I started this newsletter back in January wanting to keep track of my goals for 2021. I called it “Max’s Accountability Newsletter”: to keep me accountable for the progress I make towards my goals. And so far, it’s been working. I’ve read 11 books, worked out close to 30 times (a big improvement compared to last year), and overall, I feel like I’ve felt a major positive shift in my mindset and productivity.
But I want this newsletter to be more than that.
These past few weeks, I wrote newsletters around more than just my weekly goals, and it felt right. I wrote about some major achievements, life events, and also some longer-term ambitions for my life (like reading 1000 books before I die). But they didn’t really fit under “Max’s Accountability Newsletter”. More like, “Here’s what’s going on in my life.”
Last month, I didn’t post a newsletter for a few weeks. In part, that was because I was selling a company and still had a full-time job, and that took a lot of time. But it also was because I wasn’t having fun with writing this anymore. I thought I wanted the newsletter to be something super short to write: what I did that week, what I needed to work on, and my focus for the next week. But the “simplicity” of the task made it less fun, and it still took me a while to write anyway because I needed to make bland content fun to read.
Most importantly, I think I had lost track of my why. The “why” I’m referring to here is the one Simon Sinek talks about in his book “Start with Why” (the second book I read in 2021). It’s your “reason to be”, the thing that makes you passionate. That why is what makes you excited to get up early in the morning. And Sinek says you should start with finding your why, and then the how and the what will follow. With this newsletter, the what and the how are pretty obvious:
What: achieving goals.
How: writing a newsletter that forces me to push myself to achieve these goals.
Why: 🤷♂️
Trying to find a why after already having the how and the what kind of defeats the purpose of “starting with why”. But I’ll give myself a pass.
So, what is my why?
I think the real reason I wanted to start this newsletter was that I felt like I wasn’t achieving enough with my life. Going through college and then starting a job, I had the dreadful feeling that I was living life passively, or rather, that I wasn’t living life at all, just experiencing it. In high school, I knew what was coming next: college. Then college came around and all I needed to think about was graduating and then getting a job. Then I graduated, and I had a job. What next? a raise? a promotion? another job? getting fired?
All that to say that I was living life passively. I didn’t want to keep doing that. I don’t want to keep doing that.
One of my favorite movies of all time is the movie “Yes Man” starring Jim Carrey. He plays a man who, simply put, hates his life, and has given up on doing something about it. After missing his best friend’s engagement party, and getting a demotion at work, an old friend comes crashing back into his life and invites Jim Carrey’s character to a “Yes” convention. From that moment forward, he must say “yes” to everything that comes his way.
I won’t spoil too much, but his life takes a drastic turn for the better.
That’s what I want. I want to make the best of my life and actively pursue my goals. I want to say “Yes!” to life, make the best of every opportunity, and make new opportunities for myself. That means no more waiting for things to happen.
I want to live the best life I can live. That’s my why. It’s basic, but it’s no easy task. It’ll take a lot of self-determination and willpower. But that’s my why: living life to the max. That is INCREDIBLY cheesy, but lifetothemax encapsulates my why perfectly, and it also includes my name, so double-win.
So that’s why I’m changing the name of my newsletter, to better reflect my why, not just my how or my what. My how and what aren’t changing — it’s still a newsletter to keep track of my goals. But it’s more than that because my why is much bigger and better.
So that’s it.
Welcome to my new-sletter: lifetothemax.
🗣 Shoutout
My friend Oscar (aka. Big Rig) started a brand new newsletter of his own, following a similar format to mine. His first post is out, and I’m super excited to read his next one. Please follow him here: Big Rig's Small Steps
📚 Reading
Finished this week:
“The Little Book of Common Sense Investing”, by John C. Bogle.
Currently reading:
“The Compound Effect”, Darren Hardy.
“The Hobbit”, J. R. R. Tolkien.
Please leave any book recommendations in the comments and add me on Goodreads.
📊 Statistics
Year progress: 41%
Newsletters posted: 16 (+1)
Newsletter subscribers: 32 (thank you ❤️)
Hours read this year: 74 (+2) - on schedule
Workouts this year: 28 (+0) - 6 ahead of target
TikToks posted in 2021: 9 (+0) - 12 behind target
TikTok followers: 122 (+1)
🤡 Meme Palette-Cleanser
This meme was once again brought to you by Frank Pepitone, the meme selector.
Thank you once again for reading my newsletter. It means a lot. I hope you like the new name. There are a few new people here since last week, so if this is the first newsletter in your inbox, thanks for subscribing! If you got here from a post, you can subscribe here:
Thanks, see you next Sunday ❤️
In the meantime, you can read last week’s newsletter:
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