Personal Development

I wrote a piece back at the start of the year called 10 Choices For a Better Future that was largely focused on behaviorally based choices, I now realize. Just to be clear there is no big plan here I just write this stuff when I’m thinking about it and have time and have some motivation. And in discussing this with someone I occasionally mentor recently (okay a couple months ago) I realized that while that list was good from a choosing how to behave daily standpoint (which is what I writing it for) it didn’t really provide any thinking how to make choices about your life, and that’s a problem because you could apply everything in that piece and still make stupid unguided choices. ...

I’m not a fan of traditional New Years Resolutions, as I wrote about here, but as we started 2026 I wanted to think even a bit more differently about the problem of improvement. First, I don’t think anyone can know what the future holds - and anyone saying they do know, is lying or delusional or both. And while there may be things that make sense to do now (and you should therefore do them) they won’t necessarily makes sense in six or eight months. So I don’t really think we should be building plans around the fact that it just happens to be January 1st any more than we should around March 8th or June 17th or August 22nd or any other random day. Further, I didn’t want to set a simple achievable goal because simple achievable goals don’t have staying power - they won’t usually be powering you years down the road. I wanted to create something that could be applicable forever (in theory) and wasn’t situation dependent, since I don’t know what the future holds. ...

I used to have a monthly Gogo Wifi subscription. Then I got rid of it. Flying is better for me now, it’s more beneficial because it helps me to focus. Not long ago I realized that Delta offered free wifi for messaging (iMessage, WhatsApp, etc.) Awesome. Now I can stay in contact but not get sucked into Apps and Internet world. I wish American offered this, but they don’t - so choose Delta if it’s an option. ...

If you don’t “do” New Year’s resolutions or they work for you or really for any other reason this doesn’t apply to you, please ignore it. This year skip your New Year’s resolution and make a January 31-Day Resolution, you are much more likely to keep that resolution and positively impact your life. And make it a real resolution — something both measurable and achievable. Cannot Measure vs Can Measure You cannot measure success against “losing weight”, “eating healthier”, “drinking less”, “liking your job”, “being a better friend”, etc. You can measure “lose 5 pounds”, “don’t eat processed foods”, “no more than 3 drinks a week”, “apply to three jobs a week”, “call someone you haven’t talked to in 3 months each week” etc. If you cannot measure your goal you cannot know if you are achieving your goal — i.e., it will be just a crap shoot hoping for the outcome you desire. ...

Since it is the start of December we’re now down to one month left to accomplish this year’s goals and set some goals for next year…for a lot of people those goals include getting some big projects done, and one of the reasons we fail to accomplish a lot of our big projects is because we aren’t in the right state to do deep work. Deep Work I only came across this NPR podcast (worth the 40 minutes to listen to) from July the other day and found it very interesting, in light of the need many of us have to find ways to be more effective. I see people complaining about their procrastination problem. (And no, you probably don’t have ADHD - not even “a little bit” - but if you think you legitimately might have ADHD then find a good psychiatrist and schedule an appointment.) Our world is becoming full of distractions and that is taking away from our ability to really focus and do deep work. ...