2015: This is How I am avoiding Resolutions

Another year has dawned on us. Phone calls, emails, SMSes, Whatsapp messages wishing each other Happy New Year have been exchanged. 

Now step back and think. What is so special about the New Year? It is just a change of date in the calendar. The sun rose on 1st Jan in the same way as all the other days before that, the weather and the traffic out there is also the same. Even the shows on TV are the same ones!

So then what has changed? The New Year may not change any of these but what a New Year brings with it is something called HOPE. With the advent of the New Year comes a strong sense of optimism. The belief that things will change from here on is what comes to the mind of people. And it is all of these emotions that make one to put together a list of resolutions. Most of them are well aware that they are never able to stick to their resolutions for a pretty long time but yet, year after year, they persist and put together another list, only to get disappointed over the next few days/weeks or months. 

It’s been two years that I have been blogging about how I do not keep any resolutions but rather follow my own model of doing things through the year. The benefit of this model is that there is no disappointment of a resolution breaking. 

So then what are my plans for this year? Am I sticking to the same model or is there a new model that I have developed? I thought a lot about this and then realized that this E Model that I have developed for myself works perfectly for me and at this stage I should not let go of it. Maybe, I should enhance it further, which means retaining a few Es , removing a few and adding a couple of other. Like I had mentioned last year, this E Model is a dynamic model which will keep changing and evolving with each passing year. 

So with that, I once again present my E Model to all of you, with the hope that some of you may also use it and benefit from it:

1. Experience: There are lot of people who like collecting different kinds of things – stamps, coins, match boxes. I like to collect experiences and call myself ‘Collector of Experiences.’ I try and find opportunities to try new things which just make life more exciting and meaningful. At the start of last year, I jumped off a cliff to experience paragliding. Towards the end of the year, I got to experience watching two tennis legends playing live - Roger Federer and Djokovic playing a set against each other at the ITPL. This year also, I plan to try a few new experiences.

2. Exploration: Travel is an important part of my life. One has to have wanderlust in life to truly become an explorer. Travel and reading are the two biggest teachers of life. As long as you have these two teachers in your life, your learning will never stop. One of my personal goals every year is to visit and see atleast three new places. Even when I am travelling for work, I endeavor to check out a few interesting sites of the place that I am visiting. This year will bring its own set of travel diaries. 

3. Extraction: This is a big word. It means absorbing and learning new things either through reading, videos, work, training, etc. Extraction would also mean writing and blogging and extracting thoughts and stories from within. Last year was a slow year for extraction and the plan this year is to rectify that. 

4. Entertainment: All work and no play can make Jack a dull boy. Philosophy of life couldn’t be truer than this. There is so much of content that exists out there – movies, TV Series, YouTube videos, award winning ads. Amongst all the other things that I intend to do in 2015, keeping my entertainment quotient high will be clearly one of the priorities. 

5. Engagement: This is a new E that I am adding to this model. Social media has become an extension of our life and it is something that can’t be escaped. So the best way is to embrace it. But in 2015, I do not want to limit my engagement to the online world. I intend to engage with my friends and families in the offline world too. I will be taking initiatives of catching up with as many people as I possibly can and connecting with their lives once again. 

6. Evolution: This model is incomplete without the addition of Evolution to the model. While I get busy in new experiences and extracting more from the lessons of life, it is also important that I evolve as a person. This evolution has to be mental, physical, financial and intellectual. I would like to see my net worth and balance sheet evolving. I would like to see the log of my running kilometres evolving as well as my acts of empathy and kindness evolving. My relationship with my colleagues and my team should evolve towards a better side. 

Overall, I should evolve as a better human being and the true measure of this will only come from others and their opinion about me rather than my own opinion about myself. 

All of these elements of the E Model are going to be subjective in nature and I will have no way of appraising myself if I do not put down a tracker that is quantifiable and measures how I am doing against each of these elements. So a Tracker has been put in place. 

Before you decide to implement this model in your life, do note that there are two other Es that come as companions for this model – Expenditure and Execution. You cannot win with this model if you do not take the companions along! 

Looking forward to the ‘Exciting’ times ahead in 2015!

2014: A Year where no Resolutions shall be broken

Happy New Year Readers.

As I hit the road called '2014', I can see 2013 in the rear view mirror going further into the opposite direction. Very soon, it won't be visible but it shall be remembered as the road I traveled on. 

This is the time of the year when people will try to make resolutions and try to live up to those resolutions for a short while before letting go and waiting for another year to give it another attempt.

I realized the futility of resolutions a few years back and was constantly pondering over what I should be doing to do the things I want to do without the fear or the guilt of breaking my resolutions. That’s when I wrote my blog at the start of 2013 called 2013: No Resolutions. Just Follow the Es. (http://fugleman.blogspot.in/2013/01/2013-no-resolutions-just-follow-es.html)

This approach was very helpful and allowed me to go ahead and do so many things without bothering about breaking resolutions. In the year 2014, I would like to continue with the same approach and the same model called the ‘E Model’ but with a different set of Es as it is a dynamic model that keeps evolving with every passing year. 

So what is this ‘E Model’ and why will it ensure that I do not break any resolution? The simple reason for that is because this model allows you and encourages you to do more and achieve more rather than restrain yourself.

Without further explanations, let me list down my ‘E Model’ for 2014:

1. Experience – Life is all about experiences and I like to call myself a Collector of Experiences. To me, an experience is a vast word that comprises of many things. Travelling and exploring new places is an experience as much as going to a new restaurant is. Trying a new adventure sport is as much an experience as attempting to learn a new language is. Reading a new genre is as much an experience as writing a novel is. I am sure that you have got the gist of what an experience can really mean. Experience is nothing less than an ocean that has been formed by small and big moments, which have turned into memories, to create an experience. For me, that ocean still needs lots and lots of such moments which I shall be collecting throughout the year. 

2. Earn – Collecting experiences is not an easy thing. It costs. Hence it is critical that I earn more than before through better performance, smart financial investing and other possible avenues. But earning financially is not the only thing that I am interested in for 2014. I am keen to earn the respect of colleagues and peers by the work that I do. It is important that I earn the trust of the consumers as a marketer by doing better and sharper marketing. Last but not the least, it is extremely important that I earn good Karma by my behavior and deeds and take a small step in being a better human being than what I was in 2013. 

3. Exercise – Every sportsman will tell you that ‘Health is Wealth’ and it is even true literally in their cases. But the reality is that only if you are healthy can you experience more out of life and earn what you intend to earn. So I will use 2014 as a year to exercise more than before and move to a healthier body and a healthier mind.

4. Exchange – In the times of social media and messaging platforms like Whatsapp, while the friends list has grown tremendously but most of the exchange of expressions and emotions take place only through status messages and emoticons. 2014 shall be the year where I make an attempt to change that. No, I have no intention of cutting down on the time that I spend on these platforms but what I surely intend to do is to catch up and meet friends and family in person and exchange thoughts, conversations and emotions face-to-face and in person. I would also like to use 2014 as a year to meet new people, form new relationships and expand on my bonds with people. 

5. Entertain – This one is about the attempt to escape reality and the current environment for a few hours every now and then to see the movies/TV Series/Music Videos that exist out there as well as the ones that would come out in 2014. 

6. Enjoy – While I may attempt to list down all the things that I want to do in 2014 and also achieve some of them, the truth is that I do not have control beyond a certain extent to what lies ahead. There would be ups and downs, achievements and misses and it is a part of the deal. Instead of mulling over those that I can’t control, my attempt for 2014 would be to enjoy life and its big and small pleasures, knowing well that I am trying and taking an approach that lets me grow and emerge a better individual with more knowledge than before and hopefully a broader horizon to view things. 

I hope that this model makes 2014 a great year so that I can look back at the end of the year and say that it was an eventful year with lots of excitement that I lived with great exuberance!

2012: A Year of Four Es

This is a blog that should have been out much earlier in the day… or rather in the year but taking the adage of ‘Better Late than Never’, I have gone ahead and put this together even now.The thought for this blog came to me when I was hearing a number of people talking about their New Year resolutions and how they can’t sustain it and it gets broken every year.

I sat back and thought that I don’t want to make any resolutions, which when broken have no meaning left to them and then you miss out on the rest of the months, waiting for the next year to return, to start with the same set or new resolutions once again. But yet, I wanted to put some goals for myself for this year so that I could push myself to achieve those.  

That is when I thought that a resolution gets broken only when you put a constraint or leash on yourself (Eg. – I shall not eat pizzas – Broken as soon as you enjoy one slice of it or I shall exercise daily – Once again broken the day you miss one of the days of workout). I said to myself ‘What if this was flipped around and I put a goal for the year, which cannot get broken because the more I do it, the more I gain out of it?’.

This helped me in putting a clear strategy for myself and I put a framework, which I call:

The Four Es for 2012: Exploration, Experiences, Extraction and Entertainment

This is how this approach works:

1.Exploration:  The idea is to venture out and see new places/new cities/new countries and explore  

India/world.

2.Experiences: This is all about coming out of the comfort zone and trying out new experiences of life. It could be a new adventure, a new skill, a new course. As long as it is something I have not done before, it will go as part of the experience.

3.Extraction: Instead of putting reading as one of the goals, I have broadened the concept and put extraction as the objective. This would then allow it to mean reading, writing, blogging and surfing.

4.Entertainment:  This one is pretty simple. This is all about movies, videos, TV Shows and the works. There are quite a few old movies and seasons to catch as well, so that gets covered here.

What is very interesting,  which I realized after putting this together was that each of these Es are interlinked in some way or the other. While I am indulging or achieving one of the Es, there is a strong chance that in some way, the other E is also getting achieved.  For eg. – If I am exploring a new city and I try out a new dish, it also means that I am experiencing something new.

Furthermore, there is no fear of this getting broken during the course of the year because the more I do any of the Es, the more I enjoy and gain and hence there is no fear of this getting broken.

The only hitch that I see is that to follow this approach of Four Es, I need to indulge in one more E and that E is the E of Expenditure! But that is the harsh reality so without bothering much about that, I would just say ‘Let’s do Eeet!’

NEW START ON A NEW YEAR – 1.1.11

What could be a better day to start the first blog of the year 2011 than the first day of the year itself? But this blog is different from others. This time, there is no content or an idea in the mind but the intent is there. On most other days, the content and the idea already exists in the mind, it’s the intent that one has to bring forth. Well, actually it’s not even the intent that leads one to write less, it just sheer lack of time for various reasons.

What is it about the first day of the New Year that brings with it so much positivity? People make resolutions, go to the temples/churches/other religious places of worship. Some people like me make a list of what they want to achieve in this year and how will the year be meaningful to their life and their existence. Some people also believe that what they do on this day is what they will continue to do throughout the year and hence they try to plan that day in that manner. Taking cue from that, I went to the gym today, then played a few games of TT and am now trying to put up a blog before the clock strikes 12 as for me, these are some of the things that I would surely like to do through the year and if doing it on the first day allows it to happen, then so be it.

If one looks at it practically, it is just another day. The date is also similar to what will occur the next month, the day is also similar to the one that will arrive next week and the month is also the same that will come back when its turn is due 12 months later. But yet, this day heralds a new ray of hope, a new enthusiasm, a new optimism. In fact, even what I said in the earlier paragraph about me doing things today is more of putting a discipline in place right from day one and not really about thinking that doing it on day one will ensure it will happen throughout the year. If one is determined, committed and focused, then starting a task even on the last day of the year can ensure similar continuity and results.

What this date surely does is that it creates a halo around itself and everyone wants to be a part of it. People feel that there is an aura on the first day of the year and one can only witness that aura if one does the right things on this day. As far as I see it, I see this date as an opportunity or an excuse for me to sit down, reflect on what all I have done/learnt/achieved in my life till now and what all would I look to do/learn/achieve more. It allows me to pen down my goals – short-term and long-term and also my vision so that personally I am satisfied with the kind of life I am living.

Now, despite not having thought of what to write in today’s blog, I have still managed to put together a small piece, which is more like a personal opinion something written in a personal diary. Since blogs are an extension of one’s personal thoughts too, this definitely needs to go up.