How to Think New Thoughts

Last Friday, I woke up with a clear realization: I need out.

Not from anything in particular, just from my loop.

The loop made of recurring meetings, default decisions. The same neighborhood walks, the same bars.

It’s a good loop! I love my life! But even the best routines, left untouched, start to feel like autopilot. The longer you run them, the deeper the grooves get, like ski tracks freezing overnight. At some point you’re just going through the motions.

Part of me wanted to stay in the loop. That would’ve been easy. Knock out some work, see some friends, refresh the (insane) headlines; keep the routine intact. And I knew where that version of the weekend would lead: same inputs, same outputs.

So I broke the loop and left the world behind.

It took five minutes to book an Airbnb by a lake, two and a half hours from San Francisco.

That afternoon, I tied a bow on the week, packed a bag, and drove east toward Lake Folsom.

I spent the weekend mostly alone, walking by the water, reading, writing, and thinking.

And on Saturday, I gave my brain a little nudge and took a vacation from myself.

Most times I’ve taken psychedelics, it’s been social: music, friends, good vibes.

Not a life-altering, cosmic journey. Just fun.

This time, it was just me, a lake, and a light dose to kick me off the mental treadmill.

I wasn’t looking for a grand realization and no childhood wounds resurfaced or spirit animals appeared. Things just quieted down, like I was able to hit mute on the incessant group chat in my head.

The loop I’d been in—meetings, headlines, recycled internal monologue—severed. And in that break, there was just enough space to remember: I’m not obligated to think the same thoughts on repeat.

It wasn’t profound, but it was useful.

I’m not trying to make a case for anything. I’m just saying: it helped me step outside my head a little, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

(I didn’t go feral in the woods. I’m getting somewhere with this, I promise.)

What I was actually interrupting last weekend has a name: the Default Mode Network.

In neuroscience, the Default Mode Network (DMN) activates when you’re not focused on anything in particular: walking, zoning out, lying in bed too late at night. It runs the self-talk, replays conversations, and builds your personal narrative, one recycled thought at a time.

Basically, the DMN is just a network of neurons in the brain that are most active when we’re running on autopilot. That machinery is useful, but can easily start to define the edges of how you see, decide, and solve.

Combined with habitual loops, notifications, and back-to-back meetings, and you get momentum without awareness; days that feel full but also hollow.

So that’s what I was trying to break at the lake. At least long enough to remember there are other ways to think, and other places to think from.

For many of us, the instinct when we feel stuck is to work harder. To strategize more, build new systems, add new structure. I’ve written about that before, how externalizing your thinking through documentation is a powerful form of mental leverage. I still believe that.

But when you’re circling the same problems and running the same stories, adding more inputs or writing things down doesn’t change much. You’re still thinking from the same vantage, and at a certain point, you’re not making progress, you’re just getting more efficient at spinning your wheels.

Our minds are efficient. They’ll keep running the same loop as long as the conditions stay the same. That’s what they’re built to do.

But left unchecked, the Default Mode Network will keep feeding you the same thoughts, same solutions, same stories, because that’s easier than recalculating from scratch.

That’s why most thinking gets stale.

Clarity, originality, and insight tend to show up when the environment shifts, when something breaks the rhythm and forces a reset.

The goal is to interrupt the conditions that keep your thinking the same.

Here’s how to do that on purpose.

Not everybody wants to take acid alone in the woods (Though, recommend.)

Good news: there are other ways to interrupt your loop and disrupt the Default Mode Network.

There’s a reason people come back from vacations feeling lighter, clearer, more energized. Most good breaks bundle all five of the levers below: disruption, friction, stillness, challenge, and awe.

But you don’t need a flight or a hotel! You can start by pulling just one lever, deliberately.

Here are some low-stakes ways to shake your system and shift your perspective, each drawing on actual scientific research (and not just the remnants of my psych minor, which was mostly Freud and hangovers).

Disrupt habits to force cognitive recalibration.

Force awareness by intentionally making things harder.

Remove inputs so your brain is forced to generate signal instead of processing noise.

Break through ruts with intensity or unfamiliarity. Both force full presence.

Collapse the loop by immersing yourself in scale and wonder.

I didn’t come back from the lake with some grand realization. No strategic breakthrough or new product vision. Same todo list, same missed texts, same world on fire.

I do feel a bit lighter. Not in a spiritual way, but more like when you open the windows to a stuffy room and let in fresh air. Same space and furniture, it’s just a little easier to be inside it.

I gave my brain a few days off from solving problems it wasn’t making progress on anyway. When I came back, those problems felt more manageable, and I actually felt excited to get back into them.

My loop loosened just enough to remember I have a choice in how I move through it.

Sometimes that’s all you need. A little air, a little distance, and a chance to want back in.

You don’t need more deep-focus time or a wellness retreat; you need a crowbar.

Something small and deliberate, just sharp enough to jam into the gears of your DMN and knock you off your well-worn track, even just for a second.

Because your loop isn’t trying to ruin your life. It’s trying to run it efficiently. Same problems, same context, same thoughts, delivered daily in slightly different packaging, each tagged ⭐  IMPORTANT .

It doesn’t need to trap you. It just needs you to keep agreeing with it.

That’s why you need friction. Not forever, but just long enough to remember that agency is a muscle, and muscles atrophy.

So this week, shake things up. Do your daily walk in reverse. Have breakfast for dinner. It’s probably not going to change your life, but it will remind you that you always can.

If you do manage to break out of your loop, pay attention. Did it help? Did it feel dumb? Let me know. I’d love to hear what shook loose.

Up and to the right.