January Monthly Review
“Your actions reveal not what you want, but what you choose.”
Notes:
This review was a work in progress for a while — originally I wanted to change up my monthly reviews for the new year so that they would be more packed with valuable information and golden nuggets. Then it turned into a behemoth of sorts and became very overwhelming in my head…so much that I was dreading to finish it.
So I gave the space it needed.
And glad to be back here and publishing this today!
REFLECTIONS
Highlights from the past month 🎉
1. What was your biggest accomplishment this month?
The biggest one was launching the One Month Projects website! It’s my first writing & coaching site and I’m still amazed by all the love it’s been receiving. Though I’m never one to keep up with stats, I was really blown away by the 300+ shares it got (at the end of January, it has since doubled a month later). This is really huge for someone like me who just started and I’m SO excited to grow it so that more people can can confidently take that next step towards a career they love through a one month project.
2. What was your peak experience this month?
I felt the happiest this month when my significant other came to visit me and we had a couple of days of relaxing and pure bliss (finally got out to see the sun too instead of a work hermit!).
I like that as I’m writing this, I get to re-feel the aliveness and immense gratefulness.
3. What main challenge did you face this month?
Tim Ferris would be proud of me for this one — I cold-emailed and reached out to many people who I admired and looked up to. It felt really scary to send emails to the ones who I’ve been secretly following for ages. They’ve had such a big impact on my life, like inspiring me to write this post.
As Tim says, the change you make in your life depends on how many scary conversations you’re willing to have. Carl Pullein and Mike Vardy who are major productivity experts were super nice and kind enough to respond to my messages, and even shared my post on doing 12 side projects in 12 months!
I’m really thankful for people like them and a dozen others who encouraged me to continue to go outside of my comfort zone and create more meaningful relationships on these topics that are super dear to me, like productivity and self improvement.
4. What do you want to do less of and more of to balance your life?
For doing less: I want to check news less. I want to stop checking news before noon, or at least limit to checking it only 3x a day. Because when I “just check it for 5 minutes” in the morning, I get really curious about whatever it is that I’m reading and within the blink of an eye, 40 minutes has already passed by.
For doing more: I want to fully incorporate doing 4 hours of deep work everyday.
5. What is your favorite discovery this month?
After coming close to burnout many times, I created a *self-care schedule* to make sure that I have enough mental energy, or in other words, spending enough time to nurture and recharge myself.
Yes, the morning hours are the best time for doing work, and so is feeling nourished. Now, Now I get up earlier so I can either write or read for 30 minutes before I work on the difficult tasks for work (or eat the frog as they say) and it has done wonders for my focus and happiness!
I’ve realized that when I get distracted or doing something I’m not “supposed” to do, it’s because a part of me is crying out for help. It’s being undernourished and want me to pay attention to it. But the things I seek are only the bandaids to distract myself from that (yes I know, so meta) and it doesn’t care fir that need. It’s like watching TV to distract yourself from being thirsty, yes you may have put off drinking water for the next 2 hours but it doesn’t solve for the fact that you’re still thirsty after you finish watching.
Browsing through news is only a bandaid, the real issue is that I’m not writing or reading because I deemed myself as “too busy” for these activities, but in truth, they are so important and essential to my well-being.
FUN GOODIES
I tend to read a lot of books or start on a lot of them when I feel stressed so I ended up being a bookworm this month 📚
Books I read:
- The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook (actually formed a book club around this)
- 4 Hour Workweek (yes again!)
- The Effective Executive
- Reach Out
- The Book of Joy
Articles I liked:
- 30 day experiment of being an instablogger
- 12 photography project ideas
- How to make wealth vs. money (Money is only something wealth is exchanged as a currency for. Free time = wealth too. Money should allow you to do the things you want to do, not force you into things you don’t want to do. Quality time and freedom is also priceless.)
Productivity experiments
- Self-care schedule
- 4 hour deep work
- Taking a breath before responding
Quotes on careers
- “This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you’re trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you’re even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what’s the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.
- “Achieving your goals isn’t about achieving your goals isn’t about what resources you have — it’s about how resourceful you can be with what’s available to you.
Questions I’m pondering
- How do I get excited about work again through playifying?
JANUARY HABIT PROJECT
Recap of how sleeping by 11pm went 😴
Here’s how I did in my habit tracker:
Though it looks abysmal at first glance, it actually ended up going relatively well. The week of 14–17 was when my S.O. was in town so I was too excited to sleep. All the other times, I made sure to that I picked the habit back up again if I broke the streak the day before.
By the end of the month, I was able get up around 8:30am instead of 9 or 10 in the morning and ending up sleeping an hour earlier closer to 10pm.
The main learning I had the compounding effects of sleeping — if I slept 20 mins earlier, I would end up getting 40 mins earlier in the morning. Often times, I would get up around 7am when I slept around 10pm and much later at 9am when I slept around 11pm. 😲
PLANNING
Intentions and goals for the upcoming month ✏️
The most important business priority is:
- Reach out to at least 100 experts by end of February (I think of these emails as love letters, showcasing my appreciation for their impact)
The most important personal priority is:
- Complete 30 days of Yoga with Adriene as part of my February monthly project.
This is the end of my monthly review — looking forward to the next one. Thanks so much for reading!
If you’re curious to read more, here’s my:
