#69 - Cost of achieving your goals
What I’m Watching
Mr Beast’s interview on the Colin and Samir show. While I don’t watch Mr Beast’s main videos, (mainly because they’re targeted at teenagers and a bit of an overload designed to keep people with short attention spans to keep watching) it’s impossible to ignore what he has achieved on YouTube. I acknowledge that there is some survivorship bias when watching videos like this, but it’s clear that his obsession with improving his craft at the sacrifice of everything else played a part in his success.
Resource of the week
I've been reading that if you microwave plastic food containers certain chemicals in the plastic can leech into upir food, which I’ve been doing for the last 10 years. Not sure how big of a concern it really is but nevertheless I decided to buy a new set of glass ones from Ikea, and am very happy with the quality. It’s not a sponsored ad, just a happy customer.
Quote
“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.”
James Clear
News and trends
- According to Halifax house prices have a -2.6% annual change.
- Finally, a bit more clarity on the EPC costs investors could face. According to the latest government analysis, 46% of homes will have improvement costs of between £5,000 and £9,999.
- Creators are increasingly leveraged for e-commerce sales as Amazon partnered with creators across YouTube and TikTok to generate record sales for prime day selling $12.7 billion dollars. (Reminds me of those late-night TV channels selling stuff back in the 2000s and before).
Other stuff
Thoughts
It’s been one of those weeks that feel quite sluggish in that things seem to be stalled and not much progress is being made. It’s why the James Clear quote about trajectory resonated with me. I find a lot of it is a mental game and having these mental models sometimes helps me.
One that I've been applying to other aspects of my life comes from rowing. I’ve been reading up about improving my scores on the indoor rowing machine and something I read from Mike Caviston (who holds the world record for his age category and trains Navy Seals) says that mentally, he thinks of his fitness as a wall and treats every workout as him accumulating a brick, he wants to build a wall so tall and thick it would make his competitors cry to get over or through it. Another metaphor he uses is to think of training as currency, there is a certain cost to a goal and the end result depends on the currency you have accumulated.
As humans I think it’s natural when things are tough to look for a shortcut. Or if it takes longer than we expect to see results to feel disheartened, but these metaphors help me to keep grinding in the right direction, knowing that every bit of mundane work inches me a little bit closer as long as it's in the right direction. I hope it helps you too.
Have a good week!
Hans