The one with the houseboat, Sasha Fierce and a very off-key experiment

I want to tell you about my birthday.

It was Saturday. I went to the gym — on purpose. I genuinely love going to the gym on my birthday. In years gone by, it would have been a gym session to earn the sweet treat or meal out I would indulge in later, not this year. I went because I wanted to, anyway, that is not the point of the story. I got on the treadmill (yes voluntarily) and I put my usual cardio hype mix on to start my run.

I ran for about 2 minutes. I had to stop. I felt like I was running through mud.

For some reason, these songs that usually light me up, that I have run to a hundred times on Saturday were not it. They were giving me all the forced fun of an office Christmas party. They were colder than an eskimo trapped inside an igloo with an air conditioner blasting at full power while he sat in a cold plunge.

I had to change it.

I tried a summer chilled out playlist. The one that usually feels grounding and uplifting. Nope. I tried 2010 bangers, the Backstreet Boys never miss. But AGHHH. Double nope. I tried the Chinchilla Mix emo girl, which has some badass, girl power tunes I usually reserve for big lift moments when I really need the hype. Nothing. I even tried the Sad Girl playlist — I know, but there are some genuine bangers on there and the mood was going that way by this point — I still couldn't get out of the mud.

Five playlists. Absolutely zero pep. One increasingly confused birthday gym-goer running slower than a tortoise, staring at Spotify like she had forgotten what music was for.

Then I remembered a song I had heard coming from a houseboat on a dog walk last week and had immediately google searched. It had been playing in my car on loop ever since. I put it on.

Immediately. Back in the zone.

The session that followed was one of the best I've had in weeks. I stayed longer than I planned. I played. I added songs the algorithm suggested and found a whole load of new songs by people I had never heard of, it was great. The little buzz carried on into the rest of the day.

The song, since you are wondering, is Brand New Day by Budd Smyth. You're welcome.

Here is what I have been thinking about since.

It wasn't just a bad playlist day.

My nervous system already knew what it needed. It had been telling me all week — I had turned the music off entirely a few times, needing space more than sound — but on Saturday in the gym, I needed something, even the gym music was doing my head in. With five playlists failing in a row, I finally listened properly.

Not to the music. To the signal underneath it.

What you put in your ears matters more than most of us realise. Not just as background noise or motivation, but as direct communication with your nervous system. The right sound can shift your state faster than almost anything else. The wrong one — even a song you love — on the wrong day can feel like nails on a blackboard when your system is saying something different.

The question is whether you notice.

A few years ago I read a book called The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman.

In it he talks about the internal characters that high performers create for themselves. Beyoncé — who came from a gospel choir background, for whom being loud and sexy and commanding a stage alone did not come naturally — created a character called Sasha Fierce for her performances.

Sasha is not Beyoncé. Sasha does not shrink. Sasha does not worry about what the audience thinks of her outfit. She is fearless, she knows who she is and she cannot be tamed.

And when Beyoncé becomes Sasha, something changes. The self-talk changes. The doubt disappears. Nora has been removed from the chat.

Athletes do this too. Performers. Anyone who needs to access a version of themselves that is bigger and braver and less apologetic than the everyday one.

Music, I have come to believe, is how the rest of us do the same thing. The right playlist doesn't just motivate you. It hands you a costume. It says: for the next forty minutes you are the version of yourself who doesn't hesitate, doesn't shrink, doesn't negotiate with Nora about whether you deserve to be here.

And the wrong playlist on the wrong day does the opposite. It hands Nora the aux cord.

I talk about the Alter Ego in the book, because I tried it. I wanted an alter ego who wasn't scared of Jiujitsu competitions. It didn't work. The reason it didn't work is because the alter egos that Beyoncé, athletes and top performers have is not borrowed. It's not someone else's playlist. It's their own, just with Nora removed so that they can perform without the doubt.

There is something else I have noticed recently.

There is a song playing in my head almost all the time. Not the same one — it changes, shifts, I will wake up with something playing in my head, sometimes it's something I heard in passing, other times my own internal Spotify just generates something that it thinks will be right for me. In any case there is always something there. My thoughts seem to run over the top of it, like being in a bar or a gym where the music is on in the background and you've stopped consciously hearing it, until there is a lull in the chatter and you suddenly notice a song you like is playing.

Once I noticed this, I started doing something new.

When I catch the background song playing — whatever it is — I switch it. To mine.

I wrote myself a little song. It is not clever. It is not always in tune. It arrived the way the best ideas do, like a Phoebe Buffay la la la lalala moment, aimless and unguarded, just a sound my nervous system seemed to like, seemed to already accept as safe.

And because the tune came first — because there was nothing threatening about a woman humming to herself — the words just slipped in quietly behind it. No fanfare. No filter. No Nora at the door asking whether I really believed this.

Just: yep.

My lyrics are mine and I'm keeping them to myself. But here is what I will tell you: they describe what I want to happen. Not what I am working toward. Not what I hope for one day if I earn it.

What is going to happen. Present tense.

My nervous system heard it in a safe container and didn't question it.

This is the experiment. I am running it in real time. I'll report back.

Here is what Tim Ferriss said recently that sent me down this thought rabbit hole during one of our evening walks.

Immersion is the fastest way to learn a language — he should know, he is fluent in Japanese and he got there by living there. Not lessons. Not grammar exercises. Living inside it, hearing it constantly, until the brain reorganises itself around it as the native language. It's how children learn to speak. No one explains the rules. The rules just become obvious because the input never stops.

So I thought: what if that's true for the inner narrative too?

What if your song, playing on repeat in the background of your own head, is just immersion? Not affirmations, which ask your brain to believe something it has no evidence for yet. Not positive thinking, which Nora can dismantle in approximately four seconds.

Just a tune. Safe. Playful. Already accepted.

With your best life quietly embedded in the lyrics.

Nora cannot argue with a song she didn't know was playing.

One Thing For You — Listen For Your Background Track

Today, at some point, stop and notice what's playing in the background of your head.

Not the thoughts. Underneath the thoughts. The hum.

Is it Nora's playlist? Anxious, urgent, not-enough-yet energy dressed up as productivity?

Or something else?

You don't have to write your own song today. But notice what's already playing without your permission.

That's the beginning.

If you do want to try the song — start with the tune. Aimless. Off-key. No pressure. Let it be a Phoebe moment. The words will find their own way in when you stop thinking about it.

From the Trail

Brand New Day — Budd Smyth. Heard from a houseboat on a dog walk. Saved a birthday gym session. Currently the opening track on a playlist that didn't exist a week ago and now feels essential.

Also: The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. If the Sasha Fierce section resonated, this is the book behind it. Practical, surprising, and genuinely useful for anyone who needs a different version of themselves to show up in a specific room.

Until next time, keep walking the trail.

Becky x

P.S. Harley and Flynn also had a birthday walk on Saturday. We went for ice cream and ate it sat in the park watching the squirrels. My favourite treat with my favourite boys. Chefs Kiss.

P.P.S. If you want a safe container to start asking what's really playing in the background — Inner Needs was built for exactly that. Seven weeks of the kind of questions nobody thinks to ask you, starting with the easy ones. You can find it here.