Looking back to look ahead: 2019
When you don’t write your 2018 year-end review in time
Last year started with a challenge. Sitting around a table in a dimly lit restaurant amongst friends, one gleefully made public the fact that my gut was sagging out of my shirt.
I was wearing a dark shirt. When lighting and color are no longer your ally, it’s time to lose weight. I was 91.5 kgs (201 lbs). My friend promptly issued a challenge/bet — lose 10 kgs in one year (and win 5,000 baht ~ 150 usd) or pay a fine.
While others have shed much more weight, ten kilos (22 lbs) was a big deal for me. It meant more meats/veggies and less carbs/sugars, lots of powerlifting and cardio, but the clincher was intermittent fasting. Not to turn this post into the nuances of fasting, for me it meant no eating after 4:00pm, which implies no late night snacking — that was tough. But it works. You retain muscle mass and you have energy to spare.
Upon reflection, more interesting to me was the various aspects of goal setting:
Make it public: The challenge was issued in a public setting and I doubled down and posted on my facebook page. Decades of goal-setting research supports this. Pride, face, social reputation — all of that is on the line.
Challenging, yet doable: I have never lost 10 kgs before. At most I’d lost 3–4 kgs. 10 kgs in twelve months, I thought was challenging enough for me. Also supported by goal-setting research.
Loss aversion: Borrowing from behavioral economics, the prospects of losing 5,000 baht was unexpectedly an effective motivator throughout the year.
Consequences: Related to loss aversion, it has to be an amount that is substantial enough to hurt. This is inspired by Jim Collins’ catalytic mechanisms.
Of course there are other aspects to the goal setting process that helped: meaning (health is important, not to mention self-esteem), feedback (got on the scale every morning).
Best Decisions
Last year also represented the first time (in five years) I felt I made actual progress in learning to program. It’s something I had been wanting to do since 2013 and had mistakenly thought I could do the “self-taught” route. While there is probably no better time to be a self-taught programmer, with the abundance of resources available. It just wasn’t a fit for me. I needed something with more structure.
Taking the plunge and signing up for Lambda School was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Freelancing Context
In addition to web development, I wanted to brush up on my statistics while learning R — an open source, free software for statistical computing. Fortunately, I was able to get a freelance project that enabled me to do this. I wrote about it here.
I love freelancing.
There’s an aspect about freelancing that I don’t think gets enough coverage. A different aspect of my personality comes out in this context. What does that mean?
It’s similar to being bi-cultural. I’m a Thai national, but culturally Western. I’m fluent in both languages, but English is my native tongue. I’m literally a different person in western / international contexts. My personality is different, my voice is different, my identity is different.
What I learned in 2018 is that my personality in a corporate context (where i’m an employee) versus a freelance context (where i’m self-employed) is fundamentally different — as if those two contexts represent different cultures. In a corporate context i’m more เกรงใจ (which means considerate) — i’d argue “too” considerate to the point where I’m not staying what I feel or not bringing my full self to the situation. That’s not good.
When I’m freelancing (self-employed) I’m negotiating contracts and owning the project from start to finish; I wouldn’t say i’m less considerate per se, but I’m more at liberty to speak my mind.
It’s weird. I wonder if anyone else feels this way.
Gotta keep grinding…
…is something professional athletes say when they want to get better. I admire that. I admire when world class athletes like Kevin Durant or Lebron James talk about ‘getting better’ .
If they can get better, I certainly have work to do.
Last year, I wrote more, but I could write even more, consistently. When I started Lambda School, my blogging stopped, so this year, i’m committed to writing shorter posts, but more consistently. (That’s 500–750 words at 52 posts for 2019 for the metrics hunters).
Last year, I completed my fourth Vipassana meditation retreat. My morning and evening sessions have tapered off. I could be more consistent. This year, i’m committed to sitting for fewer minutes, but being more consistent. (That’s 15 minutes morning and evenings, daily).
2019
My goals this year are simple. This year is my YearOfHustle. It’s the expansion of freelancing to creating products that I own, leveraging my background, new skills i’m picking up at Lambda and new knowledge around blockchain.
That’s $10,000 USD in product revenue, some way, some how by December 31st 2019.
I’m committed to keeping a running blog post with weekly updates. More soon.
