You Know It’s Time to Change | Keep The Rhythm

Summary

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The Daily Stoic – "You Know It’s Time to Change | Keep The Rhythm"

Host: Ryan Holiday
Date: December 9, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Ryan Holiday explores the Stoic imperative for personal change and the importance of maintaining philosophical discipline, especially at the turning of a year. He encourages listeners to reflect on habits that aren’t serving them and introduces the "Daily Stoic New Year, New You Challenge"—a program designed to help cultivate Stoic practices for lasting growth. The second half of the episode, "Keep the Rhythm," discusses the crucial theme of rhythm in life and philosophy, drawing on insights from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus on returning consistently to one’s core values and practices, especially when life's busyness causes drift.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recognizing the Need for Change (00:56 – 04:28)

• Stuck in Habits: Ryan begins by listing familiar, stagnant behaviors—quick temper, poor diet, distraction, skipping exercise—and asks listeners to reflect: “How is that working out for you?”
• Stoic Perspective: Citing Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, he calls it “madness” to continue living a degraded life without real change.
• Imagining Progress: Ryan invites the audience to imagine their ideal self a year from now, emphasizing that transformation doesn’t happen by accident.
• Daily Stoic "New Year, New You Challenge":
  • A 21-day program of Stoic-inspired challenges.
  • Designed for anyone—parents, professionals, athletes, students—to cement positive habits and perspectives.
  • Encourages joining a community for mutual accountability and growth.

Notable Quote:

“No one becomes this way by chance.” — Ryan Holiday (01:50)

Call to Action:

“Let’s make this the year that you make those changes and let’s do it. I’ll see you in there soon.” — Ryan Holiday (04:12)

2. Keep the Rhythm – Returning to Philosophy (06:20 – 11:57)

• Theme of the Rhythm:
  • Marcus Aurelius saw himself, and all individuals, as part of a larger historical pulse—a rhythm we must continually return to.
  • When life gets busy and we drift, the Stoics remind us to realign with our philosophy.
• Quotations from Stoic Masters:
  • Marcus Aurelius:
    • “Walk the long gallery of the past… you can also see the future, for surely it will be exactly the same. Unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It’s all one.” (Meditations 7.49, 06:55)
    • “When forced, as it seems by circumstances into utter confusion, get a hold of yourself quickly. Don’t be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary. You’ll be able to keep the beat if you’re constantly returning to it.” (Meditations 6.11, 07:30)
  • Epictetus:
    • “When you let your attention slide for a bit, don’t think you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish… bear in mind that perhaps because of today’s mistake, everything that follows will be necessarily worse…But it is possible for a person to always be stretched to avoid error, and we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide.” (Discourses 4.12, 07:58)
• Personal Reflection:
  • Ryan recalls periods in his life when busyness led him away from philosophical practice, citing old blog posts and the experience of “drift.”
  • Stresses the importance of making an active return to philosophy—even and especially when life feels “off.”

Notable Quote:

“No matter how much learning or work or thinking we do, none of it matters unless it happens against the backdrop of extortive analysis, the kind rooted in the deep study of the mind and emotion and demands that we hold ourselves to certain standards. We must turn to the practical, to the spiritual exercises of great men, and actively use them.” — Ryan Holiday (08:47)

• Physical vs. Mental Tools:
  • Drawing from Marcus Aurelius’ analogy:
    • “Doctors carry their tools on their person. Or more ideally, a boxer’s tools are their person. We should seek to do the same. There is no excuse for being too busy or too distracted, nor is there any alternative.” (10:21)
• Self-Compassion:
  • Acknowledges that everyone, including himself, slips from discipline; the Stoic solution is simply to return, re-engage, and "keep the rhythm."

Memorable Closing:

“If you feel like you’re slipping a little bit, know that I do that too. And I have now for well over a decade and a half…you pick yourself back up, you go back to the rhythm, as Marcus Aurelius says, you pick up your philosophy, you return to it and you keep going.” — Ryan Holiday (11:20)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Change’s Necessity:
  “What could this year be if you actually lived up to your potential? … No one becomes this way by chance.” — Ryan Holiday (01:20–01:50)

• On Community and Challenge:
  “Just ask yourself, like, what is one good habit worth? … If you can make progress on one thing, what would that be worth?” — Ryan Holiday (03:24)

• On Stoic Rhythm:
  “Walk the long gallery of the past… it’s all one. Whether we’ve experienced 40 years or an eon, what more is there to see?” — Marcus Aurelius, quoted by Ryan Holiday (06:55)

• On Returning After Drift:
  “The busier we get, the more we work and learn and read, the further we drift. We get in a rhythm… We drift further and further from philosophy, so we must catch ourselves and return to it.” — Ryan Holiday (08:17)

• On Tools and Preparedness:
  “Doctors carry their tools on their person. Or more ideally, a boxer’s tools are their person. We should seek to do the same. There is no excuse for being too busy or too distracted, nor is there any alternative.” — Marcus Aurelius, paraphrased by Ryan Holiday (10:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:56 – “You Know It’s Time to Change” — identifying habits and the need for realignment
• 01:50 – Imagining your ideal self; nobody changes by chance
• 02:56 – Introduction of the “New Year, New You Challenge”
• 03:24 – The worth of forming new habits and accountability
• 04:12 – Challenge details and call to action
• 06:20 – Theme of “Keep the Rhythm”; historical perspective from Marcus Aurelius
• 06:55–07:58 – Stoic quotations on maintaining and returning to rhythm
• 08:17 – Reflection: drifting from and returning to philosophy
• 10:21 – Tools analogy and the importance of always being prepared
• 11:20 – Closing encouragement; everyone slips, but Stoicism is about returning to your discipline

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Conclusion

Ryan Holiday invites listeners to honestly evaluate their habits and life trajectory, to harness the new year as a catalyst for meaningful change through intentional Stoic practice. Drawing on both personal experience and ancient texts, he stresses that discipline wavers for everyone, but Stoicism provides the practical and philosophical tools to keep returning—again and again—to your best self and to the rhythm that sustains real growth.

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Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is Based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit Dailystoic.com.

You know it's time to change. We've been this way for a while, set in our habits. We stay quick tempered. We eat poorly, we are too distracted. We skip exercise, hold on to a mean streak or timidity. Maybe we don't try hard enough or we think we're not good enough. How is that working out for you? Marcus Aurelius in Meditations calls it madness to keep being the same person, mauled and degraded by the life we don't enjoy, the one that doesn't give us what we want. What could this year be if you actually lived up to your potential? How would some of the little changes, the ones you know you need to make, compound in years to come? Let's fast forward for a minute. It is now December 2026 and you're in the best shape of your life. You got rid of toxic habits or relationships or emotional baggage. You became the parent, the leader, the person you hoped you'd be. You found more joy, ways to be more present. You became less distracted. How did you do it? One thing the Stoics can say for sure is that no one becomes this way by chance. And if you want to end up there this year, I'd like to invite you to do something that I do myself, with my team, with my family, with my friends, every single year. And that is the Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge. It's something we started several years ago and we do every single year. And it's designed to help you become the person you know you can be. And over the years, people from all walks of life, whether they're stay at home, moms or CEOs, college students, artists, devoted dads, army generals, grandparents, professional athletes, they've all participated in the Daily Stoic New Year, New you Challenge. And this year we've taken everything we've learned from the years of feedback and insights and lessons from the past years and distilled them into what I think is our most powerful challenge yet. It's 21 days of stoic inspired challenges presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. We're going to tell you exactly what to do, how to do it, and why it works. And we'll give you the strategies for maintaining these things, not just for the next 12 months, but hopefully for your whole life. If you want to build resilience, as I said, let go of emotional baggage. You want to establish lasting habits. You want to find gratitude and meaning in adversity. You want, you want to strengthen relationships, deeper your perspectives, and become the person you know you can be. Well, then you've got to do the Daily Stoic New Year New you Challenge and sign up right [e-mail] challenge. I'm going to be in there. Thousands of Stoics all over the world are going to be doing it together. Just ask yourself, like, what is one good habit worth? Right? What's one new perspective worth? Right? What's it worth to become part of a community, to get a new friend or an accountability partner? Right? If you could chip away at one thing you've been putting off, if you can make progress on one thing, what would that be worth? And I think this challenge is gonna help you get there. As I said, It's 21 days of stoic inspired challenges, three live Q&As with me, access to the Daily Stoic community, and a bunch of other awesome stuff. It's gonna be great. You can sign up right [e-mail] challenge. It's gonna start off with all of us on January 1, 2026. Let's make this the year that you make those changes and and let's do it. I'll see you in there soon.

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Keep the Rhythm Marcus Aurelius must have known that as emperor, he was part of a grand and great history. As a philosopher, he knew that all people are part of the rhythm, pulsing through both history and their own lives. And he liked to remind himself not to lose that beat. Return to your philosophy, he would tell himself when he drifted. Don't give in to distractions. In fact, he tried constantly to to return to it, that kind of awareness that paying special attention is something he learned reading from Epictetus, who told his students that while none of us can be perfect, we can catch ourselves when we begin to slide, when we drift from where we should be. So can you feel that rhythm this week? Can you point to examples when you really feel locked into it? And we have two quotes from Marcus and one from Epictetus. Walk the long gallery of the past, of empires, of kingdoms, succeeding each other, other without number. You can also see the future, for surely it will be exactly the same. Unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It's all one. Whether we've experienced 40 years or an eon, what more is there to see? That's Meditation749 and then Meditation 6 11, he says, when forced, as it seems by circumstances into utter confusion, Get a hold of yourself quickly. Don't be locked out of the rhythm any longer than necessary. You'll be able to keep the beat if you are constantly returning to it. And Then Epictetus discourses 4:12 he says, when you let your attention slide for a bit, don't think you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish. Instead, bear in mind that perhaps because of today's mistake, everything that follows will be necessarily worse. Is it possible to be free of air? No, not by any means. But it is possible for a person to always be stretched to avoid air, and we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide. I was thinking about this and I remember I wrote an article, wrote a blog post. I'm looking at this. This is March 4, 2012. Trust me, I'm lying. It's mostly written, but it's not out. I've moved to New Orleans. I'm transitioning towards this sort of different life. And anyways, I wrote a blog post on my site called Return to Philosophy and I'll read it to you. I have written this post before, but it remains a common theme. The busier we get, the more we work and learn and read, the further we drift. We get in a rhythm. We're making money, being creative, we're stimulated and busy. It seems like everything is going well. But we drift further and further from philosophy, so we must catch ourselves and return to it. Pick up meditations, Seneca, Plutarch, Hadot, our note cards of quotes and reminders, anything from that shelf of great books. Stop and evaluate. Read something that challenges, that informs. No matter how much learning or work or thinking we do, none of it matters unless it happens against the backdrop of extortive analysis, the kind rooted in the deep study of the mind and emotion and demands that we hold ourselves to certain standards. We must turn to the practical, to the spiritual exercises of great men, and actively use them. It's the only way we'll get anything out of the rest of our efforts. It's simple. Stop learning or working for a second and refine. Put aside all the momentum and the moment. Tap the brakes. Return to philosophy. And then I found the other post, which is wow. Dated December 22, 2009. Wow, I guess. I'm 22 and I wrote. Lately I have felt off as I felt down, it occurred to me how long it had been since I sat down and read philosophy. I knew I should fix this, but I didn't. A new book would come and I'd immediately pick it up. I'd think, I've spent so little time reading now, it would be a shame to sit down with something I've read before, but this was a sham. What I was doing was distracting myself. It's what Steven Pressfield calls the resistance. I made myself busy so that I would have no chance to feel better. I knew that philosophy requires work and self criticism and one inevitable that my problems were almost entirely my own fault. Their resolution requires an active process that only I can initiate. Philosophy is the tool with which to do so. As one would say, and I think this is Marcus Aurelius, I'm quoting. Doctors carry their tools on their person. Or more ideally, a boxer's tools are their person. We should seek to do the same. There is no excuse for being too busy or too distracted, nor is there any alternative. So anyways, if you feel like you're slipping a little bit, know that I do that too. And I have now for well over a decade and a half. And you just pick yourself back up. You go back to the rhythm, as Marcus Aurelius says, you pick up your philosophy, you return to it and you keep going. So I'll leave you there and I hope you pick up the rhythm this week and I'll talk to you soon.

Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.

[B]

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[C]

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