The COVID-19 pandemic made me reflect on my life, you probably did it too. 2020 was an interesting year and I made some goals for 2021 that I didn’t make public and I believe this was a mistake, by obscuring these goals I had no accountability.
I’m planning to do that differently now. I want to give myself permission to try new things, and align my goals to my values and purpose. I’ll be sharing them in this blog post and I hope to inspire you too.
So let me tell you what I’m going to start doing from now on and expect to accomplish by the end of 2022.
Personal OKRs
The hardest part of building a framework is to think about the framework you want to build. Huh? Exactly.
I divided my goals into buckets that affect different parts of my life –– health, growth, career, finances, hobbies.
Tracking my habits
I will be tracking what I do through Notion, this is the template to track these habits that I’m using.
Why do I want to track them? It’s not a vanity metric, tracking your goals is an important part of the process to develop a routine and a system to complete what you set yourself to do.
I will do a monthly review of my tracker and a 5m reflection on what I could have done better and celebrate what I did.
Sharing what I learn
I love YouTube and other media to gather knowledge, but even though these methods are great to learn from others, there’s a lot of experiences from people like me that aren’t been shared.
I’m not going to become a YouTuber nor I’m expecting to be an influencer at something. I want to share what I experience through different media and hopefully help positively someone’s life.
Keep writing
When I started this blog, as many times I started it before, I had a goal of writing but I didn’t know why, now that I know, I want to be intentional about it and share through writing my experiences, good or bad.
Assigning time blocks during the morning to write at least once a week has helped me a lot, so I’m going to be assigning a couple more blocks and see where it takes me.
Embrace minimalism
I hope you aren’t afraid of the word, for many it has a negative connotation, I’m not going to sell everything I have and keep 1 table with no chairs to eat if that’s what you think when you read this word.
However, I do want to minimize what I own and avoid buying items I don’t use or need. It’s not about spending less money, but being more conscious of my needs and take up less time to think about superficial things.
I set a reminder for decluttering my closet and my home from items I haven’t used in more than 30 days, basing myself on Marie Kondo’s method.
Grow investments
It was a great year to start investing on the market, I read somewhere that everyone’s a genius when the market is green and we are all ripping the rewards, so I don’t consider myself a genius for finally starting to invest. I consider myself lucky I did.
My goal now is to keep growing and build a healthy base so one day I can become financially independent.
Enjoy nature
I had a foot injury in January that kept bothering me for basically all of 2021 and it was annoying but it didn’t keep me from going my way to find some nature. Now that I live around more nature (since I moved from Barcelona to a smaller but greener city) I also want to explore going on longer and more remote hikes.
In a world of stimuli overload and dopamine snacks, not being busy isn’t an option. We’re afraid of idleness, I’m afraid of it, but I have found that by stepping away from everything and going into nature I have found a way to enjoy idling.
Sharpen my cooking skills
I love to eat and thankfully for me but not for my wallet, I also love to cook. In 2021 I stepped back from the kitchen, I embraced a quick pace for other things that mattered too but gave myself no time to explore my creativity in the kitchen and I miss that.
I’m pretty sure my friends miss it too. This is why I want to sharpen my skills these months, then in 2022, I want to do more gatherings at my place (I have a lovely kitchen that enables me to do cooking, drinking, and is social with plenty of room).
I’m also growing a garden of herbs on my balcony and I’m expecting that in a couple more months I will be able to harvest my first batch of fresh herbs, leveling up my homemade pizzas.
Keep moving forward
In 2020 I shared the rules of living that I abide by, and I always set myself a reminder to look at them and adjust what I’m doing to set my path straight again.
I hope these give you some ideas to start creating your own lifestyle template, sticking to your goals isn’t easy, you’ll encounter difficult and uncertain moments that will make you question everything. What matters is that you make the most and enjoy the things you do.
Let me ask you
What would you do this year to create the lifestyle that works best for you?
Good luck. I hope reading my thoughts makes you explore more,
Luis
Wrote this from my desk with my dog sleeping in my lap, something I have no idea how it can be comfortable since he is a medium-size dog while listening to some lofi tunes on Spotify.