Execution. Shaun breaks down why repeating the same behaviours while expecting a different outcome is the fastest way to stay stuck, and what you must commit to now if you want next year to look and feel different in your health, leadership, relationships, and performance.
Key Takeaways:
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Why time alone never creates change
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The uncomfortable truth about habits and personal standards
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How to identify the behaviours keeping you stuck
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What high performers do differently when setting commitments
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How to turn intention into consistent action
If you want next year to be different, the decision has to be made now. Listen to this episode and start building the version of yourself you will be proud of twelve months from today.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube