Misogi (禊)

The Japanese concept of one defining yearly challenge and why I chose to give up sugar completely for all of 2026.

A few months ago, I was scrolling on X (formerly Twitter), and I stopped at a tweet from Shaan Puri.

Shaan Puri is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He had shared a video of himself playing piano. In the caption, he wrote that this was his Misogi challenge for 2025 — learning piano.

In his tweet, he explained that Misogi is a Japanese idea: one hard challenge that shapes your whole year. He said he first heard about it from Jesse Itzler on a podcast. For 2025, Misogi was learning piano completely from scratch.

While I watched the video, one thought kept going around in my head: this Misogi idea is really great. Could I take on something like this too, for 2026?

What is Misogi?

Misogi is an old Japanese Shinto ritual. It originally means washing your whole body to become pure, a kind of water cleansing. In Japan, people go once a year to a holy waterfall, river, or lake to do this ritual. Mount Ontake, the Kii Mountain Range, and Mount Yoshino are famous places for Misogi.

But there’s also a modern meaning, outside this old ritual, and that’s what I want to talk about.

In the modern sense, Misogi means taking on one hard challenge every year, one that pushes you past your limits. Not just hard, hard enough that you’re not sure if you’ll succeed. In the samurai tradition, this was used to build calm, steady minds in warriors, and to help them understand themselves deeply.

Misogi has one important rule. If you succeed every single time, it means your goal wasn’t big enough. A real Misogi should be something with more than a 50% chance that you’ll fail.

There’s no fixed shape for a Misogi. For one person, running ten miles might be a huge challenge. Someone else might choose to climb Everest. It all depends on where you are right now in your life.

A writer named Alexandra Mateus says Misogi makes our idea of who we are grow bigger. We become tougher and better at handling new challenges.

Gary Brecka posted something similar. He said that if you can’t point to one defining moment from your year, you’re just drifting. He talked with Jesse Itzler and Devon Lévesque about this same Japanese idea of Misogi — one big, uncomfortable challenge that shapes your year.

He said people don’t regret working hard. They regret wasting time.

My Misogi for 2026: Giving Up Sugar

Sugar, donuts, and colourful sweets
Image – HealthyMummy

At first, I thought I’d just stop putting sugar in my tea.

Then I thought, what would that really change? Skipping sugar in tea is hard, sure, but compared to what Misogi is supposed to be, it’s too small. It’s not really beyond my limits.

So I decided: no sugar, at all, for the whole year. Not in tea. Not in cooking. Not in sweet desserts. Not in cold drinks. Nowhere.

Why is this hard for me?

I love sweet things. I can’t imagine my mornings without tea, and sugar in that tea feels automatic. When I’m at events, avoiding sweets isn’t just about my own willpower, there’s social pressure too. When guests come over, at weddings, on Eid; sweets are everywhere. Giving all of it up is genuinely hard for me.

This isn’t just about food. It’s a decision I have to make every single day. Avoiding sugar means reading food labels, staying careful when I eat outside, and learning to say no in social situations.

There’s a real chance I could fail at this. I don’t know if I can keep it up for the whole year. But that’s exactly the point of Misogi.

I’ve already gotten through 7 months of 2026. I won’t pretend I got it perfect, there were probably 1-2 days I had sugar without even realizing it. I stay alert all the time, checking that sugar isn’t sneaking into my body.

I still don’t know if I’ll make it the whole year without sugar. But taking on this Misogi challenge has really helped me stay focused. It’s also built a kind of trust in myself that I can actually do this. And if I don’t hold myself to it, who will?

There’s a special kind of self-respect that comes from deciding to do something and then actually sticking to it.

Here’s the thing I like most about Misogi. It’s not a resolution. It’s not making a list on January 1st and forgetting about it by February. It’s just one thing, for the whole year, and it’s hard enough that there’s no way to forget it.

So, what could your Misogi be for 2026?

If you want to connect with people all over the world doing their own Misogi challenges, you can join this subreddit for it, where people share their challenges with each other.

Blog Image: Night misogi under a waterfall at Tsubaki Grand Shrine (Wikipedia)