Dear Oli,

It’s January 5th. Elio is back at school, Alex is back to work, and I think you are too. And I am…writing you a letter. Because I don’t have a job. But I like to sit at my computer and feel like I’m working. No but seriously…

It’s a new year and of course I’m thinking about how I can make 2026 different (better? I hate to say better…but like, yeah I guess I do want a better year than last year) from 2025. I tried not to set resolutions because I feel if I miss one day or fail at something, I just spiral into shame for the rest of the year. And one thing I definitely do not want, is more guilt and shame. I guess I can tell you all the things I don’t want. Maybe, that will be easier to then figure out what I do want.

I don’t want to gain more weight. I don’t want to spend another year making 0 EUR. I don’t want to go to bed at night feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything that day. I don’t want to…ugh, I’m actually not enjoying this exercise lol.

To be honest, this letter is probably going to be all over the place but last night as I was struggling to fall asleep I had grand ideas of what to write you and so I’m trying to get them out onto the screen now.

I think I’ve decided to go into 2026 with the mindset of Tiny Experiments. Mind you, I haven’t read the book. But we’ve discussed the idea of experiments before. But if I remember my school science days, I remember that an experiment requires a hypothesis, and you can’t change too many variables at once otherwise the experiment won’t be clean. I have no idea if the Tiny Experiments book talks about it like that, but that’s how I’m approaching it. If I apply the Experiment principle to 2026, that means that I can’t have too many experiments happening at once, since they could mess up the variables. That takes a bit of pressure off of me. My first experiment is related to the body. Because I feel like if I can get to a place where I love my body again, and where I feel confident and strong in my body again, it will compound into the other areas of my life.

via GIPHY

I have a tendency to look at the big final picture. In terms of body that means I’m thinking I need to train like an Olympian. Which is crazy, and would cause me to fail my experiment after one day because I would be so tired and hurt and demotivated. Alex reminded me, in order to succeed, I need to find the minimum I can do that I can say “okay, I showed up today”. As long as I can check off that little box, it will keep me motivated to keep going. So what’s the minimum effort I can do on a daily basis for this experiment? I’ve chosen the Hybrid Calisthenics app exercises. If I can show up daily to do the two exercises from that app then I can check off the box. Everything else, walking 10K steps, working on my nutrition, stretching, Pilates…it’s all extra. I get to check the box, if I’ve done the app.

So what is the hypothesis? The hypothesis is:

“If I commit to showing up for my body daily, I expect it will get stronger and I will feel more confident”.

On to a different topic now…I told you this letter would be all over the place, but I think this next bit actually ties in perfectly with this sentiment. Earlier this morning I sent you a message saying that the “letter sending app exists already”. We both checked out Lettre and it’s a super cute app, I love the UI and the idea behind it. But when I was taking a shower, I realized that I would actually rather continue sending you public letters. I think that was one of the reasons why we even started this, is because we want a bit of that “anyone could potentially stumble upon this and find something that resonates with them” feeling. And what’s so cool is that a friend of yours randomly stumbled upon your letter to me and then wrote YOU a letter. I love that so much. And while Lettre is super cute, it doesn’t have that same vibe. I also just really like the idea that these letters are in my “little house on the internet” and it gives me a bit of freedom to just write freely. Especially in the letter format I don’t care too much about sounding smart, or proper sentence structure. Even though I know this could potentially be read by someone other than you, I’m okay with that. Because this is a letter. It’s mostly me thinking out loud.

Last thing I want to touch upon, is structure. In your letter to me you wrote that “We all benefit from a bit of structure.” And I agree. I’m still trying to find the balance for myself, especially since I don’t have a job to actually give me that structure to contain my time. And while romantically I like the idea of being self employed, and being the boss of my own time, it appears I’m not super great at it. I mean, I sat down to write this letter to you probably 20 minutes ago and instead of writing I ended up going on the app store, youtube, notion. Why? Why do I allow myself to get distracted so easily? Towards the end of last year, when I was working on my second issue of the zine, I used a body doubling video on youtube that had a pomodoro timer, and it was so so helpful. I think you told me about these body doubling videos and I finally tried it and yeah, it really did help me focus. So while I’ve been writing you this letter, I’ve been using a body doubling video as well with a pomodoro timer. I’m trying to set up more little rituals like that, to trick my brain into thinking “okay now it’s work time”. Like for example, I love journaling with candle light. So in the morning, I always light a candle next to my journal. And that really helps me sink into the practice.

Okay, this is a mess of a letter but thats okay. I’m working on not being a perfectionist in 2026 as well. Lol.

Love you!

• Joana