Are New Year's Resolutions Still Worth It?

Are New Year’s Resolutions Still Worth It?

_{By Luis Duque | Issue #2}

Hi friends,

I hope you had a wonderful end of 2020 and are ready to get going in 2021. I took a longer break from publishing the podcast to focus on getting ready for a busy Q1. I already have a few podcast episodes ready to go, and I am excited to be recording a few more in the coming weeks. I also took sometime to improve many things around the podcast, including a new cover art so hopefully you can see some improvements.

I have been giving the whole New Year’s resolutions thing a little more thought this year, too. We often tend to give them more value than we should. In reality, we should strive to develop consistent habits that don’t require the physical and mental effort New Year’s resolutions require. I am planning to write a full article on this topic, but for now I want to share just a few quick thoughts on this.

I took the end of the year to reflect on my current habits and practices to see if there was anything I could change or improve. To efficiently develop a habit we need to start small and use our current habits as triggers to minimize the effort it takes to do the action we want to turn into a habit. For example, for a while now I have been drinking a glass of water as soon as I wake up. Another example would be as soon as I go to bed I read for at least 15 (rather than scrolling through social media 😅). These may seem small but if we are consistent and start small to slowly improve our routines we will see these small things add up to massive results. Check out the graph below showing the difference between a 1% increase vs doing nothing vs a 1% decrease.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter and that all of you are having a fantastic start of the year. Hit reply and let me know what habits you are planning to cultivate in 2021 and if there is anything I can do to help you.

Let’s continue Engineering our Future

Luis

Quote of the Week

When I didn’t give up and I did the right thing in the face of a problem—even if I had not initially handled it well—the experience made me a better person and a better leader.
From Developing the Leader Within You by John C. Maxwell resurfaced using Readwise

This Week’s Favorites

Book: I have been reading Range by David Epstein and there is so much great content to learn. Range talks about how our society is moving towards a more specialized and narrowed practice in most professions. David Epstein makes the case the we are better off developing a wide range of skills and then using those to be a master at out profession. He shares examples from multiple professions such as musicians, medicine, and mathematics. Definitively worth a read.

Book: I just finished I Will Teach you to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. I know 2020 was a hard year for many people financially so I just want to educate myself better and be better prepared for when the next crisis comes. Ramit Sethi has an interesting approach to finances and it is really knowledgeable to help us both define our Rich Life as well as automate it so money can growth without having to think about it. There is no other book like this one out there and it has been one of my favorite finance books lately.
Podcast: I recently started listening to the Choose FI podcast. This podcast covers a wide range of topics about FI (Financial Independence) including investments, profitable businesses, traveling, and much more. If you are interesting in learning more about finances this is a great podcast.

As always feel free to share your favorites with me. I am always intrigued as to what you are reading or learning!