Principles > Goals
As one does around the new year, I’ve been thinking about why setting goals for this year wasn’t particularly effective. Last year (and other years before it) I would specify an outcome like gaining X pounds of muscle, speaking at an event with Y attendees, or finishing Z books. While accomplishing a goal was a source of satisfaction, The carrot at the end of the stick was still a carrot. The incentive of accomplishing a goal for its own sake wasn’t enticing by comparison to the amount of effort required! I also hadn’t spent much time learning about habit formation or adopting a personal philosophy of life (both stil WIP, with most knowledge still coming from pop psychology books and podcasts).
Around March, I started listening to the “Invest Like the Best”. It’s my favorite podcast of 2020 (if not of all time). Definitely recommend giving it a listen (and the new sibling series “Founder’s Field Guide”) if you have a chance. The podcast host writes most of Investor’s Field Guide, including the “Growth Without Goals” post. It’s short and in my opinion, life altering.
Continuous Success
This image is arguably the most important point of the post. It conveys the idea that you’ll feel much happier and more ‘successful’ sticking to daily practices, rather than a large goalpost.
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Adding to this point, there often isn’t an incentive to break large goals down into manageable chunks of work. This contributes to a self-defeating cycle of picking something new and ambitious to do, perhaps making some traction on it over time, and not feeling that great when hitting a milestone. A “growth without goals” mindset can help to achieve more purely as a byproduct of doing more things of value, feeling better about the entire process along the way.
Daily Habits
Given the post’s hypothesis that frequent (daily) activities lead to a feeling of continued success, I’ve started to pick up a few activities that hopefully morph into habits over time.
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The habits themselves don’t matter all that much to me at this stage, given I’ve never stuck to any form of daily ritual. The act of working to improve in the same areas each day continuously has been a source of happiness in itself. Even on days when I don’t feel motivated to accomplish any of these. Also, the process has resulted in accomplishments that seemed out of reach by comparison to a few months ago! I can’t remember the last time I read 10 books in 3 months.
Principles
With some foundation in place, I’m hoping to use the momentum to improve my quality of thought and decision making in 2021. My main areas of focus:
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Self awareness - Understanding that taking extra time to work on the right thing rather than burning energy on the wrong things generates the most value. I’d like to make a more tangible decision making framework around this (Ex: measuring required tasks at work, deciding which bits take the most time, and working to automate them). This should spill over more generally into other areas of life, most notably how I make time for others. More listening, less speaking!
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Continued daily habits - Unguided meditation and breathwork have been the biggest generator of change so far this year. I’m hoping to keep it going alongside daily exercise and continued learning. I’ll likely swap a few of my current daily habits out for new ones, focusing primarily on building dicipline.
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Taking more risks - Doing things that scare me. Sending cold compliments to people I respect, publishing writing and getting feedback, and perhaps moving to a new part of the US. Discomfort should apply to my day-to-day activities rather than fantasizing about large goals (like speaking at large events). Beginning to ask for feedback more often than I currently do.