Change Your Brain Every Day - The 1-Page Exercise That Will Change Your Life in 2026

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Why do New Year's resolutions fail 80% of the time? Even for smart, motivated people? It's not a willpower problem. It's a brain problem. In this powerful kickoff episode for 2026, Dr. Amen and Tana Amen share the simple but profound exercise they've used for decades to create clarity, balance, and real momentum in every area of life.   This isn't vague goal-setting or positive thinking. It's a brain-based framework that helps you focus on what you actually want and align your daily behavior to help you get there faster. You'll get an intimate peek into the lives of Dr. Amen and Tana as they walk you through their own personal goals (relationships, finances, work, spiritual, and more) to show you how it's done. In this episode, you'll learn: Why your brain gets stuck focusing on what you don't want (and why that's a goal killer) The hidden reason most resolutions are doomed from the start How to define goals your brain can actually execute Why relationships, purpose, and health must come before hustle The single question that can instantly stop self-sabotage If you're tired of starting over every January, this episode could change how you plan (and live) forever.

All of us have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear that it's okay to just go, well, does that thought fit? Dr. Amon and Tanna discuss the one-page miracle. Which is designed to help you take control of your relationship. Work, money, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. What I like about the one-page miracle is how succinct you make it, because I do believe that the more you read it and the more it's in front of you, the more powerful. it is. Your brain literally shows you more of what you think about. So if you're focused on what you don't have, then you're going to feel small. If you focus on what you do have and what you want and how you're going to get it, clearly can change your life in a positive way. You have to not only

teach your brain to focus on intention, I think intention is so powerful, but you have to do it. Every day, you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. People come to Amen clinics from all over the world for answers. With 11 clinics in major hubs, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, D.C., L.A., Miami, New York, Orange County, Seattle, San Francisco, and Scottsdale. Expert brain care is closer. than you think, visit amenclinics.com. Welcome back. So we are here to kick off 2026, and we want to talk to you about an exercise that we do every year. We've done this together since we started dating, and I suspect you have

done it a lot longer than that, and I think I had my own version of it before, but I like your version because it's short and sweet, and it is something you can keep right in front of you. And it's called the one-page miracle. So we want to go through this with you. We're going to share hours with you and teach you how we do it and hopefully help you do the same thing so that you can achieve everything you want in 2026. So I've been doing this 40 years. And if people go, so what's been the secret to your success? And I go, I married Tanna. Because I'm so much happier in my life. It's this exercise. It's focus on what you want. not what you don't want.

Right. So many people focus on, oh, I don't want this and I don't want that and I can't have this and I can't have that. Yeah. And no, no, no. You have to train your brain to focus on what you do want. And part of that is positivity bias, which we've talked about. Part of it is hope. and hope is just tomorrow can be better and I have a role in it.

And I have multiple ways to get there, except, of course, with you. There are not multiple ways to get there. Well, as long as it's with me, there are multiple ways. As long as it's with you, right? But I originally developed this when patients would come to see me when I was a very young psychiatrist and their behavior was not how. helpful for them. And I remember going, what do you want? And very few people have actually asked themselves, they spend more time planning for their vacation than they do their life. And people get burned out

when they're unbalanced. And so the one-page miracle is very balanced. Yeah. So I like it. So before I met you, I learned the power of really spending time focusing with intention on what I want, on journaling it,

on writing it out in detail. And it was so powerful that when I found it years, many years later, I didn't even know what I'd forgotten it existed. And I found the list that I had spent so much time creating the life I wanted. I found it like, I mean, this was like 20 years later, probably. And I found it, it was crazy to me down to the detail how much of it had actually happened. I didn't even remember writing it. But what I like about the one page miracle is how succinct

you make it because I do believe that the more you read it and the more it's in front of you, the more powerful it is. You have to not only teach your brain to focus on intention, I think intention is so powerful, but you have to do it a lot. It can't just be once. Over and over again. So we had Julius Randall on our podcast, and he did this exercise, found it incredibly valuable. And I'm like, so why do you shoot free throws at practice? Like you do it over and over and over again.

He goes, because when it's crunch time, my brain needs to know it. Right. And so this is the same thing. Right. you talk about, because we've been together 20 years, that we do it every year. Right. We actually talk about it all the time. Right.

Does it fit? Well, we do it every year at the end of the year. We always talk about what we want for the next year. And I like it as a little, it's like our tradition. We talk about it throughout the year, too, but it's our tradition to do it at the end of the year. Like, what are we going to plan for the following year? Yeah.

Now, why is this so important? New Year's resolutions fail? 80% of the time, according to a U.S. News and World Report, most goals are vague, emotionally disconnected, and not really practical. Your brain helps you make happen what it sees. In fact, this is why I say your brain doesn't have a sense of humor. So you need to be very specific and clear. Like it's like it does what you tell it. So don't put in these suggestions that you think, oh, I didn't really mean that.

Like it's just going to do what you tell it, whether it's negative, positive, whatever it is. The brain is wired for negativity. Right. For survival. Because that's how you survived or that's how we survived as a species thousands of years ago. But it's not helpful because otherwise you just always wake up. thinking something's going to eat you. Right. And I think it's okay to, it's okay to put it in its place. It's okay to be aware of what's important to be, you know, the negative things that

are important to be aware of. If you're walking to your car in the dark, be aware. But, but you don't need to focus on it all the time. Focus is really a function of a lot of your brain, but especially the prefrontal cortex, which filters reality based on what we focus on. Your brain literally shows you more of what you think about. So if you're focused on what you don't have, then you're going to feel small. If you focus on what you do have and what you want and how you're going to get it clearly can change your life in a positive way. So when I originally developed this and it still works. Relationships, work, money, physical, emotional, spiritual health. What do you want? And then once you define it, every day, does it fit? Like, I have no tattoos. But if I did have a tattoo, it would be, does it fit?

Does my behavior fit the goals I have for my life? Right. And I start with relationships purposefully because if they're not right, you're not right. Right. As humans, we are a relational species. And operating with intention in your relationships is so critical. And I've seen a lot of successful people that were miserable in large part because they were unbalanced. Yeah.

There was too much time at work and not enough time focusing on their relationships. So for me, I start with my spiritual relationship with God because that for me is where it all starts from and goes down from there. And then it's family and then health and then because if those things aren't, it doesn't. It doesn't matter how much money I have if the rest of it's, you know, if the other things aren't in alignment. So I think of like what is the most important thing for me. So it's God family. It's actually God health family.

But those are things are more important to me than even money because it doesn't matter. So what do you want in your relationship with God? I always want to be closer. I find that I'm frequently busy and get distracted. So prayer, my morning prayer and reading my Bible and. finding time alone with God is really important. But there's those times where we get so busy, and that's why it's always on my one-page miracle, because that's how I managed to stay connected. So I want to back up for one second. The way that I do my one-page miracle might be a little bit

different. I always think to myself, whenever I'm filling this out, I do everything by reverse engineering. It's just how my brain works. I learned it a long time ago, and it's always made sense to me. So if I'm like, okay, this is what I want to do or what I want for 2020. then I go to the end of 2026. What do I want the end of 2026 when I was getting my black belt? It's like, okay, that black belt test is going to be hard. 15 minutes after that black belt test, what do I want it to look like? And then I reverse engineer it.

So the end of 2026, what do I want 2026 to have looked like? And then I reverse engineer it. That means this has to have happened in December. This has to have happened in November. And I go backwards. And then by week by week, you know, then day by day. and make those things happen because it's way easier to chunk down if I know what the end needs to look like. So for me, that's how I do it. So with my relationship with God, it's like,

okay, well, if at the end of 2026, I want to be closer in X, Y, and Z ways, then I need to spend this amount of time weekly or monthly than weekly, then daily reading the Bible and praying and, you know, spending time with women in my Bible study. It breaks. sit down in a more practical way for me. And it means that I have to prioritize that because it's really easy for us to get super busy. And when you get too busy, you become unbalanced. Well, and do you know, I'm not nearly as good with everything else or with you when I'm so busy that I'm not spending time in prayer and meditation? Like, I'm just a better person when I do those things. I'm better at home, I'm better at everything. So it's important, even for my relationship with you. So what do you

want in your relationships? I was looking at yours and I'm like, we actually have mostly the same goals, not there's tweaks. I always just want to be closer to you. I want to be closer, more loving, kinder, spend time together. And you and I always want that. And I find that we're often busy. but we are very good at still making that happen. I think we're very good at it. So I think we just continue finding making sure we don't get too busy, making sure we find those times to carve out together, to hold hands, to just sit together, to love each other, to be intentional.

So I have like specific words, kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate. Right. I have intimate. Always want that. And I have intimate and connection. I also have identified the obstacles. So time, hormones, schedules,

and finding solutions. Praise the hormone, doctor. Yes. But finding solutions. So identify the obstacles, find the solutions. If it's kind, caring,

loving, supportive, passionate, does my behavior fit because all my thoughts don't fit that? Right. Because we're busy

and we're tired and we're, right right and you know i had that thought of murdering me so the dog would love you more like what is that well it's you're jealous of my dog you have to take your goals in the context of your life you're jealous of the dog i've always been second right i'm the second son i'm the third child and you were just not going to be second again when i married you're married you, you had Chloe, she was two, and I was second. But I was okay with it. But then when we got Taurus, Tieris is our German Shepherd, our so-called protection dog, who's a big teddy bear.

And you come home and he like loses his mind. He's my dog. And then I come home. He's like, dude, dude, that's it. And so I was working. And when you're going, and when you're going, he loves me and he was hanging out with me and I just had the thought if I killed Tanna that he would love me more. Okay, it's on tape that if I'm dead, he killed me. But then I'm like, kind, caring, loving, supportive. You're not going to kill her. And there's no way I would kill you anyways because that's my biggest fear in life

is losing you. It's good to know. But if I get a thought in my mind. head, I filter it through what I want, right? And people go, oh, well, couples should just be able to say everything they think. No, no. That's literally an insane thought. That's a dangerous thought. It's a dangerous thought. It's filter. That's what your frontal lobes do. All of us have weird, crazy, stupid, sexual, violent thoughts that nobody should ever hear that it's okay to just go, well, does that thought fit?

Is it true? Right? It's not true. I want to murder you. That's just not true at all. I would miss you. And I don't like institutional food, right? At least you look good in orange.

Sort of. this is so important. It's so foundational. And like, you know, this past Christmas season, a lot of my patients have stressful family relationships. I go, what's the goal? When you go home, what's the goal? And it's not to talk about politics.

It's not to talk about things that happened 50 years ago. The goal is connection. Does your behavior fit? the goals you have and it helps them behave so much better and alcohol takes off yeah drops your front of the brakes yeah it takes off the break so you end up just saying the first stupid thing that comes into your head now with children because we have a lot of them together we have a huge family what's the goal um also to be connected and loving.

For me, it's to create responsible humans that do, that contribute to the world. It's not necessarily, I used to think when they were little, it was to be their best friend. It's not. It is to create loving, kind, caring, responsible humans that can take care of themselves and contribute back. And so I had to really separate this idea being their best friend does not always add to that. So it's really teaching them to be good people. And when you give them responsibility, that's like the biggest gift. To be supportive without supporting and to give a hand up, not a handout.

And so for me, I'm very clear about that. And the same thing with the grandchildren, because we have five. And it's to be present, time, supportive, without supporting. Right. Right, because ultimately people feel self-esteem from competence. Yes. If they're competent in taking care of themselves, that's where they feel self-esteem. And I learned this when they were little, this was so helpful to me when I was doing love

and logic. Entitled people can never be happy. As soon as I learned that, I'm like, oh, that's not helping at all. Entitled people can't ever be happy. They have to, they will always end up resenting the person who basically made them entitled that supported that. Over 50 million Americans live with chronic pain. And too many are told there's no hope beyond pills or surgery.

My new book, Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain, Gives You Proven Practical Steps from the latest neuroscience to calm your brain, heal your mind, and finally feel better physically and emotionally. pre-order now to receive bonus gifts at change your brain change your pain book.com. Well, what are the goals with family? And as we've talked about before, never let your family of origin ruin the family you're trying to create. No, I adopted yours. Well, and I adopted your mom because your mom was a great mother-in-law.

No, I have many people in my family that are awesome. and I have some that I don't see so much. I love them from a distance. And so I want to be involved in a loving, positive way, because that's important to me when you're part of a big family like I am. But when you're also a doctor and a psychiatrist, sometimes that's all they want to talk about. Yeah. So learning how to have healthy boundaries.

And so I think boundaries are really important. Yeah. No, boundaries are very important for me. So how about for work? What do you want for work? Well, work this year's been very interesting for me because it went from really just focused on what we do and writing and podcast and the brain health work that we do to also now taking on an entirely new thing after my mom passed and taking over, you know, her legacy and her estate. And so I'm now doing something.

I've learned a whole new skill. So I want to be competent with that. I want to be really good at it. I want to really serve her legacy and make her proud and do a good job with that. So it's been a year of learning. It's been a year of growth. and it was really, really rough. But I will say it feels really good when you do that.

Because it was just like when I was doing nursing, and it was so hard initially when you're a brand-new nurse and you're like, none of these patients read my textbooks. It was terrible, right? And then all of a sudden, throughout this year, it was so difficult after my mom died to get everything under control. And then I had the thought about four months ago, I've got this. And I felt really good about it.

And so I feel like now I'm in a new place of just, really doing a good job and growing what she left. So let's do a plug here for estate planning. Oh, dear Lord. There are a number of people in our lives who go, oh, I don't want to think about it. Oh, I don't want to worry about it, given how much stress I saw with you,

even though your mom had good planning. I think it is neglect to not have a will and to actually not plan for your death because we're all going to die, who knows when. And to just have thought about it and probably with an attorney to have your plan set up. to be clear. There's two things that happen if you don't. Number one, it makes it impossible for the person to grieve when they're under a tremendous amount of stress and trying to sort out all the legal stuff. So it's very challenging to grieve when you are having to deal with all of that.

And the second thing is they can find themselves actually in a financial difficulty because there are things like taxes that have to be paid before money is available. So you want to make sure that they're set up for to be able to handle whatever it is that you're leaving them and not a mess. All right. So on to work. For me, it's just the most exciting year ever because of my work on this national brain health revolution initiative and the Eamon Hole 4. We already have 53 pilot sites that are going to start in front. February and I just endlessly interested and exciting. So I want to continue to build our work to be the

best brain and mental health company in the world and provide the products and services to optimize your brain because that will optimize your life. And obviously I can't do that. which means I have to nurture the other people in my life, I have to nurture the people who run the companies, right? But if I don't, then it won't be as good as it can be. And so I'm very clear what I want to accomplish at work. And I think it's very important to separate work from money. Yeah.

because it's not the same. Now, for a lot of people, that's why they work. And if that's true, that's just true. My hope for people is they work at something that has value for them that is purposeful. And I just feel incredibly blessed to love what I do. So I love you. I love what I do. I love the kids, the grandkids.

And money, I love what Pastor Warren said about money. He said, it's only something you borrow. Yeah. Because as soon as you're dead, it's somebody else's. Yeah. Boy, we learned that this year. Yes, we've certainly learned that. And for me, I just want to be responsible with money.

I'm value driven is I hate wasting it. It just irritates me. And I think maybe that comes from my dad. I would think. He came home and if the lights were on, he's like, do I have stock in the electric company? And so for one Christmas, we actually bought him stock in the electric company. That's funny. But it's a resource so that your life can be with you.

you want it to be and you can help other people's lives be what they want it to be, which is why we have the foundation, the change your brain foundation. It's every penny I make as a psychiatrist seeing patients actually give to the foundation because ultimately, yes, it supports our life, our lifestyle, but it's also to make other people's lives better. Right. And your goal? Did you write down the goal for money? So I do. So I have a certain percentage that I want to see it grow, not go down. So with finances, I want to see that number going up and I want to be a good steward with it. I want to grow my mom's legacy with that part of it. And then as I've got two separate businesses that I do now, right? I've got hours that I work on

with the stuff we do here and then I have that. So that's important to me. So again, I do the reverse engineering. So if this is what I want it to grow, then these are the things I'm going to invest in, and I reverse engineer it from the end of the year backwards and see how I can make that happen. I also, for me, it's also about that legacy is about helping my daughter get started in business and teaching her. So that's important. And so ultimately with money, it's whenever you decide to spend it on something, it's like, well, does it fit? Does it? Does it? fit the goal I have at the end of the year using your terminology. And I wanted to grow.

So that means I don't waste it. Right. People sometimes have weird relationships with money. And I think that's really important for you to figure out. You know, there's so much interesting stuff that happens with money with people growing up. Like, I grew up poor. They'd rather talk about their sex lives than their financial lives. I found that to be true.

Yeah. So I think it's really important to clean up whatever, you know, negativity you have with your relationship with money. Because it makes it difficult to then move forward and do a good job financially and not get stuck. I had a patient recently tell me, oh, well, I'm just not good at business. And I'm like, well, how do you know you're not good of business? It's like, well, my dad's not good at business. I'm like, but that has nothing to do with you.

Right. Somehow that thought got planted in your head. Right. And you never questioned. Wasn't even his own thought. The thought. Right. Right.

It was a generationally transferred thought. And it's like, there's just rules. If you want a good business, you have to provide something of value, something that somebody else wants. And just make sure there's a margin. Right. Because if there's no margin, there's no mission. I say that all the time. My dad was a grocer.

I love my dad. Thought he was the smartest person I had ever met until I realized the grocery business has a one to two percent margin. And I'm like, no. It's a hard business. It's a hard business. But he was a smart man. Absolutely. All right.

So what do you want emotionally? Emotionally. I want to be happy, spiritually grounded. optimistic but reasonably optimistic. I think to be fulfilled and to be happy with what I have as well as excited about what's coming. I think it's important to be both. So I think when you're not happy with what you have, you only want what's coming next. That's not happiness.

That's not joy. So you have to be careful with social media. You actually told me that. I don't watch it. If you find yourself scrolling, I don't scroll. Yeah. If you find yourself scrolling,

it's like, well, this isn't right. That's not right. That could be better. No, within five minutes, you'll be frustrated. I think sometimes my team probably gets frustrated with me because I have no idea what's trending. It's just not an important thing to me.

Teaching is important to me, but paying attention to all the other nonsense people are doing is just not important to me. And so if you want to be happy, does the alcohol fit because it makes people unhappy? Does the gossiping fit? Does believing every stupid thing you think fit? And for me, my goal is I want to be happy.

I actually wrote a book on happiness because as a country, we're very unhappy during the pandemic. And you realize that there's a set of rules to happiness. And part of it is what you eat and how you sleep and whether you get in the sun and periodically get in a sauna. And whether or not you believe every stupid thing you think. Managing your mind, right. Right.

So I want to be happy. I want to be positive, rationally optimistic. So I want to be optimistic, but I don't want to be irrational about it. Resilient, fulfilled. I want to be fascinated by life. I want to be firm and kind. I teach that all the time. I want to be firm and kind with myself.

And have reasonable boundaries. Absolutely. I think without good boundaries, you know, good fences make good neighbors. I think without healthy boundaries, it's very hard to be emotionally grounded and happy because there's just so much that comes at us, whether it's from Facebook. family, whether it's from coworkers, whether it's from, there's just so many places that it comes at you, driving down the freeway. But having good boundaries and knowing where to draw them is critical just for our mental health and emotional stability. So you've talked about

relationships, work, money, emotional health. How about physical health? What do you want? So I always, I mean, this has been a habit of mine for so long. So, So to be physically healthy is something that I've been doing for so long now. I wasn't naturally physically healthy. So that's something I've always had to fight. So I think always just paying attention and doing the best I can and chipping away at it and honing in and being better or being the best I can, I think at this stage in my life, after working out for what, 40 years, it's not something that's going to change for me.

That's not, I'm not going to stop doing those things or stop eating mostly healthy. But always paying attention to my important numbers and just going, okay, I need to be a little, you know, it's also a bit more challenging as we get older, at least for women, when your hormones change, those numbers get a little bit trickier. So just knowing it. And so just knowing. And so it's harder for men to. Right. So knowing those numbers and always paying attention and honing in and just fine tuning is always important. And I think for me, one of the big things to my physical health as I turn 57 this year, it's, it's.

it used to be working out to be as fit as I can and as strong as I can, and those are still important to me. But really, it struck me. The more I move, the more I will be able to move. The more I continue doing these movements, the longer I will be able to keep doing these movements. So it's no longer just about being as strong or whatever, muscular, whatever. Now it's about actually just being able to be in movement and as active as I'm I can for as long as I can. Well, you have more pain if you're not doing, if you're not really. Yes, I have a lot of pain when I don't move.

Me personally, too. If I don't do the right things, it's sort of why I wrote, change your brain, change your pain. Yeah, I have to be moving. We have to understand this. I don't want to be in pain. And so for me, it's eating a diet that makes me feel better. Anti-inflammatory. longer. Walking, we walk virtually every day, do this Japanese walking where we walk fast for

three minutes and then normal for three and then fast for three. We do that five times, simple, easy. And if you only have 20 minutes, take that three minute rest down to two minutes. Lifting weights, we both lift weights a couple of times a week. I did about four times a week. So at my age, you start to fight osteoporosis and lots of other things. And you want to make sure that you're keeping muscle on your body. Well, many women don't believe in lifting weights because they don't want to be bigger. You're not going to get bigger. I promise you.

I just lift weights. It's important. And then go on to betterly because when you sleep, your brain cleans and washes itself. And to just keep life interesting. I think we both love new learning, traveling, although you like that more than I do. Basketball, because of, I've always loved basketball. And table tennis, you know, how can I be better?

How can I? And I just love how the kids, the grandkids especially, are beginning to be able to play with me. And for me, so I, with spirituality. at the end, it's to just do meaningful work that makes a difference in the lives of other people and to leave the world a better place, maintaining a close relationship with God, which means prayer and meditation to know that I'm doing the things God would have me do. And, you know, I love the parable of the talents, but it also scares me a little bit.

I think that was the intention. I think that was the intention that, you know, the master went away and he gave one person five talents, another person, two talents, another person, one talent. And the person who got five talents doubled them. And the person had two talents, doubled them. The person who had one talent felt like the master was a hard person, was anxious and buried the talent. And the master was thrilled with both of the people that doubled their talents and was wickedly angry with the person who buried their talent. And I think it's just important to use what God has given you. And every day you win.

But even then they were comparing. It was like you didn't give me the same thing you gave everybody else. It was a comparison thing. It was a comparison thing. And don't bury your talent, I think that was really clear. All right. Simple. Super simple.

I do this with all of my patients, literally within the first three or four sessions I meet with them. What do you want? Is your behavior getting you what you want? Post it. Yeah. Put it on your mirror. Just keep it near you. And then if you're fucking.

with your partner, for example, it's like, so what's the goal? And in our relationship, the goal is never to beat you or having to be right, beat you in a argument. I was going to say, good luck with that. I would never beat you, given that, I would never beat you, given nothing. But given you have two black belts, it does give one ball. But, no, I was talking about in, like, in an argument, it's like, I don't want to win. I want to understand. Because that, you win the battle and you lose the war. So important because you forget.

Because you forget what the goal is. Right. You win the battle. You lose the war. I have low self-esteem. If I had low self-esteem, then I would have to win because I would temporarily increase my self-esteem. Right.

But not. Really? It doesn't help. Right? It's like, what's the goal? The goal is to understand. The goal is to be connected. It's kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate, always. One-page miracle. At Aeman Clinics, you're not just seeing one doctor. You're getting a tea with over 50 specialists, including psychiatrists, naturopaths, nutritionists, and therapists. We treat the whole you. Learn more at amenclinics.com. We hope this was helpful for you. We'll actually put a link to the exercise for you. We're so grateful you're here and leave us a comment, question, or review, or do the one-page miracle and post it. So we can read it and encourage you

on your path to change your brain every day.