taking life by the reins
(pretend life is a horse. what else does that imply?)
I moved to NYC in January 2021. After the “honeymoon” period, which lasted about 4 months and was also largely under abnormal circumstances (pre-vax, only small gatherings, and not your typical chaotic NYC life), I hit the wall.
What followed was a month of TV-quality NYC debauchery. It probably wasn’t as degenerate as I remember it now, but apparently that’s the sentiment left in my brain.
And in case it’s unclear, I did not enjoy that.
To be able to effectively “rethink my life”, I needed drastic change. So I went where I knew I would be happy: to family and the PNW sun.
During my “sabbatical from life”, I solidified a hypothesis: my burnout was a product of gross miscalculation and ignorance re: where I spent my time.
I needed to re-strike balance. And I guess because burnout, frustration, and discontentment are all things I feel, I went against the grain and took a qualitative approach to determining my course forward: I just started writing. And what I produced was a thesis on the current state of my life.
The thesis was “I am not content with my life overall in the last ~6 months (since I moved to NYC.)” That’s literally the first sentence I wrote. Exactly what you want to hear, right? And then I systematically broke out what I was doing, what I wasn’t doing, and why I was doing what I was doing.
The key to flipping my personal happiness numbers was shrinking the what I wasn’t doing list. I think of myself as an executor, and I had lost some of that identity.
Naturally, as I began burning down that list, the list of what I was doing began to turn into things I enjoyed. And when the lesser priorities fell off, I didn’t notice. Or I did, but in a good way.
I let the natural/emotional priority resolution dictate my course for the latter half of last year. As opposed to receiving input first, I defined my baseline calendar with things I wanted, and then accepted input (like invites to things) if there was space (in my calendar, but also in my energy reserve.) I realized the fulfillment I was craving came from consistency, growth, and generative activities, so I ensured to make space for them.
Around mid-Q4 2021, it was time to add some structure into my priority resolution model. So I decided to plug strategies we used at work into my own life. Yes, I wrote OKRs (objectives and key results). A huge thanks to my manager at work for distilling my weaknesses and pitching solutions for me to try (the same underlying brain chaotic-ness plagued me at work.) I just took those solutions and attempted to repurpose them personally as well.
A few things I succeeded in prioritising through the end of the year:
work. I wanted to direct focused energy into my professional goals.
volleyball. I wanted something fun and physically active, so I started playing in a league first as a free agent, and then later with friends.
running. I hate running, but I just thought I should be able to run a 5k. So I did, twice. Thanks to C25K.
This was accompanied by a long list of things I failed to achieve. (Learning the ukelele, writing wikipedialyte, ramping up @postcardsfromvish, strength training, planning small group hangouts, catching up with friends.)
It’s been a year since I began piloting this method, and four quarters later, I’ve settled into an MO of only having 2 primary goals, and optionally 1 maintenance/secondary goal. This all lives on top of a certain baseline I’ve deemed non-negotiable: calling my parents and siblings, catching up with a few close friends, and showing up to work.
Admittedly, some key things are missing from the baseline, but I’ve made it sorta work. So yeah, cooking/eating healthy sometimes resurfaces back up on my list of goals. And I’m usually staying somewhat physically active, but if that dips it also makes the list. There’s a decent amount of flux, and I might recreate formal space for more secondary goals so my fundamental life-sustaining inputs don’t degrade.
Anyhow, I’ve mostly abandoned OKRs for now; I literally cannot have more than a few line items in total, so that was overkill for a quarterly basis. I still sorta keep them around for more long term planning though.
A few other reflection/goal-setting exercises I did that helped me choose my 2+1 goals:
Dividing my life into dimensions and evaluating their relative health: physical health, social health, professional health, etc. Then setting goals for the dimensions that need some work, and focusing on a max of 2 dimensions per quarter.
Writing out a list of “Things that give me joy.” And then ensuring I fit them into my goals or routine, whatever makes sense.
I also do a retro before figuring out the next quarter’s goals, and that’s been quite helpful in figuring out if I want to keep working on the same goal or determining if there is a necessary change.
I started this out with some frustration re: my move to NYC. I could write at length about my relationship with New York City, but that is for another time. The short version of it is: I’ve always felt that NYC fosters a culture that is incompatible with my ideal life. Yet I find myself living here for certain reasons, and I must find ways to twist the conditions in my favour.
And now that I’ve finally struck a cadence, I don’t want to leave (just yet, anyway), in fear of losing it.
(Also, there’s a whole thing about my preconceived notions about what life in NYC is/should be/etc that clouds everything. I think I’ve mostly moved past that now though.)