Let's Fight (our) Mediocrity, One Round at a Time!
All in Life
What if you would not have to read hundreds of pages to get the wisdom of the most popular non-fiction books? What if you could sign-up for a service providing you bite-sized book summaries? Would that work?
I love running for the almost meditative effects that it has on me. At the same time, I hate that I run so depressingly slow.
In my twenties my times were actually not too bad. Not enough for competitive ambitions but not too shabby either. A mere decade later my running times have deteriorated massively, and just getting below the 1h for 10km again was a massive battle. In past years I often wondered what exactly caused the breakdown of my running abilities. So let's take a look.
This is the quarterly check-in on the goals from my New Year's resolution. Just as a reminder, the idea was to choose targets that fulfill the S.M.A.R.T criteria: being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-related. By making my goals public and checking-in regularly with you out there, I hoped to keep me motivated over the year to achieve all goals for 2016. And just in case this is not enough, I added a punishment on top, promising to go to work in original Bavarian Lederhosen on the first working day in 2017 if I miss more than one of the six goals for the year. Still pretty scary! So let's see where I am at the half-year mark of 2016.
Some of the biggest obstacles on our path to happiness are inside of our own heads -- deep-rooted instincts that might have once served an evolutionary purpose, but that now are mainly lowering our quality of life.
One of the strongest and most destructive of these innate reflexes is FOMO. What sounds like an uptown art gallery, stands for “Fear of Missing Out” and is far less innocent than it appears.
After many years of New Year’s resolutions that lasted hardly longer than a few weeks, I wanted to do it all differently in the first full year of my Life-Sparring experience. Choosing targets that fulfill the S.M.A.R.T criteria: being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-related to be effective; making my goals public; and checking in regularly with you out there hopefully is enough to keep me motivated all year to achieve all goals for 2016. And just in case this is not enough, I added a punishment on top, promising to go to work in original Bavarian Lederhosen on the first working day in 2017 if I miss more than one of the six goals for the year. Scary!
So let’s see how I fared during the first quarter of the year!
This is the second Life-Sparring round on the topic of fear within four months.
That I am revisiting the topic after such a short time is mainly motivated by two factors: a recent personal crisis on my side, and reading Daniele Bolelli’s excellent book Not Afraid: On Fear, Heartbreak, Raising a Baby Girl, and Cage Fighting.
The abundance of productivity apps is a double-edged sword. It definitely has the potential to be a productivity trap by itself. However, smartly combined productivity apps can be a great help.
My own little system of interlinked apps grew over the past four years. Read how I manage digital information with a set of mobile and desktop apps and join the discussion about what works best.
For most people in a management position, business travel is part of the job description and often a major stress factor too. While I generally do not mind business travelling much, I am definitely embracing every travel life hack there is. That was also the main motivation to splurge and put a hefty US$ 109 down for a Kickstarter campaign by Baubax, promising nothing less than “The World’s Best Travel Jacket”.
Equity markets are volatile these days. The Dow Jones in January 2016 just had the most 1% swings in a single month since 2008.
It’s debatable if we are at the doorstep of the next crisis or not. In any case, I am fairly optimistic that this time, at least I am better prepared and would not repeat the same mistakes I did in 2008.
While markets remain as volatile as ever, I at least seem to have tamed my “emotional volatility”.
