I never really liked goals because I believe that building systems and habits is a far better way to improve yourself and progress your life. The world is way more chaotic than we can comprehend and opportunities emerge in unpredictable ways.

Life ‘goals’ are like spearfishing. If you obsess on catching a big grouper, the chances are you will not find one and you will be disappointed. If, instead, you focus on your gear, your training and your breathing, being flexible about what the sea will give you that day, then it’s almost certain that every dive will be a good dive.

The coronavirus crisis is a good wake up call, signifying the importance of creating antifragile systems and of building healthy habits.

Looking back, the list I drafted in early January is actually a list of habits and I should have named it as such. We are already six months in this crazy year and the current status is:

  • Built
    • Python fluency for ML and other cool projects
    • Got back into exercise and running
    • Started developing a Statistics and Probability intuition
    • Sleep 8 hours a day
    • Read less books, act more
  • In progress
    • Journaling: I did it much less during coronavirus and will now resume.
    • Less sugar: There was a period of binge chocolate eating during the start of the quarantine, now I’m back to normal :)
    • Less alcohol: Still working on it, there are lots of things to celebrate about :D
  • Pending
    • Less twitter: I digressed a lot on this, I still follow the news obsessively.
    • Study Hebrew

So overall it looks quite good so far and I will really push forward with the remaining habits that I’ve completely neglected, namely learning Hebrew and dealing with my twitter addiction.

In closing, it is very rewarding that this flexible attitude worked out for me once again, allowing me to seize an amazing work opportunity that came at the most unexpexted time. If I had fixated on a specific goal rather than my attitude I would have definitely missed it. I am glad that I didn’t.