The year is coming to an end, and whenever that happens I get into a rather wistful and contemplative mood. There\u2019s a sense of winding down, of taking time to reflect upon the past. I was looking through my archives and it looks like I\u2019ve been doing this consistently for almost all of the 2010s so far. There are two or three instances that I tend to write about \u2013 I write at the end of the year to review how it\u2019s gone, I write at the dawn of the new year to plan ahead, and I write on my birthday (which conveniently falls in June, right in the middle) to take stock of how things are going.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve noticed from examining my past few years\u2019 worth of notes.<\/p>\n
I have the same recurring goals over and over again.<\/strong> They\u2019re the most fundamental of goals. Sleep more, sleep better. Avoid cigarettes. Eat healthier. Exercise more. Read more. Write more. Spend less time dicking around on the internet. Spend more time with loved ones. Make time to try new, different and challenging things. Grow as a person.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t make a lot of progress on these goals. When I compare myself today to myself from 2-3 years ago, there\u2019s obvious progress. But it\u2019s not as dramatic as I\u2019d like it to be.<\/strong> I\u2019ve gotten rather bored with how often I\u2019m repeating myself, and I\u2019ve definitely gotten bored of saying that I\u2019m bored. I\u2019m trapped in this little cycle. Which is frustrating, because I already feel quite trapped by my circumstances \u2013 living in a small flat, struggling through a lengthy commute, day after week after month after year. It\u2019s silly if I\u2019m also going to trap myself in old patterns of thinking, patterns of behavior.<\/p>\n A friend repeatedly says that 27 is the year that everything changes. You\u2019re too close to 30 now to keep dicking around.<\/strong> Your time is too precious, and you\u2019ve wasted too much already. Well I hope he\u2019s right. But I can\u2019t depend on hope alone, either. I have to put in the effort. I have to change something about how I\u2019ve been doing things. I find myself thinking that there are parallels between the way I\u2019m currently operating and the way I used to play video games as a child. I\u2019ve written this several times now surely \u2013 0194. I couldn\u2019t break through the plateau until I stopped making the fundamental mistake, which was spending way too much at the start on infrastructure and then getting eaten alive by the maintenance costs. You have to grow organically.<\/p>\n If I\u2019m forced to draw a parallel, just for fun, I think the mistake I make here is that I think way too big and plan way too far ahead.<\/strong> And I probably incur some sort of maintenance costs from that. What I should I be doing instead? The same thing with the city \u2013 start really really small. Focus on an hour at a time, a day at a time. You win the year by winning the months, the months by winning the weeks, the weeks by winning the days.<\/strong> I\u2019ve been hit hard by the fact that I always think \u201c1 word vomit a day isn\u2019t a big deal\u201d, and yet every year I publish far less than 365 word vomits. If I had just stuck to 1 a day, I would have been done by now. It\u2019s a sobering reminder of the power of accumulation<\/strong>. It\u2019s actually worth doing 5 pushups a day if you can, run for 5 minutes if you can. It seems trivial but it\u2019s really not, it really adds up. So maybe that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to do in 2017. I\u2019m going to focus on the smallest wins \u2013 smaller than anything I\u2019ve done before. I\u2019m not going to try to win the whole year. I\u2019m going to try to win the first week. And then the 2nd week. And I\u2019m going to do weekly and monthly reviews. I\u2019ve already been doing weekly reviews for the past 10+ weeks \u2013 they haven\u2019t been perfect, but they\u2019ve been done.<\/p>\n There\u2019s two things that I need to focus on to get that right. I need to have a daily routine where I check my calendar several times<\/strong>, and I need to update it regularly<\/strong>. I\u2019m doing that now. I need to make sure every day is as filled as I possibly can fill it \u2013 not with what I\u2019m planning to do, but with what I actually did. If I can do this every day, I will be able to see a much clearer picture of how I\u2019m spending my time \u2013 and I can make adjustments accordingly in real time.<\/p>\n It\u2019s still November. I want to be doing this for all of December and January and I want to do it for as long as I can. If I screw up for a week or a month, I want to get right back on track. It\u2019s all about focusing on what\u2019s in front of my face, on what I can do now that will contribute towards my larger vision, towards my larger goals for myself. There\u2019s no point trying to over-articulate those bigger picture things until I can get to the relative cutting-edge of whatever it is that I\u2019m working on, because that will give me the perspective and context I need in order to make bets.<\/p>\n I was re-reading Cal Newport\u2019s So Good They Can\u2019t Ignore You. While I thought I had internalised the idea, there are still a few useful points to reference and ruminate on. I thought he made a great point about the necessity of career capital, and about how courage is insufficient early on but necessary later once you\u2019ve paid your dues<\/strong>. There was a great bit about how\u2026 something along the lines of \u2013 if a little introspection, day-dreaming, imagination and idealism was all it took to change the world, tonnes of people would be making massive impact.<\/p>\n The thing that I want to do is HARD. It\u2019s PAINFUL. Most people QUIT.<\/strong> And I have a long history of quitting when things get hard and painful. The path I have taken so far has not been the most efficient, has not been the best. But I am not down for the count. I\u2019m coming back. I will be better and stronger because of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The year is coming to an end, and whenever that happens I get into a rather wistful and contemplative mood. There\u2019s a sense of winding down, of taking time to reflect upon the past. I was looking through my archives and it looks like I\u2019ve been doing this consistently for… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[331],"class_list":["post-10302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit","tag-status-update"],"yoast_head":"\n