Treatise on Life

Combining all the lessons I've learned in the last few years;

A few things are just inherently good and you must strive to maximise them;

- Diet

- Exercise

- Learning

- Routine

- Habits

Goals

Everyone should set goals for themselves. If that term is too cliche for you, then you should map out a path to where you want to be. We don't just 'wing it' and live day to day. We plan. We map out where we want to be in the future, so that we can proceed with the end in mind.

Think about where you want to be in 3 years. Maybe you want to be at a particular post at work, be a particular weight, or have educated yourself on a new subject. I limit this to education, health, and career.

Then you say, well ok...

- Where would I need to be in 1 year to achieve that goal in 3 years?

- Where would I need to be at the end of this month to reach that yearly goal?

Now we break that into a single day. What do I need to get done today to be at my goal by the end of the month?

Routine

Once you've done the steps above, you have the basis for crafting a daily routine.

What would a perfect day look like?

For most of you, you jobs will largely dictate your schedule. 8 hours of your day + 8 hours of sleep is already accounted for, you just have 8 hours to go. It should probably include 1 hour+ of exercise, 1 hour of self-education, but I can't do this for you. You must choose your daily behaviours based on where you want to be by the end of the month.

As a striving trader and investor, I base my day around 4 quality hours of study on my Most Important Task (Uni or CFA). I also have a calorie target, and an exercise target - so, calories in, calories out.

Lastly I have some less strict learning that I do, be it non-fiction books, articles, or publications such as The Economist.

All of this is timeblocked into a daily planner.

Habits

I'm not big on "motivation."

Review

Self-discipline, self-control, self-mastery all mean the same thing, and in the moment, are best described as self-DENIAL.

You must train yourself to practice delayed gratification. What feels good now generally comes at a cost, we just don't associate that cost internally due to the lapse of time between the two. Consciously, you know a hangover is the result of alcohol overuse, but the hangover is delayed in time by enough that your body doesn't reject it upon future exposure. It's the same for weight gain due to bad eating habits, or overspending now without adequate thought to the rest of the month.

This image sums it up best;

Lets imagine at point A; It is 7am in the morning. You have sworn off alcohol this week in pursuit of a healthier lifestyle (a long term goal). At 7am, the healthy lifestyle appears like a big, worthwhile, but distant reward - it is the moon. In order to access this reward, we must pass by the tree, which at this time in the day is no problem. It's a small, insignificant spec - it has much lower value when compared with the moon.

At 6pm however, we have moved forward in time. We are now much closer to the tree - so close, in fact, that the moon now pales into insignificance. We can't see it. Our perception is such that our long term goal disappears. It is completely obscured by the tree. At 6pm, drinking alcohol is all that occupies our vision - our perspective has changed.

We need tools to overcome this distortion.

Everything I use is covered in [[Tools for Success]]