Three Months In
Three ideas I'm taking away from Q1 of 2026
Each time we cross the first quarter of a year, I’m reminded of just how quickly time flies by. With Easter, I decided to push my quarterly review by a few days to spend the weekend with family in the Swedish countryside.
Since 2024, I’ve added a lot more structure with how I approach each year - figuring out what I want to achieve, breaking it down into targets I can hit each quarter, and building daily habits worth adding into my routine.
If you’d like to know how I approach these quarterly reviews, just reply to this email and I’ll share the full process.
For now, here are three ideas I’m taking away from the first quarter of 2026.
Act on Instinct Immediately
Each time I moved fast on a gut feeling, I’ve noticed that something new and exciting has opened up. Each time I waited and gave myself the opportunity to second guess myself, I was left with nothing but lost time.
There’s a lot you can learn by reducing the time between thought and action. Say you’ve been thinking about a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. The second that person comes to mind, drop them a text. Let them know you’re thinking about them. There’s a good chance you’ll hear something back, but if not, that’s okay too.
Whether it’s reaching out to someone or getting to work on an idea the moment a spark hits, that initial instinct is worth honouring.
Trust it. Let it lead the way. Move before doubt catches up.
Outputs vs Outcomes
Outputs are actions like going to the gym three-four times a week, publishing a weekly newsletter, or sending a cold-email once a week. Outcomes are what those actions produce over time: strength, a growing audience, new connections and clients.
What I keep noticing is that I can control one of these and not the other. My newsletter goes out every Monday, and whether the list grows by zero, ten people or fifty readers that week is not mine to decide.
The outputs are completely within your control. Stay consistent enough with them and the outcomes tend to follow — maybe not always on the timeline you expected, but more reliably than anything else.
Confidence by Competence
I wrote about this concept back in October and still feel shards of it each week.
Since going all-in as a writer and creative director, I’ve always had a voice in the back of my mind that whispers: “you don’t have what it takes”. Even after sustaining a solo practice doing the work I love most, alongside people who push me and on projects that genuinely excite me — especially over the past few months — there are still days where that voice drowns out everything I’ve built.
What I have to remind myself is that it wasn’t too long ago I was waiting for permission to launch a newsletter, to reach out to people I thought were levels above me, and to feel like I’d earned the right to call this a real practice.
That version of me seems far away now but that voice is still ever-present.
Capability arrives before confidence does. The only way to close that gap is by doing the work itself — letting it lead the way, and trusting that the belief will follow.
Three months in, and there’s a lot to takeaway.
If you’d like to share what Q1 left you with, hit reply or drop it in the comments. I’d genuinely love to hear it.
Talk soon,
Pranav