This blog post is the first post in February 2021 and I have just completed a full month of posting every single day – 31 daily posts in January 2021. (although it is a 42 days in a row streak – I am pleased with that, so far)

For context, I have set one of my personal goals for this year as;

‘Post a blog every single day and to have an average word score for each post of approx 650 to 700 words‘

This will result in producing approximately 365 posts (I might post more than once on the odd occasion) and this will deliver approximately 250,000 words by the end of the year. Good reference material for the future.

There is no doubt about it, this year, 2021… the second year of the Pandemic, will be an other extraordinary year. With any luck we will have the post pandemic months ahead of us, we will have to work out how to manage through a whole lot of new changes to how we may work, travel, live in the future and we will have to do this while the world has to balance the books.

Trust me, someone has to pay for the global recovery and it is likely to be all of us – which is right, because we are on in this together…. right?

I mentioned how we travel in the future. Tis is super important to me as I live in Beijing China and for the last year, 2020, I have been unable to get back home to the UK to see the family. I have not seen my two amazing children and my extended family for over a year now. That takes its toll on a person.

I miss each and everyone of them and FaceTime, Text’s, Messenger, sharing funny videos and catching up on Facebook can only fill part of the massive gap.

So this year, after talking over text with my younger brother in the US who always inspires me. My younger brother, who said last year that he is ‘moving from the reading, learning and developing stage this year into execution and getting things done’ and that he did – he moved to Florida, started a new career journey and built up his own projects – inspiring.

With that, I decided to set myself some different goals this year. I set the usual financial goals, the getting back to the family as soon as I possibly can goal (please, hurry up and give me that chance), the career goals and the relationship goals… but on top of that, I built in something a little bit new.

I set the following as additional goals for the year 2021.

• Post a daily picture on Instagram.
• Write a Daily Journal entry – using the Day One App.
• Write a daily blog post.
• Make a weekly Youtube Video
• Learn 3 hours a week on LinkedIn learning app.

The goals are a bit more functional, less ‘aspirational’ than some of the other, more typical goals that I have set in the past. However, they are in service of what I might want to be doing in the future and they reflect some of my passions in life.

My aspirational, long-term goal, is to be financially free so that it gives me the time freedom to which I can travel and work digital from anywhere in the world and that includes being back in Scotland with the family for a large part of the years ahead.

The goals that I set are also structured more around habits and building out small daily habits using some habit stacking ideas that I have been reading up on and are all in service of my larger goal. I have went a beyond some of the ideas in both books… but hey, its cool, it is a different kind of year.

I have recommended the book; Atomic Habits by James Clear in a previous post, Atomic Habits is a great book to get immediately inspired about all things habit and habit stacking… and I also recommend the book, Habit Stacking: 127 Small Changes to Improve Your Health, Wealth, and Happiness by S.J.Scott which brings to live the idea of stacking small habits to achieve big changes. (note: I have no affiliation with these links)

So far, I have achieved on the Instagram, The Blog, The Journal and the LinkedIn learning, but I have an opportunity on making and posting the weekly Youtube video – which is a lot more trickier and time consuming than I figured.

Of course I will persevere with the YouTube video, it’s what happens when building habits – it can take perseverance. I will also keep going with the weekly video because I thoroughly enjoy the process and I am learning a whole lot. The process and what you learn through it, is often the best part of the journey.

I will also look to build in some new additional habits if the time permits as I see the benefits that achieving daily habits and stacking them for further long term success has given me personally.

This approach has given me a focus, strengthened my mental resolve and it is giving me realtime structured learning using my own material versus the online content (much more engaging) – and above all else it is another connection back to home as I share back with them, once my confidence in what I produce grows.

It has also helped me learn so much more and grow my learning habit… as they say we learn more by doing and a whole lot more by teaching – hence why I set the blog format as a teaching/coaching narrative with the children back home as my audience…

Average learning retention rates by Reading are about 10%, Audio Video learning is around 20%, A Live Demo 30%, when Practicing by doing retention rates are over 70% and when Teaching Others it can top the 90% mark.

The way I have set up the deeper approach to the blogs etc, are that the place where I live, China, and what I see in my travels, will form the backdrop to the context that I will share. The topics I cover are topics that interest me and I believe interest others and my Children are framed in my minds-eye as my audience, although I would like everyone an anyone to enjoy my content.

The month ahead, February, is a short month but I will make the most of it.

This month is Chinese New Year month and it is always an interesting time of the year in China for obvious reason. Big celebrations. This year will be different as the restrictions will make the celebrations a lot more subdued.

However, I will share more pictures of China, Beijing and will endeavour to capture more on video for all to see. When sharing, I will slip in a little inspiration, some thought provoking message or two for my two children who are staying safe and enjoying life as best they can back in Scotland, during the lockdowns.

Please follow along and give me guidance, feedback and gentle criticism where you see that you can add to me content and help my ongoing personal growth.

It would be great to hear from you…

I would be so appreciative of the company you would give with any comments that you leave.

Stay safe, Stay well.

Iain

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