Keeping me, Max, accountable for my goals.
I tend to give up on my new year's resolutions within the first 72 hours of January. Hopefully this newsletter will change that for 2021.
At the end of 2019, I created a list in my notes app titled “10 GOALS FOR 2020”. I read somewhere that resolutions that are written down are 4 times as likely to be fulfilled. Let’s see how that went for me:
10 GOALS FOR 2020
Post 52 videos on youtube. — I posted one.
Pass 1000 subscribers on youtube. — I started the year off with 303 and am now at 302 subscribers.
Read (at least) 30 minutes a day. — I finished 7 books, 2 of which I had started in 2019. (This is, sadly, a very big improvement on previous years, but obviously no where near the goal.)
Work out daily (minimum 10 push ups + 15 sit ups or a 10 minute run) — Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Graduate college. — Hurray, I did this one! However, this didn’t involve much self determination other than attending classes and taking finals…
Release 1 Milktooth (my girlfriend’s clothing brand) line of clothes. — Covid-19 didn’t help. Once again, this did not happen.
Make 1 painting a month. — I don’t believe I so much as touched a paintbrush this entire year.
Keep a tidy living space. — I had just finished reading Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” and was feeling pretty optimistic about this. Although having to move out of my dorm and back in with my family last minute made this hard, Covid-19 is not entirely to blame for the mess that I live in on the daily.
Prioritize my mental health. — I would say I am in a better mental place today than I was a year ago, but through no effort or ‘prioritizing’ of my own.
Make the best of every opportunity. — Hah.
Needless to say, writing these down didn’t help much. I’m hoping this newsletter will change that.
I’ve determined that the goals I failed to fulfill failed for 3 reasons:
They are too broad and not “achievable”. “Prioritize my mental health” and “Make the best of every opportunity” are great sentiments, but unless they are constantly being applied, they cannot be measured or strived for. With a weekly newsletter, I can look back and evaluate how I am doing on each goal and set habits for the upcoming week.
They require lots of discipline, which I lack. Hopefully this weekly newsletter will be the little push of accountability I need to do a minimum of physical exercise on a regular basis.
Goals change. 2020 put a lot of aspirations in perspective. I didn’t expect that my girlfriend and I would be long distance for 6 months, and the clothing line was out the window for obvious reasons. Having the clothing line on my list was one more thing I wouldn’t be able to achieve this year, which in an already disappointing year was pretty depressing. Goals should be just that — goals. They should be something to strive for, not something to look back on in disappointment when they are not achieved. Therefore, I will also use this newsletter to update my goals on a weekly basis, if need be.
So those are the reasons I want to start this newsletter. Hopefully this will be of some value to you the reader, and even if it’s not, it will allow me to reflect and be mindful of my goals, weekly. I’ll make sure to keep each post shorter than a 10 minute read.
My first newsletter will go out on Sunday January 3rd 2021, in which I’ll outline my actual goals for 2021. But here’s a teaser:
First goal of 2021: release 1 newsletter every Sunday of 2021.
Welcome to Max’s Accountability Newsletter by me, Max Lascombe.
In the meantime, tell your friends!
This idea was inspired by a few cool people:
First of all, Ben Issenmann @creative_ben’s “Weekly Supercreative” newsletter is a really inspiring read. He started off the newsletter with stats about how his website was doing, how many followers he had on different social platforms, etc. My idea for a weekly goal check-in sprouted from there. Check out his newsletter: Weekly Supercreative Newsletter.
Secondly, Nathaniel Drew’s video How To Reinvent Yourself in 2021 (getting a fresh start) really struck a chord. Turns out, he also has a newsletter (which I have yet to check out), but the video really made me want to be more mindful of my goals and how to stick to them.
Thanks for reading. See you next Sunday ❤️