2022 Goals and Reality Check

Disclaimer: this post is long and a bit rambling…🤷

A brief peak at twitter this time of year will reveal just how awesome and successful everyone else’s past year went. Kudos to those who crushed it. However I’ve always found content that highlights peoples’ struggles far more engaging and inspirational. My intention with this post is to take a hard look at my life, understand where I’ve been, and determine where I want to go.

I’m very fortunate for a lot of reasons, but 2021 was not my best year to date (my best year was probably 3rd grade when I dominated mad minute math quizzes…IYKYK). 2021 was certainly fun – I tried new activities and visited new places, but I don’t feel very satisfied with my life.

*Tangent: Nov 2018 – Feb 2019 was the period during my adult life where I felt most satisfied. My boss at the time quit and I was given a major, although ultimately temporary, increase in responsibility and autonomy. Those were probably the most stressful months of my life (again I’m very fortunate), but also the most engaging and satisfying.

Sappy preamble concluded – let’s get down to brass tacks.

2021 Goals Review – original post here:

1. Spend 10 days hiking in US national parks I haven’t visited before ✔️
2. Train in a martial art at least 2x/week starting in April ✔️
   • This isn’t entirely true, but I picked up surfing earlier in the year as a replacement activity and did begin Jiu Jitsu in 2h21
3. Ski 35+ days ✔️
4. Write a blog post every week 🟡
   • I didn’t blog very much in 1h21, but recently started blogging daily and will continue that practice.
5. Meditate 6x/week for 10+ minutes 🟡
6. Read a book every 2 weeks (300 pages is the quantified benchmark) 🟡
   • I lost track but think I got pretty close
7. Facetime parents and siblings every week ✔️
8. Long call with 2 friends/week 🟡
   • I saw a lot of friends throughout, but didn’t keep up that phone call cadence
9. Make new friends in new places ❌
   • I ended up nomad-ing a lot less than originally planned
10. Start and grow a business to $10k ARR by year-end ❌
    • I lacked focus and direction. I didn’t really know what I was doing and did not have a plan
11. Manage PA…adequately 🟡
    • I performed pretty poorly in 2021, but I am happy with the amount of time I spent on investing

My stated theme for 2021 was “exploration”. I think that holds up ex-post. I explored new places to live (Park City, San Diego), new sports (backpacking, surfing, jiu jitsu), and new intellectual activities (writing, entrepreneurship…kind of). I ended up (at least partially) completing most of my stated goals, so I should feel good about the year, right? Apparently not (as I began to notice in my half-year review).

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them”

Yeah I just quoted LOTR. In hindsight my entrepreneurial ambitions (the One Ring…if you were struggling to see the connection) were my most important focus, and everything else was secondary. (Note: I value personal relationships and health MORE than work, but those things seem to be going well and don’t require a dedicated framework to achieving. If you disagree, call me 😊).

Mimetic theory suggests that we tend to want certain things simply because the people around us want/have those things (extrinsic desires). Ultimately extrinsic desires won’t bring us satisfaction. Ideally I want to focus my time and effort on things that I find meaningful irrespective of my external influences (intrinsic desires). Identifying and pursuing intrinsic desires is, of course, an impossible task (we will never be free from external influences), but it is still a worthwhile ambition. (Read this book for more – thanks to PS for the referral).

I certainly have a lot of external forces promoting my entrepreneurial desire (family, culture), so it’s worth asking: Why is entrepreneurship my mission for the upcoming year?

• I think I have an intrinsic desire to find out what I’m made of, and entrepreneurship is one form of (safely) testing myself and my capacity – it is hard.
• It provides a lot of financial upside, if successful. This element clearly leans towards extrinsic desire, but I do need to make more money at some point.
• I can’t think of anything else I would rather pursue

Before I shift focus to 2022 and how I’m going to make it a successful year, I should note a couple of positives that came from 2021:

• I learned a lot about health and now implement this knowledge in my daily life
• I started writing far more than I ever have. Better writing -> better thinking
• I discovered (or rediscovered) how much I enjoy picking up new activities and pushing myself physically

Looking Towards the Future

2022 Theme: Production

My theme for 2022 is “production”. Prolific production (of writing, coding, and research for example) will allow me to gather feedback and iterate quickly w/r/t my business (and life) direction. The key to prolific production is deep work (read this book for more).

I’m currently focusing my entrepreneurial ambitions on weight loss. Why? I’ve had a personal interest in health for several years, obesity is a massive problem, and I like the idea of being able to make money by helping people improve their health.

Strategy

I’ve finally internalized Paul Graham’s statement that you need to make something people want (duh…), and I recognize that I need to better understand my customer and their problems.

My high level strategy is to build a small audience that is interested in losing weight. I plan do this via a new website (yep, another blog) where I publish clear, actionable posts on the different components of weight loss, and then promote these posts across the various social media platforms.

Deliver free value to readers -> receive feedback in the form of comments, emails, and phone calls (ask readers to talk about their experiences) -> Improve understanding of customer and their problems -> build initial product and get readers to beta test -> iterate

KPIs (subject to change as things progress)

• Publish 5 weight loss posts/week (and their associated social media posts)
  • I assume the entire process will take ~6 hours/post
  • This metric may change when I gain a better sense for time requirements
• Conduct 5 networking calls or meetings/week
  • I recognize that I have a lot to learn and would like to build my entrepreneurial network
  • This includes co-founder matching calls, lunchclub calls, and anything else loosely related to entrepreneurship/business
• Spend 20 hours/week doing “deep work”
  • This metric overlaps with the others. If I want to achieve prolific production then I need to maximize my productivity.
  • Deep work means:
    • Phone turned off (actually turned off so I create enough friction between me and the distraction)
    • Setting a predetermined amount of time to work on a specific task
    • Not allowing myself to do anything else during that time block even if it means staring at the wall
      • Jerry Seinfeld uses this process to write jokes – he talks about it in is his interview with Tim Ferris

“What gets measured gets managed”

-Peter Drucker

Tracking is key. I started tracking various health metrics a couple of months ago (you can check it out here). I’m going to add my entrepreneurial KPIs to my dashboard, and also potentially implement a google calendar analytical system to measure how I’m spending my time in more detail (I was inspired by this post from the CEO of Levels). Below is a sample chart from my dashboard where I track my daily, non-vegetable carbohydrate intake…definitely let myself go on vacation.

Conclusion

I am intentionally focusing on a single goal/mission for the year. I firmly believe in the importance of relationships, health, exploration/staying uncomfortable and will continue to spend time in these areas, but I think I will look back on 2022 and define “success” based on my entrepreneurial progress.

Happy new year!