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lukecmurray · 6 years

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2018 Review

In the same vein as my 2017 review, here’s 2018.

Four questions:

1. What happened?

2. What worked?

3. What didn’t?

4. How are you going to do more of #2 and less of #3?

1. What happened?

Q1 - Fell in love for the second time in my life. Went to Colorado & Utah to ski. Went to India. Studied French. Worked pretty much every single day I wasn’t doing one of the things mentioned above.

Q2 - Ended a relationship for the first time in my life. Studied French with ferocious intensity. Went to orientation for Doctors Without Borders in NYC…then found out I didn’t get the job. Worked pretty much every single day I wasn’t doing one of the things mentioned above.

Q3 - Finished working & paying off my medical school debt, tried to learn more French by going to Guadeloupe (a French-speaking Caribbean island). Tried to do some humanitarian work by going to Kenya. Bought a Tesla and an off-road RV (Earthroamer) and started renting them both out online…which required lots more paperwork and coordination than I expected.

Q4 - Spend a month in Paris, France, unsuccessfully trying to learn French because I was still distracted by the paperwork and administrative duties of the RV & Tesla I’d purchased…also was starting a consulting company stateside. Got extremely lonely despite meeting some great people in Paris. Went home for a conference in Louisville hoping to land a short term medical missions volunteer opportunity.

Spent the rest of November and into December getting turned down for job opportunities, continuing to set up the rental business and consulting business (and my ever-complicating tax situation as a result of these endeavours) and feeling more and more discouraged as my progress on French slowed to a halt. Then I got a call from a hospital that needed help, so I went back to work…and am back into “Working pretty much every single day I wasn’t doing one of the things mentioned above.” - mode.

As 2018 comes to a close, the job/volunteer opportunities I’ve been working on are finally looking promising and exciting. The work I have booked should set me up well for the year within the first quarter of 2019 (though I’ll likely continue to work throughout the year…as I’ve learned that the consistency/solidness of work helps emotionally - and financially - buffer the ups and downs of my more creative/risky endeavours) and I’m finally getting back to studying French more and more every day and worrying about my rental company or consulting business less and less.

My whole goal for 2018 was to end the year in a French speaking country (I’ll be at a friend’s wedding instead), surrounded by new friends I didn’t have at the beginning of the year (I’ll be around people I’ve known for at least a decade), who are all working towards the same humanitarian mission (nobody at this wedding does international relief work).

So in the ‘did you accomplish your goals this year?’ sense - 2018 was pretty close to a 100% failure for me.

2. What worked?

This question implies that the definition of ‘worked’ would mean “got you closer towards your goal?”. And since I didn’t really reach any of my goals this year, I suppose I could just answer this with “not much”. But here are the real answers:

- keeping a ‘light and tight’ feedback loop - I went through several months where I didn’t keep track of my checkins on coach.me, a habit tracking iphone app I’ve been using for at least 5 years. But I never missed a week, or perhaps not even a couple days, without asking ‘what’s working? what’s not? what am i going to do about it?’. Even if I just jotted them down on a scrap paper, this has allowed me to iterate much faster than my “spend 10 hours thinking of everything I need to change” strategy from the past.

- revising/re-clarifying your timelines - In doing the above, I was able to much more quickly see when the reality of my circumstances was making my previous timeline & goals impossible, causing me to shift the goal or adjust the timeline. Before, I would just feel anxious/overwhelmed/behind or I would just quit on the whole process for months at a time…both of which I felt emotionally (see below) but I did a much better job on them this year than I ever have before. Also, my accountability partner, by listening to what I was saying as I described 1. my goals and 2. what I was doing on a daily basis and 3. the reality of my situation, was able to point out when #1 was disconnected from #2 & #3. He had to do this often…like almost every time we met. And unfortunately, I needed it almost every time, but, again, this is about what worked and having him in my life was one of those things (thanks again, Morgan).

- getting help - I committed to doing therapy consistently this year (every other week) and even hired a life coach (hey Anthony - you’re great). These two things took a lot of humility, and I keep waiting for the point where I finish a session with either of them and think - “I’m good. I don’t need this. I’ve got it figured out and what they offered me over the last hour wasn’t valuable or wasn’t something that I didn’t already know or wasn’t already implementing.” I haven’t hit that point yet…which is, again, very humbling…but the reality that each hour I spend with these guys is helping me be more like the man I want to be, is more important than protecting the false pretence that I’m already that guy.

- love without holding back - This was hard and painful and drove me (and her) crazy…but putting myself out there, being open, and letting myself be seen and loved/accepted (or not) was absolutely one of the most difficult, rewarding and important things I’ve done in my life, let alone this year.

3. What didn’t?

- revising/re-clarifying your timelines - I know I said this was one of the things that went well…well, I needed to do it more. One of my biggest stressors this year was things not ‘working out’ and me not accepting that. I would bump into the reality of my situation (i.e. going abroad for months on end in a country where you are very questionably fluent and that’s historically among one of the most unstable in the world takes more than buying a last minute Frontier Airlines ticket). But despite reality showing up, despite the numerous rejections from humanitarian organisations, despite seeing how far I was from true French fluency and noting my daily progress (not much), I didn’t update my expectations of how things were going to work out until I’d spent weeks holding on to my old expectations. Which is silly, because I was getting stressed in October, about being behind on a timeline that I made in July.

I get behind on timelines for what I’m going to do in a given day that I’ve made that morning.

- not prioritising people - I could have and should have made “make good friends” a #1 priority in France. But instead, I focused exclusively on learning French. While I did do better this year in some ways, I suspect I’ll continue to learn this lesson. I have tried to improve at it by blending who I already am (a goal/metrics oriented dude) with the who I want to be (a person that is a good friend, deeply caring, generous, relational) by making a spreadsheet of people that I want to keep in touch with and a strategy for how to be better friends to them all. We’ll see if this works out.

- acknowledging and accepting the risks involved in a creative/entrepreneurial endeavour - I bought these vehicles to start these rental companies and it could have gone really smoothly and profitably. It didn’t - or, at least, it hasn’t thus far. And I got frustrated at times because of that. What I should have done was realised and accepted on the front end that I was signing up for both the potential upside and the potential downside of these endeavours. In the future, I need to acknowledge the potential downside/worst case scenario and decide if I’m okay with those outcomes first, before embarking on the journey.

- repetitive thinking - In relationships. In my obsessive workaholism. I need to learn how to recognise that I’m going in circles and stop the pattern.

4. How are you going to…

… do more of #2?

- light and tight feedback loop - doing it daily already. This has become a habit to the point where if I don’t do it for a few days, I start to feel uncomfortable/out of control. One of the things I’m trying to work into this, though, is expanding/exploring new things (which inevitably involves trial and not-immediately-productive error), while not letting go of the ‘do more of what works’ mindset as well. Which leads me to…

- revising/re-clarifying your timelines - this was something I did that ‘worked’ because I was better at it this year than I’d ever been, and something that ‘didn’t work’ because I still spent a solid chunk of my year feeling anxious and like I was failing, because I was working off of a timeline that was outdated/unreasonable, but that I was still holding myself to. I’m already making (reasonable) plans for Q1 & Q2 of 2019. And with my accountability partner, life coach, and counselor (geeze, how much of a head case do I sound like?) I suspect that I’ll continue to get better at constantly taking in the reality of my situation and updating my expectations/timeline accordingly.

- getting help - might hire another consultant of some kind this year. I’m also looking at people that are doing things that I want to do, but that are intimidatingly far along (i.e. Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund - a venture fund that funds companies that serve the poor) and seeing 1. what I could learn from them from afar and 2. how I could potentially learn from them from not-so-far by developing relationships with them.

- love without holding back - …though this feels ‘out of my control’ I actually could invest more time and energy into dating. It certainly has been worth it in the past - especially this year. Despite this real-world feedback I can’t get myself to do it. This disconnect between the potential rewards (massive) and the necessary investment (minimal, especially if you have clear standards and boundaries that you commit to) is one of the biggest things I’m doing ‘wrong’ in life, and something that I’ll hopefully address in 2019. It’s something I revisit on a weekly basis. If I meet someone by accident (which is what happened in 2018) I feel fairly confident that I’ll do well at this, while at the same time doing….

…less of #3?

- how to unplug from repetitive thoughts - practicing these boundaries in small ways with friends and family, and expecting that this practice will be applicable in romantic settings, if those opportunities are to arise again.

- not prioritising people - I am making ‘the people’ one of the top choices in picking a job for 2019.

- acknowledging and accepting the risks involved in a creative/entrepreneurial endeavour - I’ve factored in a monetary buffer for how much money I need to make this year in order to do the things I want…and I time buffer for how long both the money-making stuff and the creative/humanitarian things will take.

draft: 12/23/18

published: 12/24/18

time: 1 hr

photo: A perfect example of my time in Paris: I was looking for a place with a wifi connection and some peace and quiet. I accidentally (as in “went in the exit door instead of paying the entrance fee”) ended up in the Pantheon (google maps said there was I library there, I just figured it was one dang impressive library). Stuck around for 5 minutes. Nowhere to sit. Wifi non-existent. Library was across the street. Spent 3 hours there working on I can’t remember what.

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lukecmurray · 6 years

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2017 Review

After checking on on the halfway point of 2017 I haven’t done a full ‘analysis’ of that year…or even of a quarter, at least not publicly. One of the reasons is because my yearly reviews, as I wrote about in my last post, are ‘heavy’ and ‘loose’. So, they take a bunch of time, create an unmanageable amount of ‘things to change’, and subsequently result in not changing anything, which becomes depressing given the time invested and the number of things you were ‘supposed to do but didn’t’.

Writing this almost 12 month after I was ‘supposed to’ is interesting because I have the luxury of more distance, and thus being able to perhaps see more clearly what mattered and what was just noise. Also, since I have been in the habit, this year more than ever, of doing the exact opposite of this process (constantly making smaller, shorter term, iterative goals and reflections) I’m able to compare the processes.

I used to ask myself a whole bunch of questions, but I think this time, I’m going to stick with the same few questions upon reflection of the year that I asked upon the conclusion of each day in 2018. I’m also not going to pull up a bunch of data (on this first pass) and just keep my reflections, insights, and even analyses more visceral than quantitative.

Finally…I only gave myself a total of 20 minutes to do this (as opposed to the 10+ hours I’ve spent in previous years). So, with 14 more minutes left, here goes 2017…

Four questions:

1. What happened?

2. What worked?

3. What didn’t?

4. How are you going to do more of #2 and less of #3?

1. What happened?

I already wrote about what happened in the first half of 2017 in my review of that year, but thinking back now the things that stand out are: I went on a TON of ski vacations (more days than I have in all of my 20’s combined probably), tried to start a locums company platform (essentially a jobs board for traveling docs), and when I wasn’t doing either of those things I was working. Constantly.

In the second half of 2017, Q3 (July, August, September), I started learning french in preparation for applying to Doctors Without Borders, and I began working on the launch of a book….while working. Constantly.

In Q4, I published said book, and then put on a NYE party for 1,000 people in a castle outside of Lexington. It went well and aside from bringing my favorite people together, the best part was working with my little brother on the project.

2. What worked?

2017 was the best year of my life (which is a nice trend…because before it, 2016 held that honor). One high level theme that worked, and that I have seen work in other periods of my life, was the fact that I was making solid, consistent progress on getting out of medical school debt AND I was working on creative/entrepreneurial ventures at the same time.

Another one was doing things with people that I really liked. I put on North America’s longest stair climbing race with my friend Theresa Dawahare. I worked on the platform for traveling doctors with my friend Aalap. And, of course, the party with my brother Nick.

Finally - after almost 6 months of ‘trying to lock down a date’ I started consistent therapy. I’ve done this before in residency, but it wasn’t this consistent. This was and is my biggest regret in life - not starting something like this sooner. I’m still doing it today (and have doubled down on it, in many ways) and continue to agree with this statement.

3. What didn’t work?

While 2017 was the ‘best’ year of my life, it was also the loneliest. This was by design, obviously. I worked weeks in a row and didn’t make efforts to create a social circle in the towns that I worked (despite wonderful people being in those areas - hi Pikeville! ).

I also didn’t tackle the existential busyness that I always feel. I tend to fill that time with more projects, and I don’t think all this is wrong…but I could stand to get better at ‘standing still and doing nothing’. And also to invest in relationships (meaning - ‘hang out with people I like for no other reason than because I like them’)

4. How are you going to…

… do more of #2?

- Consistent progress + creative outlet —> The plan in 2018 was to continue working, to go hard at becoming fluent in French ASAP and then to apply to Doctors Without Borders as soon as I’m out of medical school debt. Which I did during the first half of 20183

- Projects with people I like —> got an accountability partner (hi Morgan!) and this was one of the best things I did in all of 2018. I failed to do this very well in some other areas...but am getting to know those people, too. I started a rental company (hi Fausto & Garrett - you guys are awesome!) and a consulting company (Matt, you rock!). But I spent much of the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2018 without close connections with people that I liked a bunch, and that made for even more loneliness than in 2017 (but more on that in the 2018 review).

…do less of #3

- loneliness - I got a girlfriend. That helped a lot. After we broke up, I went back to being ‘really busy’. That didn’t. But, again, reaching out to some of the guys mentioned above (specifically, Morgan & Matt) has remained a positive influence/helper of avoiding loneliness.

- less existential busyness - In 2018 I had 3 different ‘think days’ and a ‘think week’ where I forced myself to unplug and be alone, usually in the woods, doing nothing. These helped clear my head, and calm me down…and wrestle with being okay with not ‘doing something’ all the time. But this one could still stand some work on a day-to-day basis.

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draft: 12/23/18

published: 12/24/18

time spent: 32 minutes

picture: me and a group of my favorite people at the NYE Party my brother and I put on at the castle

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lukecmurray · 6 years

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The Most Important Thing I Did In 2018

Every January for the past 5 years my friends and I have been meeting to talk about our goals for the year and to review what worked in the year prior. The last question we ask ourselves is (stolen from the book “The One Thing”) is:

“What is the one thing that I could do, such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or irrelevant?”

For me, that answer has been a very simple one:

“Keep a light, tight feedback loop”

I wrote about this to my friend Seth here when he asked me about a system for keeping track of goals and what works best, but I’ll explain below how I’ve implemented this below...but first, let’s start with the opposite.

A “heavy” and “loose” feedback loop.

My tendency, when it comes to anything self improvement or reflection, is to do waaaay too much. As can be seen from my year reviews for the last few years (2016, 2015). The time spent on these (over 10 hours apiece) is what I mean when I say they are “heavy”.

The reason I spend all this time is because I have this perception that if I capture every single data point and every single lesson learned that I’ll be able to implement all of them and thus ‘fix’ as many of my problems as possible all at once.

It’s embarrassing to write that last sentence out. Because it very clearly shows the stupidity of my thought process.

What happens instead is I have a list of 97 pieces of ‘feedback’ that I of course cannot apply all at once. So the relationship between “amount of stuff to change” and “what I actually change” is….loose.

A “light” and “tight” feedback loop.

I used to get bogged down in data collection and analysis. I’d take my garmin exercise watch data and then spend 2 hours making my own formulas for a more personalised metric of my fitness progress. Now, on a daily basis and a weekly basis, I ask myself 3 questions.

a. What is working?

b. What is not working?

c. What am I going to to about the above?

Sometimes I write this down on my computer. Sometimes I write it in a journal. I try never to spend more than 5-10 minutes on it…keeping it light.

And guess what? I usually have no more than 2 or 3 things that come from that analysis, and I immediately plan that day around implementing them. Keeping the feedback and implementation loop tight.

I’ve done a lot of growing, learning, changing, and improving this year. But keeping the daily habit of this light, tight feedback loop has been keystone habit that has spawned it all.

Draft: 12/19/18

Published: 12/19/18

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lukecmurray · 7 years

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I Published A Book

Back in 2009 some friends and I started a tech incubator. We wanted to get other successful entrepreneurs in Kentucky to come down to our new business and advise both us and the companies in it. We had a hard time convincing them to take the time out of their obviously busy schedules to come down and visit us, so we created an organization called “The Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame” and invited them down to our office again, but this time they were invited as ‘inductees’ into the first class of this new institution. Understandably, they were skeptical, and we spent the better part of a year following up with many of them multiple times trying to convince them that this was “real” and that the event would be worth their time. At least this time they weren’t saying “no” right away.

With about a month remaining before the induction ceremony was scheduled to happen (and zero attendees confirmed to attend) we were ready to cancel the event...but we got one confirmed attendee, and then another two days later, and a third a few days after that. Within the final three weeks before the first ceremony we had over 75% of those invited agreeing to participate.

They came down to that same office we originally invited them to (dressed up as good as we could get it), accepted their award, and shared with us how they had achieved what we and our companies all hoped to accomplish.

That was eight years ago. Since then we’v inducted 33 of the most successful entrepreneurs in our state, launched a fellowship program for Kentucky entrepreneurs that has graduated 25 companies (who have raised millions in funding and employed hundreds of people), a web video series, and what started as a get together in our office has grown into a professionally produced event in some of the nicest venues in the state, with 300+ people in attendance.

But our goal is still the same today as it was when we first reached out: to get the most successful entrepreneurs in Kentucky to share with us and the rest of the state, how they succeeded at such a high level, and to honor them for their contributions to the economy of Kentucky.

To that end, starting in November of 2016, we started compiling the stories of the first five years of inductee classes (2010-2014) and last week (10/9/2017) they were finally published in the book Unbridled Spirit: Lessons in Life and Business from Kentucky’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs.

I had a great time helping write the book (the introduction and conclusion are uniquely mine) and learning about the process of publishing and marketing it in a professional and authentic way. I’m thankful to the friends, family and startup community in Kentucky that helped in the numerous parts of the process. We achieved Amazon bestseller status in a few different categories and have over 50 reviews, thanks to all their support.

I also, of course, was pleased with what these entrepreneurs had to share. I was surprised by several of their stories and entertained by all of them. Some of my favorites:

What Jim Host (Host Communications) did after going from having $1,800,000 to being in debt $560,000 in 1967 (inflation adjusted) when he was 28 years old. - page 50

The investment Bill Gatton (Bill Gatton Motors) made when he was 8 years old - page 192

What nine Harvard business professors told John Y. Brown Jr when he asked for advice about running KFC (hint: the conversation was short) - page 36

Here’s a link to the book’s introduction.

Here’s a link to chapter one from the book about John Y. Brown. He purchased KFC from the Colonel for $2million...and sold it 7 years later for $288million. He then went on to become governor of Kentucky.

Now that the ‘launch’ is over, I look forward to discovering the many ways in which these stories can reach the current and future business owners of Kentucky.

If you have any ideas, connections or current professional responsibilities that might be relevant to furthering that aim, please reach out to me at

luke at entrepreneurhof dot org

first draft: 10/14/17

posted: 10/14/17

image credits - wall: peter briggs, the rest: me

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lukecmurray · 7 years

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Project Launching Soon...Wanna Help?

I've been working on a creative project for the past year and it is just now entering its final stages. While I have 'marketed' and sold products in the past, this particular creation is something I've never done before and certainly have never tried to sell. I'm super excited about this and proud of the final product. I think it's going to be a really great experience for those interested in it.

If you'd like to know more about it and are interested in offering some advice or assistance, please email me at luke at lukemurray dot com.

I'll be sharing more about it in the next few weeks as the 'launch day' (October 9th) approaches.

first draft: 9/16/17

posted: 9/17/17

Image credit: Peter Briggs

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lukecmurray · 7 years

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2017 Review - Halftime!

Last year I spent an unreasonable amount of time going over 2016...thinking that if I lumped what was 10+ posts into one monster post without leaving any sections out it might somehow be shorter/take less time. It wasn’t, and it didn’t. This year I’m hoping to both cut that time down and get more out of the review by doing it throughout the year. You can’t internalize and implement nearly as many lessons when you do it over a several-day-long, multi-hour marathon as you can when you sit down every few weeks and bite off a smaller chunk of time. So, here’s what I’ve got for the first 6 months.

WHY?

Tighten my wisdom feedback loop...which results in

Make new/different mistakes

Get more accurate w/goals & expectations closer to reality without lowering my standards or ambitions.

Increase my ability to accomplish goals

To help others do the same.

To record things, so that I have a sense of having lived, of having “done things”, of having moved forward in my life.

WHAT DID I DO IN 2017?

lots of time w/friends then roadtrip to CO!

skied/snowboarded alone & with brother in Colorado, some of the best conditions of my life. life-long vacation dream.

jackson hole vacation with friends I haven’t skied with in almost 10 yrs

went to a ski resort industry conference

bucketlist summit main + a few others with friends + family

brother home from first deployment/SC get together

started monthly calls with by brothers

started calls to work on a book about entrepreneurs

purposefully did not try to track anything

worked 5 days

Awesome inc ski retreat -> ski with cousin Hank in Bend -> backcountry ski @soldier mountain with Josh -> ski @powder mountain -> ski at mt shasta (birthday!) -> ski @telluride with Marc Nager, met wolf girl

started medsecrets.org, went to AMSA, became friends with Shiv

worked 7 days

time with ale

tony robbins event -> got finances in order

finances & admin stuff, started helping aalap w/startup ideas

late march - decided to build locums company with aalap

worked 13 days

ale went home

started working pikeville -> gtown -> pikeville

helping aalap/signal health more & more, started good medicine

met andy/today’s color

met matt, confirmed castle for NYE, started scheming

met new friends @pikeville (i.e. Bill) great time with Dawahare’s

worked 27 days

baltimore airway course, got sick/crashed from no sleep

dinner with steph w., bryce, mom, freeda dinner party with docs

thought of 99 Squared event

good medicine recruiting

worked 26 days

week at bourbon

quit locums as a company, aalap moved on to digitized POC

re-focused to MSF/loan repayment

99squared prep & competition & followup

Ben S. married!

bucketlist halftime lunch

worked 23 days

BEST AND WORST OF 2017

BEST

all the fun I had - skiing, the castle, bucketlist

the lessons i learned - job competency, how to refocus

WORST

not pulling myself out of the habits rut for three months

HABITS ANALYSIS

Not going to touch this because I did so few of them. No reason to change any of them now, although I’ll probably add ‘learning french’ on there soon. I am doing well with and benefitting significantly from meditating often.

THEMES ANALYSIS

I have Love, Unplug, Be A Giver, on my dog tags in addition to 80% coach.me checkins. I think the big takeaway for the next six months is that doing my habits in the ONLY statistic that matters, because if I crush it with them then all these other things happen.

CORE VALUES

I don’t think about these nearly enough, either.

first draft: 7/10/17

posted: 7/10/17

time: 5:12pm

image credit: me & my buddy matt hogg...we went surfing at pine tree beach this morning

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lukecmurray · 7 years

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How To Be Invincible

You know that scene in Fight Club where Tyler Durden is getting his face pummeled but he’s laughing uncontrollably at the same time? Who’s winning in that moment? Technically, it’s the guy on top, doing the pummeling, but psychologically, it’s definitely Tyler.

Invincibility isn’t winning constantly. It’s not everything going right. It’s the ability to laugh in the face of whatever’s going wrong. Even if what’s going wrong is your face getting pummeled.

I got my RV towed today. Fourth time this year. The tow truck was three hours late. And it was too big for my rig, so I had to wait (another two hours) for a different truck. It’s going back to the RV shop for a problem I’ve asked them to fix at least three times and have spent a few thousand dollars on.

This situation could have been frustrating, but for some reason, I stopped long enough to realize that I could choose how to react here. I chose to laugh. With Tony the hospital security guard that keeps an eye on Freeda while she’s chilling in the parking lot. With Glenn, tow truck driver #1, about how much he loved the motorcycle he had to give up because of his wife’s back surgery. With Dave, tow truck driver #2, who totally didn’t understand a word I was saying about the new Brain Machine Interface company Elon Musk is starting.

I felt invincible.

And then I realized that there’s no reason I couldn’t just choose to feel this way in every situation, especially the ones where I’m tempted to get frustrated or lose my cool. Because those are the moments in life where you can truly demonstrate invincibility.

Being happy because you found a parking spot near the door or you had an easy day at work or the sun is shining outside is such a fragile set of circumstances upon which to base your mood. I’m going to work on being invincible instead.

first draft: 4/23/17

posted: 5/19/17

time: 8:35pm

image credit: me

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lukecmurray · 7 years

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What I Learned From Tony Robbins's "Unleash The Power Within” Event...And Why I Walked Out Anyway

I know that I want to spend a good chunk of my life encouraging and assisting others in accomplishing their goals, especially those groups with whom I have some common ground (i.e doctors, endurance athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians, etc). Actually, when someone asks me what I want to do professionally, I say I want to be a 'Tony Robbins for med students'. And while I've read a bunch of books about personal development, including many of his, I've never actually been to a Tony Robbins event.

Then I saw I Am Not Your gGuru, a Netflix documentary that takes you inside one of Tony's week-long events (Date With Destiny). I was so floored that I booked a ticket to a four day event (Unleash The Power Within) as the films ending credits rolled.

And after the first day, I decided I'm not going back.

I want to clarify why, and to make tangible what I've accomplished instead of going to the last three days, but first, here's what I took from the first day.

1. Your 'state' is everything, and it's within your control pretty much all the time.

I have countless examples of this in my life, and they all go something like this: There's something I don't want to do, but then I take a nap/shower/exercise/meditate/eat and BOOM, I'm ready and I crush the task both pleasurably and easily. During the event we spent a LOT of time (I'd easily say 25% of the 12 hours I was there) working on our state by what we did with our bodies. That is to say, we danced and clapped and rubbed the shoulders of our neighbors a lot. Besides moving, resting, or fueling your body (our physiology) the other two ways we change our state are by what we focus on and the language we use to describe things ("this situation is terrible" vs "this situation is interesting").

2. Your perceived limits are based on beliefs you have, which might be build upon inaccurate data. They can be changed - both by focusing on past events and building upon future ones.

There are things I tell myself that hold me back and I believe them because I tie them to 'reference experiences' that "prove" to me that this belief about reality is accurate. A good one for me is my ability to focus, to push past mental distractions for long periods of time. I believe this because I have been diagnosed with ADHD by a professional psychologist, I did poorly in medical school, I have been told by others "do you have ADHD or something?". So, whenever I get distracted or tempted to distraction, I give up or give in by telling myself "I can't push myself past this mental fatigue barrier." Acting on this belief (giving in to whatever distraction) also strengthens my "proof" that it is "true".

But there are other times in my life when I can point to incredible amounts of mental and physical endurance that would disprove this "fact". I ran an ironman. I've worked 15 hr days in a row selling books. Some of the days I studied in medical school I stayed extremely engaged and focused for long periods (12+ hrs). So what about those? They should at least cause me to question this "truth" about myself.

But this begs the question: if I could have used evidence from real past experiences to justify belief A) "I can't focus for long periods of time, so I should probably quit when I get tired" or B) "I can focus for long periods of time, so I always try to push myself farther when I get tired" why did I choose the one that has the more negative consequences in my life? Two reasons.

The first is that it meets my needs. There are six of them, which I talk about in detail in a different post about how I implemented other lessons from Tony to quit being addicted to my email inbox, but the first one is certainty that you will avoid pain or gain pleasure. In this case, the belief that I can't focus helps me do both. I can experience the pleasure of doing something other than studying/focusing and avoid the pain of either the mentally strenuous activity or the failure to stay focused and ultimately getting distracted.

The second is that the negative events that I use to 'justify' the "I can't" belief were more emotionally powerful. Each bad test grade I got in medical school took something out of me. I got reviews from other physicians on medical school rotations that said "significantly behind his peers". The psychologist that diagnosed me, after spending an hour listening to my story, told me "You're either going to do really well or you're going to totally flame out in life". My parents have told me time and time again in a variety of settings since I was in 7th grade that I need to 'focus more'. So I've associated each of my failures to the cause of 'not being able to focus'. Successes were fewer and further between and not as powerful...and, as I mentioned, implied that I would need to push harder, which is much less comfortable than going and doing something more fun.

3. I already know what I need to do.

Have you ever been to a sermon or heard a TED talk whose ultimate message was "you should love people" and walked away blown away? You're floored about how powerful this insight has hit you, and then, an hour later, you realize: "Wait a minute. I already knew that. Actually, I've known that my entire life!" Well, that's how I felt. Totally floored by the message about how important the fundamentals were. Fundamentals with which I was already deeply familiar.

So why did I leave?

Because my heart told me to - There was a moment in the event where Tony was talking about how to deal with anxiety. He took us through a meditation exercise where we put our hand over our hearts and led us through conscious breathing, connecting with ourselves, etc. until he ultimately ended with "What thing in your life is causing you the most anxiety? The answer to solving it is deep in your heart. You just have to listen to it. So do it. Finish this statement from deep inside your heart: I know what I need to do make this anxiety go away, to totally change my life, and that thing is ____"

My answer "...leave."

So I did.

I realized that I 'got it'. I didn't need more information (and if I ever wanted it, I could save myself three days and could read through the booklet he gave us in a couple hours). I need to apply it. I walked on fire that night, which I was glad to say I did, but was pretty anti-climactic (which, in retrospect, I should have realized - you can't have 9,000 people do something that's actually risky), then ran for two miles through downtown LA at 1am to my cockroach-infested motel room...and woke up the next morning ready to crush it.

And what did I do instead?

I worked harder and for longer in a row than I had in months. I spent well over 10 hours each day getting my personal and business finances more in order than they ever have been. I finished a 30 blog post writing project that has been in limbo for over a year. I finished a writeup of a medical device patent I've had in my head for four months. I finished a business plan and set up a meeting for a company that will consist of me doing adventures with interesting people. Wrote the website copy for a new kind of medical staffing company. Had breakfast with a dear friend in LA that helped me through one of the more difficult times of my life, and a double date with one of my closest friends and his soon-to-be fiance.

I'm sure I would have learned a lot from three more days of Tony, but the ultimate takeaway was that I didn't need more knowledge. I needed to double down on the fundamentals I already knew to be true, and Tony hit me with that truth hard enough in the first day that I don't regret spending the next three days executing on it.

**Huge thank you to my friend Noah Kagan for writing about his experience at this same event (which he also walked out on). If I had not read his post before attending I don't know if I would have had the courage to listen closely to the deepest truth inside of me about staying vs. leaving. I appreciate your honesty about it PIIIIIIIIIIIIIMP!!!!

3/25/17 11:28 am-1153am

3/27/17 1121 AM...

3/28/17 6:19pm...

total time? at least 1 hr

published: 3/29/17

image credit: the lady next to me at the conference (go Tammy!)

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lukecmurray · 7 years

Note

if the quality of your feelings is determined by the quality of your thoughts, why don't people discipline themselves to think rightly? Justin Bieber found the physical and mental high you get when contemplating and glorifying God through action. Whether or not God is real is irrelevant. The high is real.

Hey Anonymous,

I responded to this question in a blog post about a year ago. Hope you feel it’s relevant, and thanks for the prompt.

http://lukecmurray.tumblr.com/post/143429690092/question-from-a-reader-why-i-write

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lukecmurray · 8 years

Text

2016 Review

Last year I spent several days (and well over a dozen hours) reviewing 2015. This is a drastic improvement from 2006, when I spent several months reviewing the previous year. But still, the process could be improved. So, I spent about a half-dozen hours going over my process (see my previous post for lessons learned from that) and am going to hopefully finish reviewing 2016 in just a couple of hours. This will be a beast of a post, but should only be a single post. Here’s the structure I’ll use.

Why am I doing this?

Already did this last year, will just revisit and revise it for this year.

What did i do?

The highlights of what happened in each month, plus how many total checkins I had that month and lessons learned.

Best and worst things that happened.

Will likely be pulled from the above list.

Habits analysis

How much progress did I make with each habit?

Is it still a good habit? (keep/toss/change?)

What are the biggest barriers to crushing it and ideas to overcome those barriers?

Themes analysis

Love

Unplug

Core values

How well did I live them?

Expected vs. Actual

What things did I want to get done, vs. what did I actually get done?

WHY AM I DOING THIS

Last year, I clarified the reasons I spend several hours (and even days) at the beginning of each year going over the previous year in nauseating detail:

Make new/different mistakes

Get more accurate w/goals vs. reality. Get my expectations closer to reality, without lowering my standards or ambitions.

Increase my ability to accomplish goals

To record things, so that I have a sense of having lived, of having “done things”, of having moved forward in my life.

I would still consider these to be accurate, but I would summarize the first three by saying this:

"I do these yearly reviews to tighten my 'wisdom feedback loop'."

I wrote about what the 'unlived life within us' means to me: Decreased clutter and increased clarity. This, I think, is the essence of what wisdom in action looks like. So if I'm a) always making new and mistakes instead of old ones b) shrinking the gap between my expectations/plans and my reality, while c) increasing the difficulty of tasks to which I aspire, then I'm increasing my velocity towards becoming my definition of 'wisdom in action'. Or, tightening the wisdom feedback loop.

I also want to add another reason for doing this: To help others accomplish the same things.

I don't mean that they will have the same goals, but if they have the same reasons, I can help them. I've done this process in increasingly less wrong ways every year since I was 18. And each 'less wrong' process makes me that much more valuable to people that are trying to do the same.

Also, I mean this in both a virtual and physical capacity. Nobody reads this blog, so I don't expect that I'll be able to help lots of folks virtually in January 2017, but perhaps months or years from now people may discover it and use it to improve their own process for self improvement. I'm sitting next to my good friend Mike (pictured above) and he interrupts me every few minutes to ask about how I do x, y, or z and my advice to him is always based in personal experience...based on a lot of wrong ways that I've done these reviews over the years. Hopefully I can help facilitate more of these in-person sessions and be valuable because of the work I've put in for the past 15 years.

WHAT DID I DO IN 2016?

tried to get into car flipping

got ATLS certified

almost got a job in Owenton ER

broke up a fight in the middle of the street

BL summit

failed to get an in-person personal assistant onboarded

lived in Vegas: iora, boosted board adventures, time w/cousin’s fam

INSIGHTS - this was one of my best months ever and i didn’t bring my cell phone to vegas at all and I stopped at 7pm sharp every day.

clinic, then chief on service

INSIGHTS

I wrote about being worried to hit a burnout wall after my great January month, and this is what I wrote in the second week of feb "I did hit that wall (screwed around for 2 hrs on thursday PM)...but then recovered and have done okay since, and in the grand scheme of things, that's AMAZING for me (only screwing around for 2 hrs)." That's how in the zone I was - I complained about 2 hrs.

i turned down a lot of things to stay in the zone - ski weekends, a wedding in Oregon

After one of my best weeks ever in the history of recording checkins: "Why?It wasn't trying harder. It was saying no, keeping my head clear, and getting up really early to knock out all the stuff that I'd usually put off until the end of the day. It feels like a miracle, like I'm a new person. It gives me an insane amount of confidence...So remarkable that the true answer to how to make such dramatic change is basically: do less, say no, cut out the BS...if you do that, all you should be left with is your own voice, and it's plenty wise enough."

chief on service, then clinic

called friends in the evening for awhile

Michelle got sick

Annabelle was born

AMSA speech: Med Students & Adversity

Fancy Nick engagement party #1

INSIGHTS - was getting up at 5am in feb, this got thrown off by a couple days worth of surprises and never recovered.

Derm rotation, became great friends with Dr. Tobin

last night with Nick as roomate

Nick bachelor party

Nick getting married

took FM boards

delivered baby

South Africa...which included

time in the hospital

going to mosque, buying Quran, time with Uncle

cape point sunset

getting lost on table mountain

run through newlands forrest

robben island/nelson mandela jail cell

rondebosch garden

hiked lionshead

bungee jumped world’s highest

ostrich farm

snowboarded (indoors)

met some cool girls & camped at storms river

INSIGHTS

last year i spent a month abroad and totally fell off the wagon...did incredible by comparison this time. learned from last time.

recording what i did each day really added significantly to the richness of that experience it, because i get to re-experience those memories

Geriatrics, then clinic

Meacham

double date with Dr. Tobin

passed boards

did graduation roast speech, and tried to get drunk

started working out consistently b/c elevated BF % s/p Africa

got UK job

Florida trip to negotiate with landlord

Dale Hollow houseboat trip with Amy’s family

moved into RV, LOTS of time working on it & hosting friends in it

Samuel helped work on the RV, became my friend

family trip down in GA

marriages: Emily Wehrley. Stu Brenner.

INSIGHTS

friends went on a surfing trip to charleston and i turned it down, hard to do, glad i did

“#1 HAVING A MORNING ROUTINE THAT KNOCKS OUT A BIG CHUNK OF THESE <habits> GUARANTEED....I'M JUST TOO ANXIOUS TO INVEST THIS TIME IN THE AM...BUT THAT'S WHAT I SAID IN MEDICAL SCHOOL THAT KEPT ME OUT OF THE GYM FOR YEARS. Wow, i really need to work on controlling anxiety/pressure in the moment.”

went low carb

worked on RV, RV expo

trip to Charleston b/c friend got sick, surfed

started my autobiography

scanned all family photo albums

visited all my old friends

GA visit b/c Melissa back from deployment

Pa visit x 1 wk

INSIGHTS

While in Charleston “it's REALLY hard to steer when you feel pulled all over the place by circumstances. but the consequences of ignoring those circumstances and plowing through are mostly illusory...i could only stop by <the hospital> for one hour 3 times per day and that would be PLENTY of visiting time. i could then spend the rest of the day working by myself”

While scanning photos “why do i feel behind? b/c I am compared to the schedule i made for myself at the beginning of the year. pretty silly to be operating off of a plan you made 6 months ago.”

time with family/grandparents in OR + coast...SUPER quality time

surfing in OR

writing autobio

Spout Springs visit

credentialing for job

pendelton roundup, deck with dad, Bethany visit

garrett NYC proposal trip + Adeel + Chris Salotta visit

INSIGHT

time with gparents was some of the best & most important things I did all year

best month of checkins in ever (4 yrs!!)...not sure why

freaked out about every friend i have getting married/engaged. changed my priority to emotionally fulfilling hangouts instead of caring about ‘romantic relationships’

installed solar panels

autoB progress

started talking/helping Aalap with SignalHealth - DC conference

Such family camping trip

started Curt book

first shift at UK as employee

surf trip to SC with Raney’s

job apps

moved into jenna’s

comedy club with dr tobin

long weekend with DP & friends

ehof - board meeting, event

accomplished my NY resolution!

G life transition meetings

job apps

started Murray Medical, LLC

hurt myself w/flag football

confirmed BIAB project/EHOF book

global entrep week

alejandra x 1 wk, visited everywhere + beaufort

such appreciation dinner

started work at KDMC

INSIGHT

after an 80 checkin week “best week i've ever had in my life. a LOT of it was about saying no to the camping trip this weekend. that was hard, but i'm proud of myself for doing it. also got to practice not feeling sorry for myself by wishing i was somewhere else.”

worked every day at KDMC

Freeda adventures/challenges

brought back 2 people from codes

ski trip with friends at PNS

INSIGHT

Working 34 days in a row was awesome because it created a routine that allowed me to consistently do lots of things (besides work) and improve at a much faster pace in my medical skills & knowledge.

BEST AND WORST OF 2016

BEST

finishing residency & passing boards

not getting a job - was scary, but this provided me the freedom to do lots of other 'life list' important things

having one metric that mattered and tracking that only - doubled down on using coach.me and accomplished my NY resolution for the first time in my life

also...

gave med student adversity speech

Annabelle was born

nick marriage/end of a great roomate run

south africa month

RV - doing what i said

quality time - vegas, grandparents, parents, friends, surfing

WORST

I didn't grow in my romantic relationships as much as i did in 2015 - In 2015 i grew a lot by having the goal to be "terrifyingly honest" in relationships. I didn't push myself to that standard this year and stagnated as a result.

also...

things took longer than I thought - but that was good lesson to learn because it forced me to accept and live by realistic timelines, and because i didn't have a job I could follow all the way through on my plans

RV was more work than expected (example of above) - i first was glad that i spent time getting to know the RV and how to fix things, but i got to the point where i don't care to 'learn' more, i'd rather spend that time being a doctor and use the money made to pay a professional.

i got broke - i coasted on credit cards in the interim between residency and starting a job and got pretty close to 100% broke - but this was also a lesson that was important. things cost more money than you expect and if they are really priorities, then you've got to pay the price, in both time and money.

HABITS ANALYSIS

In my recent post “My Goals for 2017″ I said:

“Last year my goal was to check in to more daily habits on coach.me. And I crushed it. And it had the ripple effect of me crushing a bunch of other areas of my life...when using the 'total number of checkins metric’ I improved 107% since last year and 60% over my best year ever (2013).”

This was the only metric that I tracked week over week. And because of that, for the first time ever, I consistently did week reviews where I knew how far ahead or behind I was from my overall goal (eg on July 1, I should have 1,000 checkins for the year, if I had 1,100 at that point, I would note that I was 10% ahead of schedule). Making this the only metric that I tracked had a positive affect on lots of the parts of my life - most obviously, on each of the areas the specific habit addressed.

So, now I’m going to take each goal and ask:

How much progress did I make?

Is it still a good habit? (keep/toss/change?)

What are the biggest barriers to crushing it and ideas to overcome those barriers?

progress vs 2015: 272 checkins vs 117 checkins. 132% improvement.

I didn't feel like i was growing in this in 2015. I was doing it but didn't feel more calm/mindful throughout the day, which is the whole point. Late this year I downloaded several meditation apps and HeadSpace stood out as far and away the best one. I've spent at least $100 total at this point and I really am growing in this super important area. I catch myself (the most important part) getting anxious, frustrated, distracted, etc. and then use the techniques I've learned from this app to get back to calm. Probably the best money I spent all year in terms of its return on my health.

keep/toss/change: definitely keep, continue progress with headspace app

barriers: just making the time, but i'm at a point where i like this enough that it doesn't take discipline. sometimes i do it when i'm tired and don't get much out of it. On those days I should consider doing it twice - the second time when I'm not exhausted.

progress vs 2015: 233 checkins vs 111 checkins. 110% improvement

In 2015 wrote about wanting to feel clear-headed after walking away from a session of reviewing goals & 'visioncasting' and i didn't have a good process for it at the time. Surprising to see that this was still an issue as of the end of 2016. i came up with a system just a couple days ago that will hopefully help with this and i think the reason this will work is because of my improved mental condition/focusing of the mind that came from meditating. Glad to see how long this problem has existed. Should motivate me to solve it this year.

keep/toss/change: keep it as a goal, but changed it as noted above to have some structure

barriers: lack of clarity - which I have now

progress vs 2015: 138 checkins vs 77 checkins. 78% improvement

Posted 60+ things this year, (< 30 last year), did much better, big realization is that this was streaky. Another great example of being able to keep consistent tabs on something because you kept all your data collection in one place (I kept track of all my writing progress on coach.me, including using the notes section to keep track of when I posted stuff).

keep/toss/change: I would like to actually start sharing my content somehow. This probably means fiddling with marketing, setting some goals about viewership, but I feel like this might do two negative things: 1. scare me off from writing and 2. change what/how I write. So will probably at least track viewership or something.

barriers: none for posting on this blog. Barriers to working on larger projects (book, etc.) are the same that used to (and sometimes still do) keep me from publishing on this blog. Namely: fear. I think the answer for that is writing with friends. Going to try to schedule writing hangouts, even if only brief ones.

progress vs 2015: 210 checkins vs 80 checkins. 163 % improvement

Goal last year was 200, actual was 80. this year i didn't have a goal but hit 210. Hell. Yes! Big realization here was starting with one small thing at a time. I went on a streak from august where I added one new thing to my physical health regimen each month, and kept it going consistently until late november, when I got injured playing football, then had a friend visit from out of town for a week, then went on a 34-day straight work assignment away from home. I took January off (though I still had 4 checkins that month + 8 days of skiing, vs my monthly average of 6.7 in 2015) and have been on track 100% thus far this month.

keep/toss/change: change to one small thing I'm doing that month to improve my health. Keep track of it in the notes of exercise.

barriers: injury (don't play football!). Simplicity/low bar - adding one small thing per month put me on course to have the best 4 months of physical health progress in years...maybe ever.

progress vs 2015: 153 checkins vs 56 checkins. 173% improvement.

This is a keystone habit. If I do this then everything else goes better. I realized this last year and wrote about how important it was. This year I had the second highest amount of improvement of all my habits (except for eat the frog, which was 193% improvement). I’m super proud of myself for making such amazing progress on this...but it still is the 9th most checked into habit out of 12. As one of the most important habits it should be one of the most checked into.

keep/toss/change: keep - and double down on it! again!

barriers: Make sure to identify it when planning the day and checking it off when you do it, even if it’s not a specific action (e.g. if you stayed calm all day).

progress vs 2015: 51 checkins vs 82 checkins. -38 % decrease

I don't have this anymore....but the bigger lesson here is 'what's the thing that causes the background static/stress in your life and what's your process for getting rid of it or ignoring it?'

keep/toss/change: already tossed it, but getting out of my email inbox is my #1 goal for Q1 of 2017 and I'm well on my way. Also, to get rid of the static - my visioncasting format really is helpful in clearing my head to do this.

barriers: I'm addicted to my email inbox. Need to CREATE barriers (and an alternative outlet) to keep me out of it.

progress vs 2015: 113 checkins vs 83 checkins. 36% improvement

i crushed the boards, studying 37 days before taking it (about 83 times the year before total). Totally didn’t deserve that. So no clue what happened there. Then i got a bit lost on what 'studying' made sense. i started with reading a book summary every day, which felt like i was accomplishing something, but none of the content really stuck, even when i reviewed my highlights on the weekends. then changed to tax books, which was awesome bc i wanted to learn that stuff. i still need to nail down what this means and then pick a bite-sized way to chip at it. I also expect this to change often. I kept track of actual studying vs expected for awhile, which was motivational, as was just hearing that another resident friend of mine was working her ass off. Just hearing her say that she studied 2 hrs per day in addition to her residency duties lit a fire under me.

keep/toss/change: change continually, should be part of planning my day

barriers: lack of clarity on what this means, get rid of it by deciding what it means when i plan my day

progress vs 2015: 348 checkins vs 183 checkins. 90% improvement

Went OFF on this. not sure why other than that it's something you can get away with skipping a day here and there and still check in later. also stopped rating the days - not sure why i did this, other than i couldn't put a number when i tried to think of it. hopefully this is a reflection of an improved attitude and a better acceptance of my life, along with less judgement, which I wrote about on my birthday.

keep/toss/change: keep, might revitalize the 'today' project, because when I read through my summaries of each day they spark certain memories...but a photo does that so much better.

barriers: none...but might be if I start expecting myself to take a picture.

progress vs 2015: 252 checkins vs 145 checkins. 74% improvement

i've ended up doing this during my 'think about goals' time, which is not when it's supposed to happen. but everything i wrote about this goal last year, applies to this year

“I’m afraid to do this sometimes, especially if i’m not in bed on time & am tired….because i have to come to terms with all the things i will not get to do tomorrow. But then i end up just feeling sad and like “damn, tomorrow’s going to really suck because i won’t be able to get everything done that i want, and i’m bummed that i didn’t get what i wanted to get done today, too.” Wow, writing that. What a crummy/unintelligent strategy for ending your day. I HAVE to stop with energy/motivation in the tank so I’ll have the willpower left to accept what has happened that day & decide what i’m going to do the next day…because when I do do this, it really does feel mentally freeing & motivating for getting up in the morning…i literally don’t want to wake up in the morning when I haven’t done this because I just have this ball of vague stress to great me that I feel: “Well, not sure what all this stuff is that i need to do but i know that i’m not going to be able to get as much of it done as i want to and even what i decide to work on i probably won’t get finished which is going to give me a feeling of being even more 'behind’…so yeah - not pumped about this day”. What a terrible cycle of not-awesome! Glad I articulated the concept of paying the opportunity cost of planning up front.”

This even happened during my 6 months off, or on days i was truly supposed to be 'on vacation'. the idea of 'i don't want to wake up tomorrow'. That was a big surprise because i thought it was because of my job. It turns out it was totally because of my attitude - which was affected by my expectations (pay opportunity cost up front) and my energy. I need to manage both of those.

keep/toss/change: keep, but try not to do it until AFTER you've meditated and taken a high level view of your life (visioncasting/reviewing goals) so that you have the right mindset when planning the day.

barriers: my attitude at the end of the day. not wanting to wake up, addressed above.

progress vs 2015: 126 checkins vs 43 checkins. 193% improvement

This was one of the top two most important things on my list to improve from last year...and I did it! This was the most improvement of any of my goals. However, I still have lots of room to get better at this, as it was only the 9th most checked into goal I had.

keep/toss/change: keep. duh.

barriers: just having the courage to identify it when planning the day, and then checking it off at the end of the day.

progress vs 2015: 45 checkins vs 18 checkins. 150% improvement

These were too long and I didn’t have a central place to put them. I changed it and put EVERYTHING in my notes instead of on a spreadsheet or somewhere else and that 100% solved the problem. It kept me keeping track of my progress throughout the year. This little checkin session helped recalibrate me and actually fed my feedback loop.

keep/toss/change: change to track my 4 goals for the year.

barriers: none. just keep the time expectation down at 10min.

progress vs 2015: 130 checkins vs 68 checkins. 91% improvement

This is a goal that sneaks up on you because the problem is pretty much never solved (my back hurts every day and every night). In retrospect I had an amazing year with it. I was able to sleep on my back for a couple nights in South Africa, was able to stand for significant amounts of time without significant pain, and even let myself be active (i.e. sprinting) to push the boundaries of what’s possible for my back.

keep/toss/change: change by continuing to try new methods and seeing what works

barriers: this is all about minimal time commitment (5-10 min) and building from there, because some of the stretches feel SO GOOD that once I do a few of them I get more into it.

THEMES ANALYSIS

Love

I didn't set the standard of being “terrifyingling honest” so I didn’t get out of (or into situations) fast enough, or at all.

I also had a breakdown when a bunch of friends got married on the same weekend (felt like I was ‘alone’ or doing something wrong) & redefined what this meant. Ultimately, I’m not worried or ‘empty’ because I’m missing out on physical intimacy, what I’m missing is emotional connection, or interactions that fill my emotional tank. So now that’s what I’m doing - focusing on those kinds of interactions, and turning down ones that are anything less than 8/10 in this respect.

Also, part of this is giving/being selfless and it motivated my goal for this year.

Unplug

I spent time at the cabin and other time just alone, and it was good. Read Deep Work twice. Probably could have said 'no' a little bit more often, especially near the end of the year. Am realizing more and more that this is the ‘answer’ in so many ways.

CORE VALUES

This is the third year I’ve tried to systematically focus on one core value per week. I didn't do this consistently. I want to give up on it...but so did Ben Franklin. I now have it in my daily visioncasting so I think I'm okay with that.

EXPECTED VS ACTUAL

At the beginning of the year I listed out what I wanted to happen week to week all year long. It stressed me out once I fell behind this, and I wanted to somehow keep an updated sense of how many iterations happened and what changes were made. I quickly found that keeping track of the iterations was a huge hassle. So this year I’m just trying to book out my calendar really far in advance and chunk it at a high level (i.e. this week I had off and just blocked off “finances/admin” for the week).

I’ll publish my ‘takeaways’ from this review, as well as things to do differently in 2017 in a later post.

First Draft: 1/21/17

Published: 3/21/17

Time: 20+ hrs

Image Credit: me, and my buddy Mike Leek

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