The power of compounding was my single biggest lesson from 2023.

After letting that realisation settle over the break, I’ve thought more about how to execute on it.

I’m going to do a few things differently.

I’ve decided my formula to experiment with this year is going to be: practices x coaching.

With that in mind, I’ve adjusted my approach to planning out 2024 to be:

1. Vision Framework
2. Practices
3. Coaches
4. Goals

Vision Framework

I consider my vision framework as my internalised decision making criteria. I reflect on it most days. While it’s stabilised over time, I still make tweaks when I feel like it. It’s also the starting place and guiding principles for me for any planning.

Purpose: To change the world’s relationship to suffering

Values: Love, Gratitude, Humility, Exploration, Contribution

BHAG (25 yrs): 100M+ people impacted

Suffering: Mara

Behavioural Principles: Committed Action; Ideas, Strategy and Execution all matter; Do What Matters

With those elements clear I can develop the practices and goals that will bring it to life.

Practices

I pulled this list of practices from my reflection last year. In the process I realised that the best combine multiple areas of life into single activities to increase the value and decrease the sense of an activity being a tradeoff.

Some questions that I’ve used to apply this in the year ahead for me are:

1. What is already working? Make sure it stays.
2. Where I want to make change, what is the smallest increment that I can sustainably compound over the 12 months?
3. Are the practices that I’m starting or deepening going to be ones that I’m likely to want to continue for the rest of my life? The answer needs to be yes.

Here’s my list for 2024 and how I’m translating it to my diary:

• Monday 12pm – Pilates w friends or family (exercise, friends +)
• Tuesday 6:15-7:15am – swim squad with my eldest daughter. (exercise, parenting, friends)
• Tuesday 5-6:30pm – time at mum’s with kids and Luce and my siblings and their partners and nieces and nephews. (parenting, intimate relationship, family)
• Wednesday 5:15am – exercise session w a mate (exercise, friends, environment +)
• Wednesday 12:30-1:30 – breath and cold bath w friends/clients (health, friends, work, spirituality)
• Thursday 10:30am – swim with mates (exercise, friends, environment)
• Thursday 7:30-8:30pm – date walks w Luce (marriage, environment, exercise)
• Saturday 8:30am – breaky and walk at our place w family (family, parenting, exercise?)
• Fortnightly Sunday 6am – surfing (environment, exercise, spirituality, family, friends)
• Fortnightly Thursday 5:30-6:30pm – date walks w kids (parenting, environment, exercise)
• Quarterly first Tuesday – Sibling dinner (family)
• Daily meditation 1:30-2pm (spirituality)
• Daily mobility and strength (health)
• Daily protein supplementation (nutrition)
• Coffee – max 2 LBs/day (nutrition, marriage, friends, work – depends who I’m enjoying it with!)
• Kick off bush or river walks and cold tubs w clients (work, environment, health)

Haha – looking at this I feel like I’m being over the top. But, in the spirit of the experimental approach for 2024, I’ve already diarised most of these.

Will I hit them all? No way. Life always gets in the way and there will be other things more important that spring up.

But it’s not about perfection for me.

It’s about having the most important people and practices in my life as the default rather than having to fight to find time or wrangle diaries and then have it slip through the cracks.

If time is a non-renewable resource, then I want to make sure I manage it accordingly.

Coaches for 2024

If they’re the practices, then I want to compound my activity and shortcut the learning process by using coaches, guides, mentors, courses, learning… The word might change, but the intention is the same.

What I’m looking for is a person/organisation/event to help me do 5 things:

1. Assessment: Understand my current needs so I can take targeted action immediately.
2. Plan: Clarify direction, explore opportunities, and identify next steps.
3. System and Structure: Embed new practices to support desired outcomes.
4. Toolkit: Equip me with the first principles so I understand and can execute the right building blocks.
5. Accountability and Support: Get personalised guidance and support to stay focussed and course-correct as needed.

Assessing fit is also important, so this is the question I’m asking myself as I consider coaches in different areas:

Do I know someone who is values/philosophically aligned and knows way more than me in the area I’m looking to practice? Ie who might be able to “coach” me, directly or indirectly?

And I’ve decided that this year, I’m going to see if I can find coaches for:

• Business
• Finance
• Health and fitness
• Meditation
• Breathwork

Goals

I’ve put goals third, because I feel like goal setting may be a part of engaging with a coach in a specific field. But at least at a high level here are some of the goals my year ahead.

Marriage

• 2 x weekends away together

Friends

• Weekends at South Straddie

Family

• 4 family adventures: Perth, Barcaldine, Seal Rocks and a trip to Sydney are all on the cards at this stage. So much to explore!

Work

• Coaching: 20 x 1:1 clients
• Speaking: 50 workshops/presentations. I want to use these to scale impact and as a tool to serve non profits and organisations focussed on solving the climate emergency.
• Content: Reach a daily cadence by the end of the year

That’s it for now. I may crystallise more as I go, but I feel like my practices are going to compound in most of the other areas where I have traditionally set goals. It’ll be interesting to see.

Without expectation of results

There is one final thing I’ve been reflecting on over the break. It feels particularly relevant to my planning and goal setting approach this year.

Ghandi is reported to have owned 5 objects: his robe, his glasses, a bowl, a spoon and a book called the Bhagavad Gita which he tried to live by. When I heard that, I figured the book was probably something worth exploring so I read the translation by Eknath Easwaran at the end of last year. I loved it.

My favourite principle from it was this:

Action, in service of others, without expectation of results.

I’m still trying to work my way through how this might play out, but it really resonated so I wanted to publish this plan, take the action implicit in it and see what happens.

Are there results defined in my plan for ‘24?

Definitely.

Can I let go of the expectation?

I’m going to give that a shot.

All the very best to you for your 2024.