2020MAXX
2019 has come to a close and it was one heck of a ride. This is going to be a mostly stream of consciousness post with little to no structure. So if you’re into that sort of thing continue reading, If else skip to the bottom for some fun little tidbits.
Having New Years Resolutions is never something that I have partaken in because studies show that they do not work and are simply just a cope with the reality of moving a previous years goals to the new year. 2019 for me was about self development, growth and accepting change. Within my professional life I changed career paths and began working from home full time. This brought to light that traveling for most of my day was not the source of my unhappiness and that this was instead a symptom of additional inner work that needed to be done. That kind of stuff isn’t easy but it is the most important thing that you can do. I have done this primarily via exercise and writing in a journal. I tried and failed to try and start a regular meditation practice. I partially succeeded on getting off of social media. I created some content that I thought was entertaining and funny. Back to the idea of setting resolutions for a moment, it is much more practical and generative to do more of a year end action report. Tim Ferriss popularized this idea in this blog post. The quick rundown is to generate an itemized list of things that you ACTUALLY did and decide whether or not you wish to continue doing those activities. Something that has worked insanely well for me is scheduling. I enjoy being able to look at a calendar and see exactly what I have done and will do. I have gone as far as scheduling gym visits and meditation. For some reason when a computer or a phone tells me “hey it’s time to do this thing”, I am a lot less resistance to it than having to pick a time in my head. I think this could have something to do with the idea of decision fatigue. The less decisions you have to make consciously the more bandwidth you have to make decisions that actually count / matter. Aside from writing all of this stuff down here perhaps I will make this post my first tab opened every morning that way I can reflect on the list of things that I want to continue doing / do more of. One thing that I continued to consume over the course of the year was content focusing on ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Most of these things were incredible feats of athleticism which most of the time wasn’t about being the strongest or the fastest but instead was a mental journey. I read / listened to a book about running the Appalachian trail, a journey across Antarctica, a man swimming around the great British isle, a woman who ran 250km through a desert for animal rights , a man turned ultra athlete and a man who lost 100lbs to become a Navy seal. Perhaps it is when I was born but such insane feats (some of which previously were never completed) never really seemed like something that would exist. In my scope of ideas, I thought that we had accomplished almost everything that people could accomplish and I find something so genuinely cool that people are out there pursuing things that others would say are foolish, dangerous and maybe even deadly for nothing more than the self satisfaction of accomplishing those things. I have experimented with a wide array of different practices and I have noted positive results from various of these practices as noted below. I plan on doing the self review / analysis as linked previously but I am unsure if this will be published publicly or just completed privately for my own review. I may update this but I am going to go ahead and publish it as is 12:28 PST 12/31/2019.
Do Less / Don’t Do Anymore
- Irony Poisoning
- Video Games
- Negative Thought
- Consume Less Low Quality Content
Do More
- Schedule
- Meditation
- Duolingo
- Gym
- Journal
- Reduce Waste
- Time
- Physical waste
- Log More
- Books / Films
- Complete Projects (!!)
- Goal Setting
- Short Term / Long Term
- Personal & Professional
- Being Authentic / Genuine
- Going Outside
- Create More
- Donation / Removal of Non-Essentials
Key Takeaways
- “What gets measured gets managed”
- “Motivation” is fleeting, Drive is key
- “Pursue what’s in your heart, and the universe will conspire to support you.” – RR
- 80/20 is real
- Stoic Flowchart of Decision Making
Best Memes
- Ricardo
- Pewdiepie vs T-series
- Joker
- Yahndi
- That’s how mafia works
- Cyber Truck / Elon Musk
- Half Life 3
- Area 51
Favorite Content Creators
- Nathaniel Drew
- Dalai Otter
- Buffcorrell
- William Osman
- Michael Reeves
- Freakin Reviews
- CutleryLover
- David Goggins
- Rich Roll
- Charls Carroll
- Louis Rossman
- Jenny Nicholson
- Simone Giertz