Unwritten Potential

Noemie Mooney

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HEALTH & FITNESS
UPDATED WEEKLY

Fed up with wellness that makes life MORE stressful? Me too! Join me as I help you design a life you're obsessed with (without the guru BS, toxic wellness, or cult of hustle). Evidence-based tools that work in real, messy life. Compassion over shame. Experiments over perfection. Ready? Let's go! ⚡️ www.unwrittenpotential.com

5D AGO

Why Everything Feels So Hard (It's Not Just You)

The world is simultaneously on fire and deeply, profoundly ridiculous, and somehow you're supposed to just keep going. In this episode, certified health coach Noemie Mooney shares what collective burnout actually looks like, why looking away doesn't help either, and the 4 research-backed things that do. Does everything feel harder right now, or is it just you? It’s not just you. 14 minutes of negative news is enough to trigger catastrophising about your own life. In this episode, let’s get honest about collective exhaustion: the guilt of looking away, the gap between the scroll and the street, and the four evidence-based interventions that actually help. I’ll walk you through what the research says about subtraction, nervous system regulation, movement, and social connection, and why none of it has to be dramatic to make a difference. In this episode: * How does negative news affect your mental health? The 14-minute threshold that changes how you see your own life * Why does looking away from the news make you feel guilty? The overwhelm-disconnection gap * Are we really as divided as the internet says? What the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer found vs what the street actually feels like * What is cyclic sighing? The Stanford-studied breathing technique that outperformed meditation * Subtractive solutions: why your brain defaults to adding more when removing is faster and more effective (Nature, 2021) * Does exercise really help depression? The BMJ’s 218-study analysis and what it found * Why social connection has the same survival effect as quitting smoking Timestamp: * [00:00] The world is on fire (and deeply ridiculous) * [02:07] Welcome + Lake Atitlán + why tuning out doesn’t help * [03:31] 14 minutes of negative news & why everything feels worse * [04:32] The scroll vs the street: are we really that divided? * [06:42] 4 evidence-based ways to cope * [09:53] Your experiment for this week Mentioned in this episode: * Johnston & Davey, British Journal of Psychology, 1997: 14 minutes of negative news triggers personal catastrophising * Reuters Institute Digital News Report, 2024: news avoidance at record high (39% globally) * 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer: 70% unwilling to trust someone with different values * Adams et al., Nature, 2021: people overlook subtractive solutions, especially when overwhelmed * Balban et al., Cell Reports Medicine, 2023: cyclic sighing outperformed meditation for mood (Stanford) * Noetel et al., BMJ, 2024: exercise and depression meta-analysis (218 studies), walking/yoga/strength comparable to medication * Holt-Lunstad et al., PLoS Medicine, 2010: social connection increases survival odds by 50% Your experiment for this week: Pick one of the 4 interventions: * Subtract something noisy. * Try five minutes of cyclic sighing. * Move for twenty minutes. * Or text someone and say “is it just me, or does everything feel a bit f****d?” One thing. This week. “Maybe the distrust lives in the scroll, not in the street.” What’s the one thing you’ve stopped doing that made everything feel a bit quieter? Noemie x Noemie Mooney is an ACE Certified Health Coach, ICF-trained Behaviour Change Specialist, podcast host and the creator of the MAKE SPACE Method™, a science-backed framework for sustainable habits and mental health. She writes on Substack about burnout, habit formation, and evidence-based behaviour change psychology for people who want practical tools without the self-help BS. Join 2000+ readers getting my free, 5-min newsletter to design a life that actually feels good in 2026 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

11 min
APR 3

SMART Goals Don't Work: A Guy at a Water Company Ruined Yours

Do SMART goals actually work? No. A 2022 systematic review published in Health Psychology Review analysed 147 studies on goal-setting in health contexts and found zero evidence that SMART goals outperform other approaches. In this episode, certified health coach Noemie Mooney breaks down why the world’s most popular goal framework was never tested, never validated, and may actively be getting in your way. So why do your goals keep failing? I’ll walk you through the science of what actually works: process goals (which outperform outcome goals in research), intrinsic motivation and self-concordance theory, implementation intentions (what I call “Rooted Routines”), and why borrowed goals — goals that look right on paper but don’t connect to your values — may be the real reason you keep quitting. This is Part 2 of The Spring Clear-Out series. In this episode: * Why SMART goals have zero scientific evidence (and the wild origin story behind them) * What is a “borrowed goal” and how to tell if your goals are actually yours * Process goals vs outcome goals: what the research says about which one works * What are implementation intentions? How “Rooted Routines” use habit stacking to build lasting change * The cognitive distortion link: why outcome goals are an all-or-nothing trap * How to set goals that actually stick without worksheets, deadlines, or willpower Chapters: * [00:00] Do SMART goals actually work? * [02:19] SMART goals have never worked for me either * [03:15] The origin story: George Doran, 1981, a water company memo * [04:46] If SMART doesn’t work, what does? * [05:40] Borrowed goals: why you keep chasing someone else’s life * [06:53] Shift 1: process goals vs outcome goals * [07:53] Shift 2: Rooted Routines and why the “after” matters * [09:28] Your experiment: write one Rooted Routine this week Mentioned in this episode: * George Doran: “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives” (Management Review, 1981) * Health Psychology Review: systematic review of 147 studies on SMART goals in health contexts (2022) * Self-concordance theory: why goals aligned with your values sustain effort and improve wellbeing * Implementation intentions: the psychological research behind “if-then” planning and habit stacking * Previous episode: The Audacity of Your Own Brain — cognitive distortions and all-or-nothing thinking (The Spring Clear-Out Part 1) Your experiment for this week: Pick one area where you keep starting and stopping. Forget measuring it. Forget deadlines. Ask yourself: does this actually matter to me? Then write one Rooted Routine using this format: “After I [existing habit], I will [tiny action].” Put it somewhere visible. Do it for two weeks. That’s the whole experiment. “You don’t need a worksheet. You need a goal that’s actually yours, rooted to something you already do.” What’s your Rooted Routine? What are you anchoring, and to what? Noemie x This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

11 min
MAR 28

The Audacity of Your Own Brain

You’re having a perfectly fine day and then your brain decides to ruin it. “You’re falling behind.” “This isn’t going to work.” “Everyone’s figured this out except you.” It arrives with zero evidence but total certainty, and because it sounds like you, you believe it. This week, we’re pulling that apart. Psychiatrist David Burns identified the specific, predictable ways your brain lies to you, and once you can spot them, they start losing their grip. This is the first episode in The Spring Clear-Out! In this episode: * The thought I had by the Bacalar lagoon that was so ridiculous it made me laugh * The 4 cognitive distortions that would ruin my life if I let them * Why “always” and “never” are red flags in your own self-talk * Albert Ellis’s A-B-C-D-E framework (brilliant psychologist, terrible branding) * The one shift between reacting to your thoughts and choosing what you believe Chapters: * [00:00] Your brain is lying to you * [04:14] 6,000 thoughts a day and most of them are unchecked * [05:08] The 4 cognitive distortions running your life * [07:37] Where the lie actually lives: the A-B-C-D-E framework * [09:06] D is for disputing: “show me the receipts” * [10:03] Your experiment: name the glitch Your experiment for this week: When a thought makes you feel like s**t, don’t fight it. Get curious. Ask: which distortion is this? All-or-nothing? Catastrophising? Overgeneralising? Labelling? Name it. Out loud or in your head. Because the moment you name a pattern, it stops being the truth and becomes a thing your brain does sometimes. “You don’t need to fix your thinking. You just need to stop believing all of it.” Which distortion do you catch yourself in most? All-or-nothing, catastrophising, overgeneralising, or labelling? Noemie x This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

12 min
MAR 22

🎧 3 Books the Wellness Industry Doesn't Want You to Read

I got conned by a bestselling author and I didn’t even see it coming. She was on one of the biggest podcasts in the world, super confident, full of bold claims about nutrition, and I bought her book before the episode was over. Within chapters I knew something was off. The wellness space is flooded with charismatic people saying things that sound true but aren’t. So this week I’m doing something different: sharing three books that actually changed something in me, how I think, how I treat myself, how I treat others, written by people who are actually qualified to write them. In this episode: * The time I got conned by a bestselling author (and what it taught me about the wellness space) * Book 1: Thinking, Fast and Slow by the late Daniel Kahneman, and why smart people make terrible decisions * Book 2: What Happened to You? by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey, and why your habits aren’t character flaws * Book 3: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown, and why you can’t process what you can’t name * Why none of these books tell you to try harder “What they do, in different ways, is help you understand yourself better. How your brain works. Why you do what you do. And what’s actually getting in the way. That to me is what good self-help looks like.” Chapters: * [00:00] I got conned by a bestselling author * [03:40] Book 1: Thinking, Fast and Slow — why smart people make terrible decisions * [05:10] Book 2: What Happened to You? — your habits aren’t character flaws * [06:51] Book 3: Atlas of the Heart — you can’t process what you can’t name * [08:32] The one thing all three books have in common Mentioned in this episode: * The late Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast and Slow * Dr Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey: What Happened to You? * Dr Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart (+ her TED talks) * Full list of all 8 books: unwrittenpotential.com The 3 books at a glance: * Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman — Why your brain makes terrible decisions and how to design better systems instead of relying on willpower. Also increasingly relevant in the age of AI. * What Happened to You? by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey — Why your habits are adaptations, not character flaws, and how childhood experiences shape behaviour. * Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown — Why you can’t process what you can’t name, and how a richer emotional vocabulary changes everything. Self-knowledge starts with having the words. Want the full list? Head to unwrittenpotential.com for all 8 books that actually changed my life. Tell me: what is one book that has changed your life, or changed how you see yourself, the world, or others? 💛 Noemie X This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

10 min
MAR 14

The Life Audit You've Been Avoiding

I’ve been working on something for a while now, and this week I’m doing something I’ve never done before: giving you a full lesson from my brand new course, right here on the podcast. This is Lesson 1 of the MAKE SPACE Method™. It’s called The B******t Audit, and it’s the exercise my coaching clients say changed how they see their own life. What is the B******t Audit? The B******t Audit is a simple but revealing exercise. You rate eight areas of your life on two separate scales: how satisfied you are, and how much energy that area is draining. Those numbers are almost never the same, and that gap is where the insight lives. You might be perfectly satisfied with your job but completely drained by it. Or deeply unhappy in a friendship that barely costs you any energy at all. Most of us have never looked at our lives through both lenses at the same time. Grab the free worksheet at unwritten.coach/audit. It takes about 20 minutes, a pen, and a bit of honesty. Why start here? Because the MAKE SPACE Method™ doesn’t start with goals, habits or motivation. It starts with seeing what’s actually going on. Before you can design a life that works, you need to stop pretending the current one does. The B******t Audit gives you a map of where your energy is really going, so everything that comes after it (the clearing, the designing, the sustaining) has something real to build on. This is Module 1 of four. The full course covers UNCOVER, SUBTRACT, DESIGN, and SUSTAIN. Eight lessons, seven tools, and a system for when everything falls apart. It’s $97, designed for a weekend, and the cart is open now. Three Key Takeaways 1️⃣ Satisfaction and energy drain are two completely different measurements. You can be satisfied and drained at the same time, and that disconnect is exactly what most people miss when they try to change their habits. 2️⃣ Before you add anything new to your life (goals, routines, systems), you need to see what’s already taking up space. The B******t Audit shows you where your energy is leaking so you stop building on top of a mess. 3️⃣ The MAKE SPACE Method™ starts with subtraction, not addition. This lesson is your first step, and it’s completely free. Do the exercise. The gaps will surprise you. Resources Mentioned * Free B******t Audit Worksheet: unwritten.coach/audit * Full MAKE SPACE Method™ Course ($97): unwritten.coach/space Join the Movement! If you enjoyed this episode, you’re going to love my newsletter! I dive deeper into these topics and share exclusive tools, guides, and behind-the-scenes insights that I don’t share anywhere else. It’s like getting your own coach in your inbox every week. Subscribe at www.unwrittenpotential.com to join our community to get unstuck, grow and unleash your Unwritten Potential! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

10 min
MAR 6

The One Thing Nobody Tells You to Do First

I want you to think about the last time something in your life wasn’t working. What did you do? You tried to add something. An app. A routine. A 30-day challenge. Because that’s what we all do. But there’s a reason it never works. In this episode, I’m breaking down additive bias, why the wellness industry keeps selling you “more,” and what actually happened when I stopped adding and started clearing. In this episode: * Why your first instinct is always to add (and why that’s the problem) * Additive bias: the research that explains why we default to “more” * Why you have 10 wellness apps and still feel like s**t * The real reason there’s no room for healthy habits in your life * What happened when I stopped adding and started clearing instead * The connection between the last three weeks: guilt, unrealistic plans, and no space * A teaser for the MAKE SPACE Method™ Your experiment for this week: Pick one thing you’ve been trying to add that keeps not sticking. Don’t try harder. Instead, ask: what’s one thing I could remove that would make this easier? Not “what should I add to support it.” What should go? “It’s not that you’re not trying hard enough. You’re trying too much. Of the wrong things.” If this one resonated, share it with someone who’s been stuck on the hamster wheel of adding more. They don’t need another app. They need permission to subtract. Tell me: what’s one thing you keep trying to add that you suspect you actually need to make space for instead? Have the best weekend! 💛 Noemie X This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

9 min
FEB 27

Stop Planning for a Person Who Doesn't Exist

I made spectacular plans for this week from my hotel room in Colombia. Gym every morning. Eat well. Batch all my podcast episodes. I’ve done maybe 20% of that list. Sound familiar? In this episode, I’m breaking down why our plans always fall apart, the science behind the hot-cold empathy gap, and why Wednesday You deserves a plan that was actually designed for them. In this episode: * Why I got 20% of my spectacular Colombia plans done (and what happened to the other 80%) * Sunday You vs Wednesday You: the two people living your life * The hot-cold empathy gap: why you literally cannot predict Wednesday from Sunday * Why “Sunday Scaries” plans set you up for shame spirals * The secret is boring: why small beats ambitious every single time * How to tell if something is a Sunday You plan or a Wednesday You plan Your experiment for this week: Think about one thing that keeps not happening. The thing you keep putting on the list and keep not doing. Now ask yourself: is that a Sunday You plan or a Wednesday You plan? If it only works on a perfect day with unlimited energy, that’s not a plan. That’s fan fiction. Make it small enough that Wednesday You can actually do it, even on their worst day. “Sunday You keeps writing cheques that Wednesday You can’t cash. And Wednesday You is dealing with quite a lot, actually.” If this one resonated, share it with someone who’s been stuck in that Sunday planning, Wednesday failing cycle. They’re not lazy. They’re just planning for the wrong person. Tell me: what’s one thing on your list right now that’s clearly a Sunday You plan? Have a great weekend! 💛 Noemie X This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

10 min
FEB 20

Why Being Hard on Yourself Isn't Working

I spent most of my 30s in a relationship with someone wildly unreliable. Someone who made promises every Sunday and broke them by Wednesday. That person was me. And the worst part wasn’t the failing, it was how I spoke to myself afterwards. In this episode, I’m breaking down why self-criticism keeps you stuck, what the research actually says about shame and habit change, and the two-part approach that finally worked for me. In this episode: * The Sunday-to-Wednesday promise cycle (and why I lived there for years) * What actually happens in your brain when you beat yourself up * Why dieters who practise self-compassion recover faster from slips * The “start fresh Monday” trap and what’s really going on * Why compassion doesn’t make you soft, it makes you resilient * Self-compassion plus environment design: the combination that works Your experiment for this week: Pick one tiny promise to keep to yourself this week. A glass of water before coffee. A ten-minute walk. Lights out by 11. When you break it (because you will), notice what you say to yourself. Replace “for f**k’s sake” with “OK, what happened? What do we try differently?” Then make it stupidly easy: put the glass by the kettle, lay out the shoes, set the alarm. Self-compassion plus environment design. “I spent years at war with myself. Trying to punish and discipline and shame my way into being someone I liked. It never worked. What worked was becoming someone I could trust.” If this one resonated, share it with someone who’s been stuck in the self-criticism spiral. They’re not lazy. They’re not broken. They just need a different approach. Tell me: what’s the one small promise you’re keeping this week? I genuinely want to know 💛 Noemie X This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unwrittenpotential.com

10 min

Fed up with wellness that makes life MORE stressful? Me too! Join me as I help you design a life you're obsessed with (without the guru BS, toxic wellness, or cult of hustle). Evidence-based tools that work in real, messy life. Compassion over shame. Experiments over perfection. Ready? Let's go! ⚡️ www.unwrittenpotential.com

Creator

Noemie Mooney
Years Active

2025 - 2026
Episodes

44
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Noemie Mooney
Show Website

Unwritten Potential