What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

New Years Resolutions - Reviewing Year - Tim Ferris (1 Viewer)

Joe Bryant

Joe Bryant

Guide
Staff member
Another one from Tim Ferris today I thought was good. It's from his 5 Bullet Friday which is often very good. 

I'll post Ferris' thoughts below but most importantly - wanted to ask you;  Do you do News Years Resolutions? Goals in general? Review the past year? That kind of thing.

From Tim Ferris:

I’m often asked about how I approach New Year’s resolutions. The truth is that I no longer approach them at all, even though I did for decades. Why the change? I have found “past year reviews” (PYR) more informed, valuable, and actionable than half-blindly looking forward with broad resolutions. I did my first PYR after a mentor’s young daughter died of cancer on December 31st, roughly eight years ago, and I’ve done it every year since. It takes 30-60 minutes and looks like this:

Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.

Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.

For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.

Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”

Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.
Click to expand...

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've been doing something like that for years. Not exactly but I think resolutions are unintentionally narrow focused. I've become happier in general ever since I've changed my mindset to smaller sustainable changes, around not repeating mistakes and building upon past successes. But with a macro focus. 

 
I have always worked out at least 5 days a week , watched my diet close but last year I made a resolution to not drink much and stuck to it. Went to weddings and parties and only drank soda water most of the time. I really did not feel any different and honestly did not have as much fun at social events where everybody was partying.

This year my resolution is to drink more at events, not watch my diet as close so I can enjoy more foods, relax and enjoy life and times with my friends and family.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
MAC_32 said:
I've been doing something like that for years. Not exactly but I think resolutions are unintentionally narrow focused. I've become happier in general ever since I've changed my mindset to smaller sustainable changes, around not repeating mistakes and building upon past successes. But with a macro focus. 
Click to expand...
Thanks. That's helpful. Can you elaborate? Like what kinds of things and how you discover what they are and how you stick to it or monitor progress towards them?

 
Joe Bryant said:
Thanks. That's helpful. Can you elaborate? Like what kinds of things and how you discover what they are and how you stick to it or monitor progress towards them?
Click to expand...
I think there's a fine line between quality measurements and putting forth so much effort to getting those measurements you accidentally end up with something else on your to do list. So as a general rule I try not to add anything to my plate. More will end up on it without putting forth effort, so my decisions are based around sustained removal. 

I.e. I experimented last year removing notifications from my phone - except text.

Like everyone I spent too much time on it so by removing those I'm not instinctively grabbing at it like a mindless zombie everytime I hear or see something. When I go to the can mid morning I will go through my usual routine - email, twitter, weather, calendar. And in those few minutes I'm all caught up on something I used to find myself constantly checking between waking up and that moment. Instead I was getting stuff on my to do list done. 

I get back to my desk, pit the phone down, and get back to it again - distractionless. Then i repeat that same process after my lunch workout while I'm catching my breath but still sweating too much to shower. I get through everything in about 15 mins that used to interrupt myself all day up to that point and I've already gotten everything on my to do list done rather than knowing i have to get something done after getting back to my office. But rather i can spend that time getting ahead instead. 

Tl;Dr less is more. 

 
Do a lot of people really keep some sort of social/personal calendar?  I mean I know what weeks I went on vacation, but, what I did and who it was with in the third week of September I have no idea.  

 
For me personally I don’t have to go through each week to determine who influenced me positively but I am a Tim Ferriss fan. I have his book Tribe of Mentors on my desk right now. 

 
tonydead said:
Do a lot of people really keep some sort of social/personal calendar?  I mean I know what weeks I went on vacation, but, what I did and who it was with in the third week of September I have no idea.  
Click to expand...
We keep a shared calendar in google sheets, each tab is M-Su from 8-8. We just delete all old tabs sometime in December. As I eluded to before I dont think what Ferris suggests is a worthwhile use of time, but as I'm thinking about my prior year and goals for the next year I find benefit in seeing what we were doing during 'good periods' and 'bad periods.' For me that's easily identifiable by the quality of my workouts, which are logged through strava (runs) and excel (strength). Then I'll look at the calendar to see what we were doing before, during, and after that time period. 

 
personally don't like new year's resolutions as i think that they impose artificial structure and i generally just strive to learn and improve continuously.  which certainly includes failing and not saying it couldn't be useful and certainly recognize that it can be useful for others, but i just dislike artificial deadlines and timelines.  

i find ferris's thought process in general to make sense and how it can help people be effective to reach their goals.  i guess i also don't really have specific goals or straight line paths to things.  just to have more clarity of thought and have more of my powers at my disposal.

personality differences.

 
Ok so I realize I have some amendments to make in my life:

  • Return to exercise - I'm naturally competitive, so that means getting back to sports of all kinds.
  • Read.
  • Write.
  • Pray.
  • Travel. - I turned this down last year, it's something I can do as part of my work and well I will just say yes again for the first time in a long time, there's more to see.
  • Get off the computer. This is genuinely hard because the computer is my working tool. But I will try to do it.
  • Pick up the sword again. What that means for me is to be engaged in public and civic life. I think our country is at a crossroads and I'm going to employ my talents again for the greater good, or give it a shot.
  • Engage, engage, engage. Positive, positive, positive. Have fun, love hard, kick ###.
  • As always, go Saints.
SID.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Based on the past year or two, to try to be more positive, to find the positive in things. I'm fortunate the New Year didn't start this past week or I'd be off to a really poor start. But I suppose it stiffened my resolve.

 
2010s overall sucked. From family stuff to my cancer stuff to family members passing to dad having Mills Syndrome. The latter kills me every single day. He's on the couch only going to the bathroom praying he doesn't fall again. Nothing great stands out except that so far I'm holding stable. Meanwhile every single day my mind is on my dad with tears in my eyes. There are no treatments. Slow progression. I'd trade places with him if I could. 

2020s... More family deaths as there are some in their 70s and 80s. Who knows about me. At the very least my dad becoming worse. 😭 Same ole but will be harder (can it get any harder??) to deal. I may need meds as all this unfolds. Never imagined how my dad's stuff would effect me until the hammer came down..

My obvious goal is to keep it together and continue to support my dad. I hate that I'm so emotional over sad news, especially health ####. I know it's life but damn it's tough.

Hope you all have a great 2020 decade though!

 
Last edited by a moderator:
CurlyNight said:
2010s overall sucked. From family stuff to my cancer stuff to family members passing to dad having Mills Syndrome. The latter kills me every single day. He's on the couch only going to the bathroom praying he doesn't fall again. Nothing great stands out except that so far I'm holding stable. Meanwhile every single day my mind is on my dad with tears in my eyes. There are no treatments. Slow progression. I'd trade places with him if I could. 

2020s... More family deaths as there are some in their 70s and 80s. Who knows about me. At the very least my dad becoming worse. 😭 Same ole but will be harder (can it get any harder??) to deal. I may need meds as all this unfolds. Never imagined how my dad's stuff would effect me until the hammer came down..

My obvious goal is to keep it together and continue to support my dad. I hate that I'm so emotional over sad news, especially health ####. I know it's life but damn it's rough.

Hope you all have a great 2020 decade though!
Click to expand...
God bless GB. We share a lot in common. I totally get where you are coming from and only hope it can somehow get better. Take care.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Joe Bryant
  • Poll
Talk About Alcohol
8 9 10
Replies
463
Views
13K
Ack88
A
Chadstroma
Sportsmanship- A nice thing or real value?
Replies
36
Views
821
stbugs
S
Ministry of Pain
These Drug Commercials are OUT of CONTROL!!!
2 3
Replies
123
Views
3K
jhib
jhib

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Top