This post marks the start of a new tradition -- a monthly reflection. Mirroring the process I am using for my annual reflection, I intend to use the monthly time frame as an opportunity to keep my big-picture goals and intentions in mind, while also setting up sustainable systems to track my progress.
In doing so, I hope to inspire you to come up with creative ways to assess your progress and keep the big and medium picture in mind, while not drowning you in constant reflection which would be the case if I published this each day or week.
What went well?
Work Outs 🏋️♀️
This was one of the best months of my adult life in terms of getting consistent exercise. During my annual reflection of 2023, I set a goal to get at least 8 workouts per month, each month. In January 2024, I surpassed this goal with a new personal record (PR) of 10 workouts in the month.
8 of these workouts were done at Orange Theory, one was completed when I went to the gym and made 50 three-point shots and ran two miles, and one of them was a 90-minute class. I've decided to qualify a workout as anything I do for over 30 minutes that causes me to break a sweat.
To track my workouts, I recorded each workout in an App called TrackIt which I paid for and downloaded on my iPhone.
Date Night 🌹
Originally, I set a goal to do three date nights a month, however, when exploring the possibility of finding a baby sitter, balancing the exhausting afterwork feeling, my wife and I agreed to twice a month. In some ways, this feels like my greatest accomplishment because it required a good deal of coordination and consideration of others to enact.
This was a top priority for me coming into 2024 because I've found that raising children makes it easier to put your romantic needs to the side, which slowly deteriorates the quality of an intimate partnership. So prioritizing this is something I see as both a momentary win, but also an investment in our marriage that will compound and pay dividends in the quality of our relationship in the years to come, especially if we remain consistent with it.
I noticed that my wife was very excited about the date night when it was approaching and look forward to it by sharing what she wanted to do during our meetings, as well as where she wanted eat. I'm learning that being the one to assert the need for date night is a gift I can give to the relationship and I'm glad I started 2024 with this.
YouTube work
After completing a big project of creating a course for my coaching business, I struggled to determine what my next BIG project was going to be. One day it hit me -- I want to grow my YouTube channel with more focus and tenacity than I have ever done before. One goal that has been swirling in my mind since watching a Mr. Beast short on how to grow your YouTube presence, was hitting the goal of having 100 total videos.
I currently have 61 YouTube videos on my channel after consistently releasing about 1 per month in 2023. I decided in my mind that I will reach 100 YouTube videos by the end of 2024, so with that in mind, I committed to creating 40 videos in 2024.
I believe that commitments are a form of "black holes" in that when you truly commit to something, both psychologically and emotionally, that you can time travel and break through any barriers that felt like they were in place before committing to the goal. I also believe that as a visionary and dreamer, my job is to identify "what" I want and that the "how" will reveal itself when I am clear and committed to my "what".
Sure enough, once I committed to my goal of 40 YT videos in 2024, my behavior started to change. Working with my personal life coach, GK, I came up with the plan to work on it 15 minutes per day. He asked me, "Could Kobe Bryant or Steph Curry be the best player in the world if they worked on basketball 15 minutes a day?"
I realized the answer is "no," and since then I have made a concentrated effort to work on YT almost everyday, even if it is only for 2 minutes. By doing this, I often spend more time working on it, and I was even able to record 4 videos in one sitting, 3 more than I had ever done in one sitting in the past.
What didn't go so well?
Quality of sleep
I STRUGGLED to fall asleep for a few weeks, creating a lot of fear and anxiety around going to bed this month. This caused me to experiment with a bunch of different techniques including:
Using Blue-light glasses before bed
Pausing caffeine
Not eating sugar
Going to bed early
Reading in the closet
Switching bed sides
And more...
Ultimately, I found that two things made the biggest impact on my sleep. Waking up at the same time each day and taking melatonin before bed. Late in January I started to track my wake up time and saw that it is very variable, thus making it harder to go to sleep and fall asleep at the same time each night.
I would love to be able to be asleep by 10 pm each night and up at 5 am each day, so going forward, I am going to track my wake up time and aim to be up at 5 am each day, even on weekends.
Reading
While I did finish at least one book in January, it was not on pace with my goal for 24 completed books this year and to increase my engagement in motivation in this goal, I am going to start tracking a daily goal of reading or listening to an audiobook for any amount. At this time, I will not be including reading random articles to count in with this tracker.
What am I working toward next month?
5 am Wake Ups
My goal for February is to make my average wake up time 5 AM. 😳
This goal scares me a little bit, but I also think there are incredible benefits to meeting or attaining for this goal including:
Better, more predictable sleep
More productivity as it relates to my goal of making 40 YT videos this year
Better responsiveness to my email inbox
Being proactive about waking up, rather than reactive
More cold showers as I don't mind doing them first thing when I wake up
Growing an email list
I plan to create an opt-in for this website for people who want to follow my journey and growth through this year. I am trying to decide which email platform to use at this time and how I will collect opt-ins for this project. Stay tuned!
TL;DR
January was a great month for me and probably one of the most productive stretches of my life. My combination of goal setting, reflection, and tracking leading indicators (as opposed to lagging indicators), has significantly improved my life.
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