Eight big things I want to do this year
This year’s theme builds on last year’s theme: focusing less on bucket lists and more on building healthy, strong habits.
One of my big takeaways from 2020 was recognizing the pitfalls of focusing on finish lines or letting results and rewards drive your motivation.
For example, I used to call my annual goals the Awesome Bucket Challenge. I used those bucket lists to push and stretch myself, so that I wouldn’t look back and feel like the year was wasted.
Laying out goals like that is a great exercise, but I found myself getting too obsessed with accomplishments and crossing goals off the list.
That kind of mindset risks killing off the random, instinctual, stuff in life that makes it so fun and beautiful. It’s also no way to live when you let the outcome — which is often out of your control — define your success.
To hammer that point home, sometime last year I stumbled across Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s excellent article Growth Without Goals, in which he makes a compelling argument for why “‘accomplishments’ are traps”. He also cites a great quote from Scott Adams that starts off with the following sentence: “To put it bluntly, goals are for losers.”
Therefore, my shift toward a more behavioral set of goals continues. I think this approach hits the sweet spot: it provides the benefits of goal-setting and avoids the loser-like addiction to bucket lists and accomplishments.
Here are my goals for 2021.
1. Sunrise, Sunset
Morning recharge of breathing exercises and the Five Tibetan Rites.
Evening wind-down of breathing exercises and stretching.
2. Simple and Sinister kettlebell at 32kg
Complete 10 rounds of 10 single-arm swings followed by 10 Turkish Get Ups with a 32kg kettlebell.
I’m following the Simple and Sinister program by Pavel Tsatsouline, and currently in the range of 16kg to 24kg. This program also calls for “jolts” once or twice a month where you “take on a physical challenge that will test your spirit without breaking your body.” I’m calling these jolts “Primal Rages” and they’ll likely consist of runs up mountains, Tabata sprints, or some kind of high intensity CrossFit style workout.
3. Ice dips twice a month
This is a carryover from 2020. I have a couple cold creeks nearby that should make for great ice baths — now I just need to man up and take the plunge. I’ll do these dips on weeks when I’m not Primal Raging (see Goal 2).
4. Fasting
I’ve been intermittent fasting for a while, but last year I completed my first 48-hour fast, and it wasn’t as scary as it seemed.
This year, on top of my standard daily intermittent fasts (I typically only eat between 12pm and 8pm), I’ll do a weekly 24-hour fast, a monthly 48-hour fast, and a semiannual 72-hour fast.
5. Reading
Usually I look to read as many books as possible over the course of the year. The problem with that approach is that I often find myself rushing through books just to finish them and get to the next one.
To avoid that accomplishment trap, I’m going to slow down and only read (and re-read) the following 10 books this year (in no particular order):
- The Five Tibetans, by Christoper S. Kilham
- Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez
- The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Letters from a Stoic, by Seneca
- On the Shortness of Life, by Seneca
- Impro, by Keith Johnstone
- The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick, by Peter Handke
- A Question of Freedom, by Dwayne Betts
- Skin in the Game, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
6. Writing
I want to prioritize creative writing and make it a bigger part of my life.
My personal blog here — which has become more of a place for learning and thinking in public — doesn’t seem like the right forum for fiction, which doesn’t have as much of an agenda.
So this year’s writing goal is two-fold: 1) continue posting thoughts, ideas, analysis and updates on my personal blog here; and 2) launch a side-project blog specifically for fun and weird creative writing and fiction.
7. No complaining
I’m stealing this one from O’Shaughnessy’s goals in the article I mentioned above.
8. Epic hike
I can’t completely abandon Awesome Bucket accomplishments, so I’m keeping this recurring goal on the books for 2021. Thankfully the Rocky Mountains are in my backyard now — the tough part of this goal will probably be picking which epic hike to take.