The Blog is a collection of experiences, told in narrative form.
They’re a little long so feel free to check out the 'TLDR’ version if you’re not sure whether to commit to a read or not.
TLDR, or ‘Too long, didn’t read’ is a summary for those looking for one (click here for a history of the expression).
Closing 2021
With 2021 behind us, I test out my previous hypotheses about shifting from new years resolutions and goal setting to a more belief and identity based approach to forming new habits. I refine my framework for habit setting and tweak my prompts for improvement by adding a quarterly reflection cycle.
Changing course
I’m moving from Synergy to IBM Garage. I used three hypotheses to make sense of the instinct to move and now I’ll build these hypotheses in to my regular check-in and reflection.
Atomic Habits
My Fiancé and I took a long drive to the south-west of Australia and discovered James Clear’s Atomic Habits on Audible. We got out of the car at 10pm after a 4 hour drive with more energy, not less, buoyed by the ideas we had debated along the way. My take away was that while my past habits of annual goal setting had been adequate, the practice could be improved.
That time you almost electrocuted yourself
In 2013, I was on a journey to building my own electric car for fun, or at least a bike-path based prototype before scaling to road-scale. In February 2014, I made my first weld as I assembled the steel spine of the 3-wheeled recumbent trike frame. This was something I felt relatively capable of doing as a mechanical engineer and I had even sifted through the ‘Australian Design Rules’ to determine the requirements of the street-legal version. What I didn’t anticipate was that the mechanical and structural side would be the least of my problems.
Cleaning up at the end of 2020
While taking a break over the new year, there was a perfect opportunity to reflect on the year gone by with my Fiancé and our friends. We talked about the year past, our achievements, disappointments and our hopes for the following year. I thought I’d take a moment to share the outcome of those conversations and the thinking that followed up to set myself up for 2021. This is also a commitment device for myself, splitting it out in to three segments as a framework you might want to use too.