The first month of 2020 is over. Time to review and set new goals for February. It was our daughter’s first month and a transition for us. From 1 kid to 2 kids. But it’s going better than expected. Brida is a lot easier than Elon when he was born. Elon used to wake up a lot during the night, whereas Brida enjoys her sleep which makes things easier for all of us. Sleep is really a crucial element for parents. It’s the one thing that will allow you to keep your calm and be more patient when you reach your limits.
One thing I’ve come to realize after reading Atomic Habits (great read!) in January is that what I’m doing is not really goal setting, but creating long lasting habits. Except for the relationships and business category the rest are habits that I’ve started to implement in September last year and that I’ve kept so far.
It’s not a bad thing though. Habits are what really make a difference over time. Positive habits spark change. You just need to be patient. There’s no instant gratification unfortunately. It’s important to take the time to reflect on what we’re doing automatically every day. It might be grabbing a bag of chips to relax every evening or a glass of wine. Habits define who we are as individuals not the specific goals or things we do on a once off basis. Therefore, think about who you’d like to be as a person and setup the right habits to become your dream you!
January, a review
January was a busy month, but overall a good one. With the year begins, there’s so much administration to take care of. Between the corporation taxes, the new laws (firma digital)… It’s a lot at once. On top of that we’re in the process of selling out small apartment in Melbourne and we had a lot of things to deal with, but I’ll cover that.
Now if you’d like to review my previous goals: January Goals.
Relationships
My goal was to engage with 5 new people. I didn’t really keep count of it. But I’m pretty confident I did manage it. After all the goal was pretty accessible. I created some new connections online with some LinkedIn outreach as well as locally.
Verdict: Happy me.
Health & Fitness
I managed to do my daily 10 push-ups. And when I felt particularly strong I even managed to do 12 or 13. Yay! See you don’t need animal proteins to lift yourself back up from the ground. Just a little motivation and some arm movements.
And regarding my appreciation for good craft beer, well things change. I had 3 alcoholic drinks in January. On the 3rd, 23rd and 30th of January. An IPA, a sip of organic red whine and a gin & tonic. But it’s not as it used to be anymore. Drinking alcohol feels like drinking poison now. My body is telling me that it doesn’t want it. Should I push harder?
It’s like coffee. I used to drink coffee twice a day. In January 8 coffees. I’ve become somehow sensitive to it. So now when I drink coffee I start frantically moving around. Not ideal when working on a laptop. I do like the taste though. So whenever I drink a coffee I go for single shot instead of a double one. My go to drink in the morning is now either green coffee or something called cafe integral which is the green coffee bean ground with the coffee fruit. I have no idea what the name is in English, so if you know please tell me. You may argue that it’s still coffee. Technically it is, but it’s very different to regular coffee. The caffeine it contains is lower so it doesn’t affect me the same way. The taste is also very different. I may try to go with green tea this month in the mornings.
Verdict: I’m not attracted to alcohol anymore. And I’m doing my push-ups. Yay!
Soul & Mind
In January, I’ve read, meditated and wrote every single day. No missed days!
Here are the two books I’ve read in January. Both were great!
- Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
The first one is about negotiation. It’s always a useful skill to have in life. Chris Voss knows his stuff as he was the lead negotiator for the FBI. He didn’t negotiate for his new car but to save human lives. Meeting half way is not an option in that case. Except if it’s your mother in law of course. It might be useful when you have kids as well.
The other one is about the importance of habits and how to set them the right way. Two people might have the same goals, the difference in achieving them might come down to habits. A lot of things we do, we do out of habits. An interesting read for anyone looking to grow and change/improve his life.
I also managed to write a bit on my blog:
- Are you a slave?
- My about me page
- And I’ve launched my new experiments section, with the first one being microdosing psilocybin mushrooms.
Verdict: Happy me!
Business
Finally business-wise a lot is going on right now. I feel like 2020 will be the year of big changes. I’m publishing quite a bit on Nomadific.com as well as doing a lot for Puerto&Co. And we may (or not) have a big sale coming through soon on Gyvas, but I’d rather not anticipate too much as you never know until the deal is sealed.
My goals was to outline a new project for digital nomad. I’ve started, but I think I need to slow down a bit. My current projects are already eating up all my available time. I’m only working about 30 hours per week and there are always things to do on all fronts. Since, I don’t have internet at home I need to take care of personal stuff as well while at the ‘office’.
Verdict: All good.I’m satisfied.
One benefit I’m seing from my habits is that my stress level towards unexpected problems is pretty low. January was a month filled with problems, but they didn’t create any stress to me. Just to give you a glimpse of the problems that arose:
- Coffee machine stopped working
- Blender broke down
- Tenants leaving overseas unexpectedly taking the keys with them and leaving us with an empty apartment and no income.
- Squatters taking over our apartment. 13,428kms away from where we are.
- The construction we are planning on a lot here needs a special foundation to avoid landslides which means about 30,000$ more to the planned budget. Which we don’t have. We’re still looking for alternatives.
- No space in the school where we wanted to put Elon in February
A lot went on. But everything is figureoutable! Those things are not really affecting me anymore. What would stress really change to the situation?
Now to February. I think I’ll keep it pretty simple. Working on my habits rather than setting big goals.
Relationships
Instead of working toward new relationships this month, I’ll work towards the relationship I have with my wife. Having kids is like inviting chaos over. No more time for us. When they sleep, we sleep. When they wake up, we wake up. It’s a lot of work.
- Go on 3 “micro” dates with Marine
You may think that since I’m starting microdosing I want to microdose everything, but the term micro is simply used because I know we won’t be able to go on real dates this month. So it might be a 15 min date in between naps. Just finding small window of opportunities to get some us time.
Health & Fitness
- 15 push-ups a day
Since I’m now feeling so strong, I’ll add 50% to my previous goals. I’m not sure I’ll keep adding every month but since I like ticking things on my habit app, it might continue that way. - 29 days of magic mushrooms microdosing
I’ve written a whole article about it, feel free to read it if you’d like to know more.
Soul & Mind
- Daily Meditation
- Daily Reading
- Daily Writing
The usual. For the meditation I’m using the Waking Up app by Sam Harris. It’s great. Here’s a free month if you’d like to try it out.
Business
I’ll leave this one empty this month. I’ll simply work on my existing projects this month. I feel like a lot will be going in February and I don’t want to get overwhelmed with new things.
That’s it for February. Do you have any goals you’d like to share?
