How I’m Using an AI Personality Coach to Stick to My New Year Resolutions

I’ve never seriously bought into New Year’s resolutions. Not because I don’t believe in self-improvement, but because the whole idea that January 1st somehow flips a psychological switch feels a bit… socially constructed. Arbitrary. I just don’t operate based on conventions like “new year, new me.” In my opinion, if something needs changing or leaving behind in your life, you just go and do it when you feel like it’s time, not because the calendar told you to.

That said, even I’ll admit that temporal landmarks can matter. Sometimes they create just enough psychological distance to help you step outside your day-to-day activities and look at your life more abstractly. And when you do that, it becomes easier to see what actually matters in the grand scheme of things. 

As 2025 drew to a close, I found myself with a short but intentional list of things I wanted to do and improve. Around that time, I started experimenting with Sage, the AI personality coach inside Truity’s TrueYou app. I’m usually wary of anything that looks like “ChatGPT therapy,” but I do trust personality science, especially in areas where it is proven to be effective, like helping you understand your motivations and blind spots better, or make more confident career decisions. The fact that Sage is grounded in validated personality-type research got my attention.

It turned out I was right to give Sage a chance. Instead of handing me generic personal-development advice, it reflected my own patterns back to me, which turned out to be exactly what I needed for the things I wanted to change in 2026. So, here’s how I used Sage to approach my New Year’s resolutions differently this time.

Seeing the Real Patterns in My Behavior

One of my resolutions for 2026 is to level up my trading skills, which, in practice, means trading more consistently and keeping a trading journal. But as an INTP, my usual approach to any goal that depends on regular and specific actions over time is to first design a system in which everything works perfectly.

For example, if I want to get fitter, I don’t just start going to the gym and eating better like most people do. I map out the ideal workout split, the optimal training frequency, the realistic nutrition plan, even the exact days of the week I’m planning to train. Yes, classic overthinking and over-analysis. But in my mind, I want everything accounted for upfront, so once I start, execution will be effortless… well, as effortless as it can be.

With this in mind, I used Sage to help fine-tune my trading schedule. I was hoping that if I described my experiences, it might see something I wasn’t seeing. Every other day, I shared when I stuck to my planned times, when I didn’t, and how each session went along with my thoughts and feelings about it. For instance, some days I couldn’t find any good setups during my scheduled times and ended up placing trades just to hit my quota. Other times, I was just going through the motions to get it over with. Stuff like that. 

After a few coaching sessions, Sage reflected something back that hit uncomfortably close to home: my best trading sessions happened when I was genuinely engaged and motivated, and you can’t really schedule that on demand, because, well… life has its ups and downs. Here’s what it said:

This insight helped me see that I was trying to optimize for activity, not for quality—and this is a risky mindset because it turns something I enjoy and want to do into an obligation. Once Sage helped me realize that, I could tweak my approach instead of tossing the whole goal out the window.

Working With My Mind, Not Against It

Not all of my resolutions were as concrete as my trading resolution. Another one was harder to define and track in a spreadsheet, but just as important because it was screwing up every dimension of my life: I wanted to tame my self-diagnosed ADHD. And no, this isn’t the “I can’t focus because TikTok exists” version of ADHD. It’s the real one. 

I find it extremely difficult to focus for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, and I hit almost all the criteria for ADHD on self-assessments. If I were evaluated for it, I’m sure I’d be given a formal diagnosis and prescribed medication. But I don’t want to define myself by it or be a slave to meds. In 2026, I want to manage my tendencies naturally and figure out techniques and/or workarounds that work for me.

When I brought this to Sage, I braced myself for the usual mindfulness platitudes, like practicing meditation to improve concentration ability over time. But Sage didn’t hand me platitudes. Instead, it suggested something that wasn’t immediately intuitive, yet made sense for my personality. I am at my best when I have “clear structure and logical frameworks,” Sage (correctly) said, so the answer wasn’t to quiet my mind, but to give it something precise enough to lock onto.

From there, Sage nudged me to set a clear intention before diving in — basically, decide why and how I was doing something instead of just pushing through it. Not intention in the vague sense like “finish this task” because that’s way too abstract for me. My tasks usually have a lot of hidden steps and fuzzy edges, which can throw off an ADHD brain like mine and make me want to check social media. Or remember some “urgent” thing I absolutely have to do right now. Or I just drift — anywhere but here.

Now, per Sage’s advice, I take a few seconds before starting a heavy task to mentally outline exactly what I’ll do in the next 15–20 minutes, in terms of concrete, low-level actions: do X, then Y, then Z. Execute. Rinse. Repeat.

It sounds almost too simple, but it worked. The simple “focus ritual” Sage suggested took the edge off that feeling of overwhelm and made each short work session feel a bit more doable. It also showed me something interesting about how Sage works: it’s not just there to flag patterns. It actually offers solutions that fit the way your personality is wired. 

And the more you use the TrueYou app, the better it gets. Each time you take one of those bit-size check-ins that pop up when you open the app, like the one below, Sage learns a bit more about you. It uses those insights to offer guidance that feels more personal and on point.

Final Words

Sage didn’t magically come up with a perfect system for achieving my new year resolutions, but it held up the mirror I needed to help me see where my personality is quietly working against my best intentions. That made my resolutions feel less fragile and more likely to survive past January.

You can download the TrueYou app – and meet Sage for yourself – on Apple or Google Play. Click here to get started.