The two biggest myths of language learning are that it takes years to learn a language and that you need a lot of time to do it. In fact, many languages can be learned in a year or less with a time investment of no more than an hour a day, but this doesn’t happen learning languages the way most of us have been taught.

As an aspiring polyglot, I’ve tried learning languages in just about every imaginable way: I took Latin classes in grade school, I tried night school Japanese at a local university, I’ve had private Chinese tutors, I completed the Duolingo tracks for both Spanish and French, and I even spent an entire summer at a Chinese immersion program run by the famed Middlebury College. Some of these things worked better than others, but most have either felt inefficient or unsustainable; classroom and self-taught curriculums often require large time investments and don’t emphasize real-life conversational fluency, and immersion, while great, doesn’t teach strategies to retain hard-earned progress long-term.

If, like me, you’re a busy person without all that time and energy to spare, you can’t afford huge time investments with low long-term returns. Fortunately, there are strategies and techniques used by successful polyglots that can take you to fluency quickly and maintain that fluency with minimal effort. I’ve personally been able to use many of them to get myself from beginner to intermediate/upper-intermediate in French in under a year.

Disclaimer: as a fledgling writer and aspiring digital nomad, I do sometimes receive compensation for sale or use of products and services mentioned on my blog. I do, however, only mention products and services I have used personally and strive to always provide my honest opinion positive or negative. I will never compromise the integrity of the content on this blog for financial gain.

The Shortest Path to Conversational Fluency

When it comes to conversational fluency, the real problem with most approaches is that they don’t force you to confront what’s really holding most people back in foreign language conversations: fear of rejection and sounding stupid. Instead of challenging themselves in a difficult and potentially embarrassing situation, most people retreat into book studies, telling themselves that if they just memorize a little more vocabulary or if they just keep studying those conjugation tables, they’ll be ready soon. Except that soon almost always turns into never, and even when it doesn’t no amount of book studying can save you when you panic and your mind goes blank. (If you read last week’s post, you may recognize this as a form of emotional inertia: talking to people in a new language and risking sounding like a lobotomized second grader is terrifying, especially for recovering perfectionists like myself, so it’s easier to just avoid that situation altogether.)

When you force yourself into real conversations with native speakers, you start to overcome the anxieties that make these situations scary. As a result, you begin to open yourself up to more opportunities to learn by speaking to people in new and different contexts. Furthermore, the quickest way to learn the vocabulary and phrases you actually need to carry on conversations is, well, trying to have conversations. (Captain obvious saves the day!) Each time you have a new conversation, it highlights new areas for directed growth toward your weak areas. (Contrast this with the sort of shotgun approach taken by most structured curriculums.) Didn’t know how to say “hello,” “thank you,” or “how are you”? Go memorize them. Couldn’t figure out how to express a thought or opinion? Figure out how to say “I think that…”. Struggled to answer a certain question about your life? Prepare an answer offline that you can practice and deliver the next time someone asks. Your conversations may last as little as 10 seconds before switching to English, but over time you should be able to push this further and further until you’re having full and rich conversations in your target language.

Learning Mindset

With the right mindset it’s almost never too soon to start talking to people in your new language. In fact, Benny Lewis, an accomplished polyglot and author of Fluent in 3 Months, encourages people to start having foreign language conversations in their first week of learning. The trick is to remember that the goal is to understand and be understood without reverting to English for as long as possible, and that failing and making mistakes is totally OK. In the beginning, everything is fair game–pointing to objects, bizarre and convoluted hand gestures describing abstract concepts, or interpretive dances–just try not to revert back to English in fear or frustration. Don’t let yourself get caught up on the mistakes you’re making–the words you mispronounced, the grammar you botched, or the vocabulary that left you when you metaphorically shit yourself–instead remind yourself that perfection takes time and practice, and that even native speakers make mistakes sometimes. Your speech may be broken, and you may sound like you were repeatedly dropped on your head as a child, but so long as the gist of your meaning is somehow getting across, you’re doing great. You don’t need years of classroom instruction, you just need, as with most goals, a few ounces of courage to get started, a dash of discipline to consistently keep at it, and a pinch of perseverance to help you through the most embarrassing moments.

Immersion programs work so well because they give you no choice but to fall into this mindset, and then force you into uncomfortable situations where you don’t know what to say or how to say it. Conversely, some of the more popular language learning tools like Duolingo aren’t as helpful because they give you the illusion of progress without actually dragging you into real conversations. This isn’t to say that things like Duolingo don’t work–if you spend enough time with a tool or set of tools, you’ll eventually reach a certain level of fluency, but then, if you spend enough time trying to crack a coconut open with toothpicks, you’ll eventually succeed. (Don’t quote me on that–I’ve, uh, probably, never actually tried this.) Don’t get me wrong, I love Duolingo–I think what they’re doing is great, their product is moving in the right directions (chatbots are beginning to help close the conversational fluency gap), and I love their mission of providing free language education for all, but having graduated from two of their language tracks, I can attest that it never took me to a sense of real fluency in either language. Tools like these are great supplemental resources, but they’re not going to get you where you want to go on their own.

Language Exchanges

If we’re on the same page at this point, you’re probably thinking, “Great, thanks Daniel, I get that having real conversations is important, but I don’t know anybody who speaks Klingon, so what gives?” Fortunately, it’s a wonderful time to be alive and we have this amazing thing called the Internet (maybe you’ve heard of it?). The primary mechanism I use for having conversations with native speakers is called a language exchange, wherein I connect with someone on the other side of the planet who speaks the language I’m trying to learn and is trying to learn English, so we’re able to trade competencies. There are a lot of websites out there to help facilitate language exchanges, but the one I currently use is called italki. (Disclaimer: this is a referral link, so I do have a small incentive to advertise here. You and I would both receive $10 in italki credits if you take a lesson with one of italki’s very affordable–sometimes as cheap as $10/hr–community tutors. That said, I primarily use italki for the community, not for the tutoring, though both are great.) Through italki, I’ve connected with native French speakers in Europe and Africa. It honestly still freaks me out every time, but doing more of these was one of the improvement areas I identified for my French-learning goals during this year’s mid year review. Aside from italki, I’ve also found that there is a wealth of language-related meetups, so it’s usually not hard to find other language learners to practice with. If you’re feeling really brave (or really desperate?), it can be surprisingly easy to find people to practice with spontaneously in the real world as evidenced by this video of a couple polyglots speaking 12 different languages with random strangers in Ohio of all places.

Efficiently Learning Everything Else

If having real conversations is the strategy for getting us past our anxieties and identifying our areas for improvement, the next natural question is: what’s the best way to improve once we know what we need to improve? And how can we maintain our language gains with minimal effort?

Spaced Repetition

The answer to both questions is a memory technique called spaced repetition, which is actually already in use behind the scenes in some popular language tools like Duolingo and Memrise. Spaced repetition involves reminding yourself of a piece of information at an interval that optimizes your likelihood of remembering it without overexposing yourself to it, theoretically resulting in better long-term retention of the data each time you review it, while minimizing the number of reviews.

In practice, if you’re using spaced repetition with a deck of flashcards, rather than review those cards every day, the first day you would review all of your cards. Then tomorrow, you would go back and review your cards again, and you’ll save the cards you remembered correctly to review again in two days. The cards you didn’t remember correctly, you’ll review again the next day. Each time you successfully remember a card, its review interval increases exponentially (so if it had been two days since you saw this card, now you’ll snooze it for four days), and each time you fail to remember a card, it starts over in the process. Eventually, you won’t need to review some of these cards for months or even years. In order to avoid having to study hundreds of cards at a time, you can also break the deck up and just learn a few cards every day to keep things manageable.

There are a few software tools out there for automating the spaced repetition process, but the main two I’ve come across are Memrise and Anki. I personally prefer Anki because it’s more flexible and customizable and virtually every polyglot I’ve ever talked to uses it. It’s also free so long as you can get away without it on your mobile devices. It is however, a lot less sexy and modern-looking than Memrise. Of note, Gabriel Wyner also has a Kickstarter out for a new language learning app, which promises to be a solid competitor to these existing options. (In fact, many of the tips in this section originate from Gabriel’s book Fluent Forever, which likely does them better justice than I can.)

So what is it we’re actually using spaced repetition to memorize? Well, truthfully, you can use this to memorize anything (I’m looking at you, future doctors and lawyers), so long as it comes in small, quizzable chunks. That said, for learning a language, the main things you’ll want to memorize are vocabulary and grammar, and primarily you’d be doing that through flashcards.

Memory Hacks for Flashcards

To get the most out of each flashcard, you’ll want to abuse a few memory tricks. First, every flashcard should have an image. We have visual memories, so associating a foreign language word with an image is much better for you than associating a foreign language word with an English one (which would more-or-less sets you up for translating word-by-word in your head later on). It can be fun to Google image search foreign words because sometimes the subtle differences in the connotation of the word as it’s natively used and its English translation become apparent. (Gabriel Wyner calls this “spot the differences” in Fluent Forever.)

Second, choose an image that is really provocative. Our minds tend to remember things that are really out there: really strange, really funny, really sexy, or really violent. (No joke, I have some pretty racey flashcards–it doesn’t help that a non-trivial number of French words turn up unexpectedly sexual image search results.)

Last, if you can, write a word or short phrase that reminds you of a memory you have that is somehow associated with the vocabulary in question. When this card comes up, try to remember what this phrase was as well. Since our memories operate as sort of associated networks of information, the more connections you’re able to make between a new word and other new or existing memories in your mind, the easier it will be to remember.

Learning Vocabulary

When it comes to learning vocabulary, you need to get yourself to the point where you’re picking up new vocabulary words in the wild–as opposed to from a list–as quickly as possible. This ideally means finding new words and sentences to learn from in their natural contexts–from easy reading, from watching YouTube videos in the target language, or from playing video games in the target language, for example. Unfortunately, the shortest path to getting to this point does involve memorizing vocabulary from lists, but not the lists you’re used to finding in your textbooks. Instead, you’ll want to grab a list of the most frequently used words in your new language. This works because the most frequently used words in a language appear disproportionately often in context so, for example, by learning the 600 most frequent words in a language you can actually learn most of the words you’ll expect to see in the wild, which will typically leave you able to guess at the meaning of most simple sentences, even if you don’t recognize all of the words.

It’s typically not terribly hard to find a list for your language free and available on the Internet, but I personally bought a frequency dictionary for French and don’t regret the investment. I’m also a big fan of Gabriel Wyner’s frequency lists, as they offer a more visual and thematic experience.

When it comes to vocabulary, one of the really important points is that you make your own flashcards. There’s an abundance of existing flashcard stacks on the Internet for any language you could want to learn, but the experience of creating the flashcards in the first place, if done right, is a valuable first step in establishing a concept in your memory. For each word, you’ll want to create at least a couple of flash cards using as little English as possible: 1) picture of something on one side, word itself and other info (like gender, pronunciation, similar words, or relevant memories) on the other side; 2) word on one side, picture and other info on the other side.

If you use Anki, check out Gabriel Wyner’s Anki card templates and use Forvo to grab native speaker pronunciations for words and sentences you make flashcards for.

As a bonus tip here, for languages with those pesky gendered nouns, you can actually shove this information into your visualization centers by associating a descriptive verb with each gender. For example, I like to use “freezing” for feminine words and “burning” for masculine words, so if the word is “farm” and it’s feminine, I’ll picture the image of the farm that I have on the card, but with everything frozen over. Anything that creates a provocative image when combined with the images on your cards will do–melting, shredding, eviscerating (disemboweling? ._.)–let your imagination run wild :).

Learning Grammar

The mechanisms behind learning grammar are similar to that of learning vocabulary. Use all the same memory hacks, but generally use sentences rather than words now. For grammar, it’s easiest to use a sentence you’ve either written yourself or found somewhere and create a blank in the sentence that you have to fill. For example, if I’m trying to learn a verb conjugation, rather than make myself a flashcard for the second person singular of that verb, I’ll just create a sentence flashcard that implies second person singular and leaves a blank for the verb form. I’ll usually give myself the verb infinitive, since the goal here isn’t to test if I know the word, but rather the form of the word that fits here. You can also do the same thing for other grammatical constructs like learning which preposition to use. Eventually, you can also use fill in the blank sentences to learn vocabulary words.

Again, I would check out Gabriel Wyner’s Anki card templates for this if you use Anki.

Learning Pronunciation

Some languages have pronunciation systems or just consonants and vowels that are really different from English. For example, Mandarin Chinese has a tonality system that English speakers find excruciatingly confusing, and French has some very, very subtle pronunciations that sound similar. Sometimes you’ll find yourself staring dumbly at a native speaker who insists that two things that sound exactly the same are actually completely different words or phrases. (Fun fact: these words/phrases are actually called minimal pairs.)

Don’t worry, you’re not dumb. You really can’t hear it. When we’re young, our brains automatically learn to cluster the sounds of our native language into vowels and consonants we recognize. Some languages have slightly different sound clusterings that other languages get easily confused because they get lumped into a sound clustering that we do recognize. But don’t lose heart, it is possible to train one’s ear and one’s tongue to hear and say these sounds.

I recommend checking out Gabriel Wyner’s resources for minimal pairs. He even has Anki-based pronunciation trainers for most languages, which I’ve found helpful for French.

Keep it Fun

When it comes to learning a language, don’t forget to be creative and keep it fun! Search for new and interesting ways to immerse yourself in the language. I try to read easy books, I watch TV, and I play video games in French. I’ve even changed the native language of my phone to French–Siri now only does things for me when I talk to her in French and my pronunciation is sufficiently non-shitty–and have gotten used to things like navigating app interfaces in French or having Google Maps tell me how to get where I need to go in spoken French.

Don’t stay chained to a textbook or to flashcards! Your ultimate goal is to be able to function in your new language the way you function in English–don’t forget to find pleasurable ways to do that. Just remember to occasionally make yourself a flashcard or two when you encounter a new word or sentence structure you didn’t know before ;).

Conclusion

I spent my whole life learning languages the wrong way, and up until recently have always felt frustrated by the slow pace of progress or the inability to hold on to a new language over time. Much of that has changed for me after discovering the techniques described in this post, none of which any of my language teachers in school ever bothered to teach me.

With regular conversations in my target language, I’m able to get a better sense of how actually fluent I feel, and with all of the memory hacks I’m able to download a huge amount of information into my brain pretty quickly. While I can’t guarantee the same results for everyone, and you definitely get more out of a language the more time you put into it, I’ve personally put less than an hour a day on average into learning French this year and, though my written and spoken communication still lag behind a bit, I’m able to pass diagnostic tests placing me into intermediate and upper-intermediate French levels. By the time my spoken French skills catch-up–hopefully in the next few months–I expect I’ll be fairly conversationally fluent!

I hope this information will help inspire you to pick up a new language or finish learning a language you started in the past. It doesn’t take years, and it doesn’t require chaining yourself to a textbook for multiple hours a day!

 

* * *

 

This was just an overview of some of the language learning methods and hacks I’ve learned this year.

If you found this fascinating or helpful, please consider taking a moment to react to this post on social media, or even share it with your friends.

If you have questions about any of this, please leave a comment on the post, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

Lastly, you can expect more posts on this blog outlining smart ways to accomplish common goals in the near future. Become an email subscriber to be among the first to know when new posts come out!

Further Reading

Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World breaks down a lot of the barriers that people run into when trying to learn languages: fear of jumping into conversations, the belief that they just don’t have a talent for language learning, and the idea that one has to fly halfway across the world to really get exposed to a new language. This book is the basis for this blog post’s section on “The Shortest Path to Conversational Fluency,” and also contains a number of cool memory hacks and language learning tricks that I didn’t have space to cover in this blog post. I’d also recommend checking out Benny Lewis’ website and blog.

 

Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It is an excellent and comprehensive resource for language learners. Many of the memory hacks and techniques outlined in this post under “Efficiently Learning Everything Else” come from this book. It’s also worth giving Gabriel Wyner’s website and blog a look, and checking out the Kickstarter he’s running for the Fluent Forever App.

 

 

 

There’s a little less than 6 months left in 2017, which means I’m due for a check-in on my annual goals. This is just a reflection on goal progress over the last 6 months and on how I can do better in the next 6. For more context on the goals themselves (e.g. why I even care about doing some of these things), see the original post.

Summary

At a high-level, I think I’m generally moving in the right direction for most of my goals. There are a few where I’ve honestly made very little progress, and there a few where I’ve already hit my stretch goals. If I had to grade myself, I think I’d give myself a C+.

Qualitatively, I do feel generally more confident and less afraid and je peux parler une petite peu de francais :).

For the rest of 2017, I should try to do a better job of tracking metrics for my goals and try to establish more goal-related habits and routines to help me make consistent daily or weekly progress on some of the longer term goals.

Review

Green below means an objective or key result is done. Red means it hasn’t been done or is at risk. For mid year, it’s a good sign to be averaging yellow on all of these.

• Conquer my fears and insecurities by cultivating courage.
  • Do at least 150 things total that scare me this year. (Does not have to be 150 unique things if appropriate level of fear is still present.)
    • I haven’t done a very good job of tracking this, but I think I’ve probably completed on the order of 30-50 fear challenges this year, especially since this overlaps with rejection challenges. Some of my favorites include:
      • Committing to leaving the safety and comfort bubble I’ve built for myself in Silicon Valley. (I leave at the end of July.)
      • Learning to lead climb and passing my lead climbing certification test.
      • Night diving in San Diego. (Though I was with friends, so it
      • admittedly wasn’t as freaky as it could have been.)
    • Risk Mitigation: Track challenges more consistently. Figure out how many of these I really need to do each week in order to stay on track, and try to hit those numbers rather than worry about the yearly numbers.
  • Conquer my fear of failure.
    • Figure out what I would do if I weren’t working at Palantir.
      • I admittedly have taken none of the steps to network with people in various professions or problem spaces that I had set out to at the beginning of this year, but much of what I’ve learned about myself recently tells me that this isn’t the right time for any of that. Nevertheless, I have enough clarity now to say that I know generally what I would do for at least a year post-Palantir.
    • Stretch: Take a leave of absence from work or quit and do my own things for 3-6 months or leave my current job to work on something more risky.
      • While I haven’t yet committed to leaving my job, I have asked Palantir to send me to France and, while I intend to keep an open mind about this, I do have a timeline along which I am mentally committed to leaving lacking any large changes.
  • Conquer my fear of rejection.
    • Get rejected at least 100 times trying 100 different things.
      • I haven’t done a very good job of tracking this, but don’t think I’ve hit 50 unique things so far. I’d guess I’ve done on the order of 20 different rejection challenges of varying difficulties including:
        • Asking several attractive women out on a date.
          • I only ever do this when I’m genuinely interested and want to get to know someone better.
        • Going on some dates with attractive women.
          • Again, I only ever go on dates when I’m genuinely interested.
        • Attending a speed dating event.
        • Asking for a kitchen tour at Joya in Palo Alto.
        • Asking random strangers at the mall for a high five.
        • Asking strangers on University Ave if they’d be willing to take a picture with me.
        • Generally trying to get to know co-workers that I otherwise have no reason to talk to (e.g. sitting with a random new group of total strangers at meal time).
      • Risk Mitigation: Track challenges more consistently. Figure out how many of these I really need to do each week in order to stay on track, and try to hit those numbers rather than worry about the yearly numbers.
    • Complete at least Foundation Level 2 improv at BATS.
      • Finished this one in March!
  • Conquer my fear of sharks.
    • Go swimming in a shark cage.
      • I actually think I wouldn’t be afraid to do this today. The issue is more around time and money–I think last I checked shark caging is pretty ‘spensive.
    • I haven’t done much on this front other than swim Alcatraz despite knowing there are great white sharks in San Francisco Bay.
    • Risk Mitigation: Put together a fear hierarchy for exposure to sharks which I can use to gradually combat my irrational fear/anxiety when around them.
  • Conquer my fear of spiders.
    • Hold a tarantula in my hand without freaking out.
      • Most of the issue here is that this goal is, itself, entirely too hard for me to tackle from the outset. I definitely need smaller, more realistic goals leading up to this and I’ve failed to define those so far.
    • I’ve done very little on this front.
    • Risk Mitigation: Put together a fear hierarchy for exposure to spiders which I can use to gradually combat my irrational fear/anxiety when around them.
  • Conquer my fear of falling.
    • Go bungee jumping.
    • Go rock climbing outdoors.
    • Stretch: Go lead climbing outdoors.
      • I haven’t been climbing outdoors yet, but I did take a lead climbing class, and I do now have a lead climbing certification card at Planet Granite. This has done a lot to help me get over the fear of falling.
  • Conquer my fear of open water.
    • Complete an Alcatraz swim.
    • Complete scuba certification.
    • Stretch: Go on 2 additional dives after certification.
      • I’ve actually gone on 3 dives past my certification! Twice in San Diego, and once in Nice, France.
    • All of the key results have been accomplished for this one, but I’ve noticed that I am still irrationally afraid of swimming in open water alone. Large groups like a swim race aren’t a problem, and I strangely don’t feel a lot of fear while scuba diving (perhaps because I’m always with a guide?). I think I could plan to push myself further here, but I may leave continued progress on this one to next year in order to hit some of my other goals.
• Become confident around attractive women.
  • Ask out at least one woman I find attractive each week in person.
  • Go on at least one Tinder date.
    • I haven’t gone on a single Tinder date :P. I did go on a Coffee Meets Bagel date, but I honestly find it hard to genuinely connect with a complete stranger over text. Pretty much all of the dates I’ve been on this year have been with people I met somehow in real life, and then asked out later either in person or by  message.
  • I realized pretty immediately after I wrote my resolutions that these key results are awful and needed to be altered.
    • “Ask out at least one woman I find attractive each week in person” is entirely too aggressive given my comfort level, given that I’m extremely picky, and given that I don’t meet new women that often.
    • “Go on at least one Tinder date” isn’t something that I can immediately control, nor is it necessarily a good proxy for the actual goal here.
  • Overall, I actually feel like I’m doing well here. At the beginning of this year, I felt like I had no idea at all what I was doing when it came to asking attractive people out, or being a normal human being (as opposed to a puddle) when talking to them, or dating them. At this point, I feel pretty comfortable with just being honest and just being myself. I’ve found that if I express my honest attraction to a woman directly and confidently, I can walk away feeling like I have paid her one of the highest compliments I can give regardless of whether or not she agrees to see me. I’ve also found that I’m very happy with who I am and how I communicate with others in my most natural of states–I’m usually a little sarcastic and dry, but overall I like to think I’m a fun and amusing person to hang out with–most of my anxiety around attractive women comes from being too worried about her perception of me and therefore failing to be present. Anyway, to summarize: I feel like I’m probably on the average side of dating ability now, whereas before I really just didn’t feel like I had any idea what I was doing. I’m still afraid of the idea of walking up to a total stranger and trying to get to know her from there and I’d like to feel like I can handle myself in that situation, but I’m doing OK.
• Read more.
  • Learn to speed read.
    • Read a book about speed reading.
    • Watch speed reading lectures I have saved.
      • Didn’t do this, but am replacing knowledge-oriented key results with just time practicing at this point.
    • I haven’t been practicing consistently, but I did purchase some software (7 Speed Reading) which I think would get me to where I want to be if I just used it for 20-30 minutes regularly.
    • Risk Mitigation: Commit to doing 20-30 minutes of speed reading practice every other day.
  • Read at least 40 books.
    • So far I’ve read about 20 books, so I’m tracking well here. 80% of those books were read in the first 3 months of the year, however, so I have slowed down and that does present some risk to completing this.
• Become a polyglot.
  • Become fluent in French.
    • Spend at least 1 hour each day learning French.
      • I was fairly consistently at 30-60 minutes for awhile at the beginning, but have been learning a little bit more passively since. So far I’ve memorized ~1000 of the most frequent French words, did a few language exchanges through italki.com, studied a grammar book and did a large number of exercises, and spent 10 days in France realizing that I still suck at talking to people. Right now I’m mostly doing things to increase my exposure to natural French language like playing video games (Skyrim aka Bordeciel is awesome for this haha), reading books, and watching TV.
    • Earn the DELF B2 French language qualification or higher.
      • I haven’t taken a super official test, but I do have a McGraw-Hill certificate stating that I passed one of their B2-level French diagnostic tests. This was probably the lowest test score I’ve had in my life (#asianproblems), but I passed… on the second try haha.
      • Stretch: Earn the DELF C1 French language qualification or higher.
    • Read Harry Potter in French.
      • I have the first book in French both on Kindle and on Audible and have done a few sessions where I read along while I listen, but progress is a little slower than I’d hoped. I’m actually having more success with L’Alchemiste by Paulo Coelho, perhaps because it’s one of my favorite books and I’ve already read it multiple times in English.
    • Risk Mitigation: Hoping to spend about 6 months in France starting in August. Ahead of that, I need to focus more of my attention on actually talking to native French speakers. Book studying is great, but not really what I need right now.
  • Future: Become fluent in Chinese (Mandarin).
  • Future: Become fluent in Japanese.
  • Future: Become fluent in Spanish.
• See the beauty and strength of which my body is capable.
  • While I haven’t exactly let my fitness languish, and I’m still in pretty good shape, I haven’t made much real progress towards my goals here in the past few months.
  • Qualify for the Boston Marathon.
    • Strategy here was to break through to a 5K time that would extrapolate out to a Boston-qualifying marathon, then work up to the same for a 10K, then a half marathon, and finally a marathon. I’ve come close to the fitness level required for the 5K (~6:00/mi), but in boosting my run intensity I’ve struggled with knee injuries. I’ve spent much of the last few months in physical therapy, but if I’m being totally honest with myself I know I could also be doing more to speed my recovery so I can get back to racing. As is, this goal is at risk, and it’s looking increasingly unlikely that I’ll qualify for the 2018 Boston Marathon.
    • Risk Mitigation: I need to double down on my physical therapy exercises to make sure I can keep running in the long-term. Additionally, I’d like to try a few different things with my training. Boosting intensity on shorter distances is definitely helping my speed, but I think it could also do a lot for me to simply train back up to marathon endurance and continue competing in races to just chip away at my personal record.
  • Develop a 6-pack.
    • Still just have the 4 on top with no sign of the bottom 2 underneath the blubber.
    • Get down to 9% body fat.
      • Started at about 15%, still at about 15% :/. Finding that discipline with food is hard for me especially when the company I work for offers all-you-can-eat meals 3 times a day. (I know, I know… world’s smallest fiddle here…)
    • Do an abdominal workout three times a week.
    • Risk Mitigation: Well, my physical therapist has also recommended lower abdominal exercises, so I don’t have much excuse anymore here. I’d like to focus more on the diet aspect of this. It blows my mind that I was able to get myself to exercise for 20 hours a week to complete an endurance event, but not eating things is so hard. Ideally, I start planning my meals and combine calorie restriction with ketosis. I’ve also started experimenting with intermittent fasting as a method of achieving some basic calorie restriction and to help pull me into ketosis more quickly. Honestly, much of this is bro science, but the first step is building the discipline to hold to a routine long enough to determine if it’s working. Ketosis seems to work well for me since most of my guilty pleasure free calories come from carbohydrates like desserts and snacks… :(.
  • Stretch: Lift weights three times a week.
• Improve my ability to regulate and compartmentalize thoughts and emotions, especially negative and anxious thoughts and emotions such as fear or insecurity.
  • I haven’t been amazing about the key results here, but I’ve found that through a combination of rejection challenges and self-administered cognitive behavioral therapy, many of the skills for doing this are becoming increasingly internalized.
  • The single most helpful thought for this has been remembering always that “this, too, shall pass.” This thought helps with not panicking when things aren’t going great, and helps provide perspective to not take feeling great for granted so I notice why I feel great when I do. I can then optimize for making things that usually lead to me feeling great happen more often.
  • Meditate for 20 minutes every day.
    • I’m a bit on and off with this. I have long streaks where I’m good about it, and long streaks where I’m not. I do best with this when I make it part of a routine and meditate early in the morning when it feels like I have all the time in the world.
    • Risk Mitigation: I’ve definitely found that consistently waking up early (6AM or 7AM) and meditating first thing completely kills the excuse of “I don’t have time” or “I don’t have energy.” When I actually wake up several hours before the work day, I feel like I have all the time and energy in the world to do these things.
  • Write in a journal at least once a week.
    • I’ve written a few journal entries, but mostly this tends to happen when there’s a lot on my mind and I just need to get it out of my head. So I haven’t been super consistent about this, but I’d also say that once a week is probably a bit too frequent.
• Become more politically active.
  • Become more politically informed.
    • I have books picked out for all of these categories, but haven’t read them yet. I have, however, read a number of biographies of political and philosophical figures I admire including Martin Luther King, Bruce Lee, Joe Biden, and Ben Franklin.
    • Read at least 2 books about healthcare issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about global warming and environmental issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about education issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about immigration and globalization.
      • Read A Nation of Immigrants by JFK
    • Read at least 2 books about economics.
    • Read at least 2 books about political theory and political philosophy.
    • Risk Mitigation: Not sure there’s much I can do here but read more, and focus more of my reading time on these books rather than whatever else appeals in the moment.

 

On January 1, 2016, I started a personal tradition of committing my New Year’s Resolutions and yearly goals to paper and sharing them for all to see. I’m continuing this practice in 2017 because the true commitment to those goals, the pressure from having incremental milestones, and the higher stakes from making them public really gave my year and my life a sense of direction and purpose I had never experienced before.

I used to spend exorbitant amounts of my free time doing things that felt meaningless and unproductive like binging on video games or TV. Where before I might find myself bored in my free time or searching for something to do, now I find myself energized to use nearly every free moment of my time to accomplish my goals. I’ve always known that professional growth is important, but I’ve learned that the growth I find in my own pursuits is just as important if not even more so. Where before I might have let myself throw my free time into work or school, now I find myself protecting that time aggressively, drawing boundaries that ultimately make me a better professional and a happier, more interesting, and more fulfilled person. I used to wonder when or how or if I’m going to get the life I want, but now I feel like I have the roadmap to get there, I just need to follow it and make a little progress every day.

The roadmap on its own, however, is just one part of the picture. The other part is a cycle of regular review, reflection, and introspection which helps me make sure that I’m holding the right map, that it’s not upside-down, and that I’m progressing down the path as quickly as I can. 6 months into last year, I conducted a mid year review where I forced myself to think about where I was doing well, where I needed to redouble my efforts, and what I had learned along the way. This post is meant to be the same thing for the end of 2016.

Review

Overview

This year’s goals were somewhat eclipsed by the longer-term goal to complete an Ironman Triathlon, which I decided to accelerate in August and ultimately accomplished at the end of November. Unfortunately, doing this meant a conscious sacrifice of many of my other goals. Sacrificing everything else wasn’t an easy decision, but here’s why I did it:

1. Training for some of the longer legs of the Ironman (like the cycling) was taking the majority of my time and energy on the weekends, making it much harder to make consistent progress on some of the other goals.
2. After completing a 100mi bike ride I realized that I had enough fitness and training momentum to complete an Ironman before the year ended. Building that fitness and momentum takes a lot of time, so it made sense to capitalize on what I already had and take it to the finish.
3. Training for an Ironman in general is a very time-consuming process (~20 hours/week of exercising) and I realized that I wanted that time back for other things like tackling other goals, seeing friends, and romance.

If I’m completely honest with myself, I think there’s also an element to which I knew I was in a little bit of trouble for some of my other goals. My options were to either: a) push hard to complete them or b) push hard to complete an Ironman and feel justified in not completing the rest. Had I not chosen to compete in the Ironman, I think I would have reached about 80% completion on these goals. As it is, I reached 50-60% completion but also completed an Ironman. I don’t regret my choice.

Goals

• Complete a standard distance triathlon (0.93mi swim, 24.8mi bike, 6.2mi run).
  • Ironman.
• Complete a 2.4-mile ocean swim.
  • Ironman!
• Complete a 112-mile bicycle ride.
  • Ironman!!
• Stretch: Complete a long distance triathlon (1.86mi swim, 49.6mi bike, 12.4mi run).
  • IRONMAN!!
• Super Super Stretch: Complete an Ironman Triathlon (2.4mi swim, 112mi bike, 26.22mi run).
  • Basically, I killed this whole set of Ironman-related goals very, very dead :).
  • Wasn’t actually supposed to do this in 2016.
• Complete the Duolingo French track.
• Read 52 books.
  • I read 47 books in 2016.
    • Favorites:
      • Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection by Jia Jiang
      • Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson
      • Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller
      • Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
    • Most-read genres:
      • Self-Help
        • Dating/Relationships
        • Business/Entrepreneurship
        • Personal Psychology
      • Sci-Fi
      • Fantasy
• Lift weights three times a week.
  • ~60% completion.
  • Dropped in favor of Ironman training, which did not include weight workouts.
• Do an abdominal workout three times a week.
  • ~60% completion.
  • Dropped in favor of Ironman training, which did not include dedicated abdominal workouts (but my core nevertheless got pretty shredded ;).
• Get scuba certified.
  • Pool training done, ocean trips still pending.
  • Dropped in favor of Ironman training, which made it very hard to find a weekend I could spend in Monterey instead of exercising.
• Meditate for 20 minutes every day.
  • ~30% completion.
  • Might have been able to make time for this one, but continually failed to make it part of a routine. When Ironman training started, “I don’t have enough time” became an excuse again because I barely had enough time to finish a 60+ hour work week and 20 hours of weekly training.
  • Easy to stop meditating when I don’t feel like I need it to deal with whatever is going on in life, but important to remember that meditation helps me practice important skills and mindsets that. If disaster strikes and I’m not still good at those skills, I’m screwed.
• Go on at least 4 scuba diving trips.
  • Dropped in favor of Ironman training, which prevented me from completing my scuba certification.
• Pass the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) Level 3 test.
  • Dropped in favor of Ironman training, since I barely had energy for both work and training. Didn’t feel that I could commit myself to daily Chinese practice without overcommitting myself.
• Stretch: Pass the TOCFL Level 4 test.
• Earn the DELF B1 French language qualification.
  • Also dropped in favor of Ironman training.
• Stretch: Earn the DELF B2 French language qualification or higher.
• Get down to 9% body fat.
  • Ended up around 15% body fat, which is more-or-less where I started.
  • Could probably have done more to focus on this earlier in the year. Really requires watching diet and nutrition very closely, and in order to lose body fat one generally needs to calorie restrict to some degree. Once Ironman training started and I was burning an extra 1,000 to 2,000 calories every day I was not willing to calorie restrict and pretty much just let myself eat whatever I wanted.

Learnings

In sharing my learnings, I use the second person because it’s convenient, but I know that it can come across as arrogant, condescending, or pedantic. I want to be clear: this is what works for me. Everyone works a little differently so I don’t presume that my learnings are universal. I have no interest in forcing my opinion or my way on others. I do, however, think some people will find these reflections helpful, so I encourage you to be honest with yourself, take what’s useful, and leave the rest. If you find my learnings helpful or interesting and want to talk about them or want advice on how to apply them to your own goals, please feel free to reach out!

Articulate Your “Why”s

I have come to believe that the most important part of thinking through my goals is articulating the “why” behind what I want to do. Sure, milestones and action plans are important and they make it look like you’re going to do something, even give you a framework and a set of deadlines for doing so, but none of these things by themselves will motivate you.

When I’m feeling down, or unmotivated, or tired the only thing I have found consistently remotivating is remembering why you set out to achieve something in the first place. Write it all down when you’re feeling fired up and excited about it. Read it again when you’ve forgotten how to feel that way. Your own words will inspire you to action.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change the Plan

I spent a lot of time thinking about how specifically I was going to achieve my goals in 2016. I broke it down into careful steps and milestones. I made sure everything was actionable and only dependent on my taking action. However, I’ve found that no matter how meticulous or thorough you thought you were at the outset, you cannot see the future. As you get into the work of actually making progress on your goals, you may discover that what you originally planned doesn’t work well for you, or that there’s a better way (in fact, it’s only a week into 2017 and I’ve already realized that some of my written milestones, approaches, and actions for this year’s goals need to be reworked). That is okay! Re-strategize as needed, and optimize for what works best for you.

You’re allowed to hit bumps along the way and you’re allowed to course correct. Just don’t give up.

Pace Yourself

When I get really into thinking about all of the things I want to do and how I’m going to do them, I get really fired up. Then I get impatient, then I push myself too hard, and then I burn out and make less progress in the long-term than I would have if I had just paced myself.

For example, in committing to learn French this year I know I impatiently want to be fluent in the language as fast as I can so I can move on to other languages. Because I’m impatient, I could commit myself to several hours of French study every day. However, in a few months things will change, work might be more busy, or other goals will start pulling my attention. If I feel like I need to keep up with several hours a day to be successful at French, I put myself in jeopardy of just not doing it at all because of the amount of energy it sounds like it will take. Alternatively, if I set myself a fairly easy daily goal like, say, 30-60 minutes of French every day, I can pace myself in a more sustainable way and avoid burn out or demotivation when other things in life start to pick up.

Resolve to Complete the Goal on Your Own, Welcome Friends Along for the Ride

When you want to work at something and you have friends who are working towards the same goals, it can be incredibly helpful and incredibly motivating. However, if I become dependent on the external motivation of my friends encouraging me or working toward a goal with me, on some level I put my ability to achieve that goal in their hands. If they’re not feeling like working out today, then maybe I won’t go, either.

Instead, of falling into this trap, I try to make sure that I’m working towards my goals for me (having a well-articulated “why” really helps here). Then I make sure that I’m doing what I think I need to do to get there, and I invite friends headed in the same direction to come along if they’d like, but I don’t stop the show if their motivation wanes. It’s sort of the difference between saying “I’m going biking with these friends weekend” and saying “I’m going biking this weekend. It would be awesome if these friends feel like coming, but I’m going with or without them.”

Don’t Beat Yourself Up When You Miss a Milestone

I’m generally pretty hard on myself, so I’m terrible at this one, but in the long-term I’ve never found it helpful to beat myself up for missing a milestone or missing a workout. Sure, it’s better if I don’t, but in the event that I do if I beat myself up over it it’s easier to completely lose momentum and I’m much more likely to just give up. Instead, better to forgive yourself for our past transgressions, realize that I can’t change the past, and then focus on getting today’s task done.

As a corollary to this, I’ve found that “making work up later” is also generally not a good idea. It’s really easy to get overwhelmed when I do this to myself as “punishment” because if, for example, I didn’t find 60 minutes for French yesterday, I’m twice as unlikely to find 120 minutes for French today. Because I don’t think I can make up yesterday, I might not even do today’s work because the perceived amount of mental expenditure is too high.

“I Don’t Have Time” Is a Terrible Excuse

I’m stealing this from somewhere else I can’t remember exactly where, but every time I think “I don’t have time” I like to replace those words with “It’s not important to me” and then see how I feel. Since we have a finite amount of time to spend on the things that are important to us, life is never-ending game of prioritization. If you’re not finding time to fit something into your life, it’s because, by definition, something else has been prioritized above it. And that’s okay–certain things really are more important than others. However, when I say “I don’t have time,” I find it much harder to be honest with myself about this. In fact, sometimes when I say “___ isn’t important to me” instead, I get back a statement that really doesn’t resonate with me. When that happens, I’m forced to re-examine and sometimes reshuffle my priorities, which is a good thing :).

For example, I might say “I don’t have time to exercise.” When I rephrase this to say “Exercising isn’t important to me,” I kind of feel like I’m saying my health isn’t important to me, which causes alarm bells to go off in my head. Usually after that I find time :P.

Give Yourself a Break Every Once in a While

Everyone needs breaks to just do nothing once in awhile. It’s not worth beating yourself up over it, and often taking a break from something leaves you feeling more refreshed and able to do get things done in the long-term. Better to acknowledge that breaks are a good and necessary thing and just build them into your schedule!

“There’s a million things I haven’t done just you wait!” –Hamilton

I was born on New Year’s Day, so I’m big on New Year’s resolutions. Last year I started a personal tradition of writing out my resolutions, really thinking them through, and then publishing them online for all to see. I go through this exercise because I know how easy it is to promise yourself you’ll do something in a given year, and then not to make meaningful progress towards that goal or to abandon it completely by March. Instead, I use my New Year’s resolutions as an annual check-in to examine where I think I really need to grow in life and organize specific, measurable, and actionable goals around them. I make these resolutions public in the hope that it will inspire others to take their goals seriously and live life purposefully. I also make these resolutions public because telling the world I’m going to do something and then not following through sounds pretty embarrassing :P.

Summary

• Conquer my fears and insecurities by cultivating courage.
  • Do at least 150 things total that scare me this year. (Does not have to be 150 unique things if appropriate level of fear is still present.)
  • Conquer my fear of failure.
    • Figure out what I would do if I weren’t working at Palantir.
      • Network with people in non-tech career paths that I’m interested in.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who went to law school after an engineering career.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who went to business school after an engineering career.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in legislation.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in policy.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in politics.
        • Talk to an Air National Guard recruiter.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who have joined the Air National Guard.
      • Network with people working on small companies doing things I care about.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on healthcare issues.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on education issues.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on environmental issues.
        • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on social issues that don’t match the above.
      • Stretch: Take a leave of absence from work or quit and do my own thing for 3-6 months or leave my current job to work on something more risky.Conquer my fear of failure.
  • Conquer my fear of rejection.
    • Get rejected at least 100 times trying 100 different things.
    • Complete at least Foundation Level 2 improv at BATS.
  • Conquer my fear of sharks.
    • Go swimming in a shark cage.
  • Conquer my fear of spiders.
    • Hold a tarantula in my hand without freaking out.
  • Conquer my fear of falling.
    • Go bungee jumping.
    • Go rock climbing outdoors.
    • Stretch: Go lead climbing outdoors.
  • Conquer my fear of open water.
    • Complete an Alcatraz swim.
    • Complete scuba certification.
    • Stretch: Go on 2 additional dives after being certified.
• Become confident around attractive women.
  • Ask out at least one woman I find attractive each week in person.
  • Go on at least one Tinder date.
• Read more.
  • Learn to speed read.
    • Read a book about speed reading.
    • Watch speed reading lectures I have saved.
  • Read at least 40 books.
• Become a polyglot.
  • Become fluent in French.
    • Spend at least 1 hour each day learning French.
    • Earn the DELF B2 French language qualification or higher.
      • Stretch: Earn the DELF C1 French language qualification or higher.
    • Read Harry Potter in French.
  • Future: Become fluent in Chinese.
  • Future: Become fluent in Japanese.
  • Future: Become fluent in Spanish.
• See the beauty and strength of which my body is capable.
  • Develop a 6-pack.
    • Get down to 9% body fat.
    • Do an abdominal workout three times a week.
  • Qualify for the Boston Marathon.
  • Stretch: Lift weights three times a week.
• Improve my ability to regulate and compartmentalize thoughts and emotions, especially negative and anxious thoughts and emotions such as fear or insecurity.
  • Meditate for 20 minutes every day.
  • Write in a journal at least once a week.
• Become more politically active.
  • Become more politically informed.
    • Read at least 2 books about healthcare issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about global warming and environmental issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about education issues.
    • Read at least 2 books about immigration and globalization.
    • Read at least 2 books about economics.
    • Read at least 2 books about political theory and political philosophy.

Detail

Objective: Conquer my fears and insecurities by cultivating courage.

Why

“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor.” –Aristotle

I believe that I need two main virtues in order to accomplish everything I want in life: the courage to dream, and the discipline to execute. Last year I completed an Ironman Triathlon which, for me, was the ultimate test of my discipline. I now have very little doubt that if I put my mind to something I’ll find a way to make it happen. Instead, I now find myself constrained by what I’m willing to dream up.

Like most people, there are plenty of things I’m afraid of–failure, rejection, and spiders to name a few. Some of these fears dictate the life I live in obvious ways: the fear of failure makes me more afraid to quit my job and start a company, the fear of rejection makes me more afraid to talk to that cute girl over there or show my true self around others, and the fear of spiders makes me scream like a young child and flee in the opposite direction 😛 (ok, it’s not quite that bad, but you get the idea). However, these same fears often control me in more subtle but no less pernicious ways. For example, my fears can lead me to seek comfort, certainty, and stagnation rather than discomfort, uncertainty, and growth. The quest for comfort can even trick me into believing that I don’t want to start my own company, when really I’m just afraid of failure, or that I want to be single right now, when really I might just be afraid of rejection. The quest for certainty biases me towards defining things in blacks and whites, towards over planning and overthinking, and keeps me from fully embracing life which can so often be beautifully messy, gray, and uncertain. Furthermore, it can be hard to be honest with myself about fear which makes it hard to tell if I truly want or don’t want something for legitimately good reasons, or if I’m just searching for rationalizations to mask my fear and avoid discomfort.

Escaping from this invisible prison of the mind and cultivating courage is my top priority this year. I want to do things that scare me. I want to lean into discomfort wherever I can find it. I want to embrace uncertainty. I want to be sure I live the life I do because I choose to, not because I’m afraid of the alternatives.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” –Unknown

Notes

There are a couple of different kinds of courage. There’s the more tangible and visceral courage involved in facing fears of corporeal things like spiders or sharks, and then there’s the more intangible and psychological courage involved in facing fears like a fear of failure or fear of rejection. At their root, I think these two types of courage are linked and cultivating one also cultivates the other, so I make no distinction between them.

As an example: my little sister recently taught me how to put a candle out with just my fingers. Once she had done it, I knew it was possible. Once she told me how she did it, I knew intellectually that it I could do it. However, even knowing intellectually that I could do it, I hesitated to touch the flame. I feared that if I did it wrong, I’d burn myself and get hurt. In that moment, I realized that the emotions and discomfort I felt were pretty much the exact same as what I have felt right before asking a girl out. In other words, the fear or the flame and the fear or rejection sparked the same set of feelings. Learning to become comfortable with those feelings and quickly move past them in either setting will certainly help with the other.

With such an aggressive set of goals overall, I’m not yet comfortable fully taking the steps I think I need to in order to conquer my fear of failure. Instead, I’m committing to doing some of the prep work to determine what my next career step might look like.

I’ve stolen the idea of getting rejected at least 100 times trying 100 different things from Jia Jiang, who wrote Rejection Proof: How I Beat Fear and Became Invincible Through 100 Days of Rejection, one of the most memorable books I read last year.

Some of the key results here overlap. For example, I’m sure I will get my fair share of rejections asking women out this year, and I’m sure working up to talking to those women will initially freak me out. I’m expecting the overlap, but have designed this so I’m still forced to get creative with things that scare me (even if I complete every key result on this list, I expect to be well below 150) and with ways to get rejected.

Key Results

• Do at least 150 things total that scare me this year. (Does not have to be 150 unique things if appropriate level of fear is still present.)
• Conquer my fear of failure.
  • Figure out what I would do if I weren’t working at Palantir.
    • Network with people in non-tech career paths that I’m interested in.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who went to law school after an engineering career.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who went to business school after an engineering career.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in legislation.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in policy.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who work in politics.
      • Talk to an Air National Guard recruiter.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 people who have joined the Air National Guard.
    • Network with people working on small companies doing things I care about.
    • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on healthcare issues.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on education issues.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on environmental issues.
      • Identify and talk to at least 3 companies working on social issues that don’t match the above.
    • Stretch: Take a leave of absence from work or quit and do my own thing for 3-6 months or leave my current job to do something more risky.
• Conquer my fear of rejection.
  • Get rejected at least 100 times trying 100 different things.
  • Complete at least Foundation Level 2 improv at BATS.
  • See “Become confident around attractive women.”
• Conquer my fear of sharks.
  • Go swimming in a shark cage.
• Conquer my fear of falling.
  • Go bungee jumping.
  • Go rock climbing outdoors.
  • Stretch: Go lead climbing outdoors.
• Conquer my fear of spiders.
  • Hold a tarantula in my hand without freaking out.
• Conquer my fear of open water.
  • Complete an Alcatraz swim.
  • Complete scuba certification.
  • Stretch: Go on 2 additional dives after becoming certified.

Milestones

• End of Q1:
  • Complete scuba certification.
  • Get some professional swim coaching and bring my mile swim time below 40 minutes.
  • Register for an Alcatraz swim.
  • Complete Foundation Level 1 improv at BATS.
• End of Q2:
  • Complete an Alcatraz swim.
  • Complete Foundation Level 2 improv at BATS.
  • Complete 75 total things that scare me.
  • Get rejected at least 50 times trying 50 different things.

Objective: Become confident around attractive women.

Why

This is a complicated one for me, and probably even deserves its own post.

I want to learn from my mistakes in order to grow and my relationship/dating history has no shortage of useful nuggets. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on past experiences–what went right? what went wrong? what might I have done differently? what might my partners have done differently? In order to contextualize my experiences, I read a number of books about dating and relationships last year.

Many of the ideas I’ve come across in these books have been incredibly enlightening. Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help YouFind – and Keep – Love by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller helped me become more aware of how/why I behave in romantic relationships and how/why others behave in romantic relationships. That awareness has enabled me to consciously make different choices than I have in the past and given me hope that I can do better. Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson gave me hope that there’s a way to approach dating that is consistent with my standards of honesty, respect, and integrity.

At the same time, some of the ideas have been extremely uncomfortable. In The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them, W. Anton paints a picture of dating that, while possibly accurate, feels like it doesn’t hold men to a high enough standard. Anton writes about how men must appear “dominant” because it’s masculine and attractive or should not apologize to women too often because it shows a lack of confidence. Further, it often felt like Anton’s singular goal is to seduce women in order to bed them, though he still tries to frame it all as a personal journey. There were moments when I almost abandoned The Manual, but I kept reading because I know there’s growth in discomfort and it’s rare for a book to challenge my assumptions on such a deep and visceral level.

The contrast between the ideas in all these books has made apparent that I must adopt my own philosophy for dating. For example, I don’t believe in the “dominant” approach. Dominance may be a classically male characteristic, but I believe we only speak of dominance over those who are less than us, and I refuse to approach or pursue anyone who I believe is anything less than my equal, or to treat them as anything less than my equal. Additionally, I find the notion that a man should not apologize to women too often ridiculous. Perhaps it looks more confident and self-assured, but I believe it takes honor and courage to admit one’s mistakes and I value these things in an individual far more than I value confidence. I can’t argue that Anton is wrong–perhaps his methods work–but I can choose a philosophy more consistent with my values.

Ultimately, the biggest takeaway from my reading has been that, while self-respect is the singular most important thing men need when pursuing women, the appearance of self-respect is often just as important. If a man doesn’t seem to respect himself, it’s ridiculous to expect that anyone else will respect him either, especially the attractive, self-respecting women that every man wants (or, at least, every man like me wants–I’m not convinced Anton cares if the women he attracts respect themselves or not). Furthermore, if a man doesn’t seem to respect himself his attraction isn’t as flattering to a woman because his implicit belief that he is not the best there is to offer signals to her that she isn’t really the best there is to offer, either.

Self-respect manifests itself in a few main ways: selectiveness, confidence, and boundaries. A person who really respects and values himself believes he deserves the best, and therefore settles for nothing less making him selective. A person who really respects and values himself has no doubt that he is worthy of approaching, talking to, and dating someone he finds incredibly attractive, and is comfortable being himself around her making him confident. Finally, a person who really respects and values himself will not compromise his own needs in order to meet someone else’s–healthy and happy relationships form when two people can consistently meet each other’s needs without sacrificing their own. Accomplishing this often requires boundaries.

Some men struggle with self-respect because they don’t feel successful with women, creating a circular problem. Dating books often try to solve this with a sort of “fake it until you make it” strategy, leaving men initially without true self-respect, but with the appearance of self-respect (e.g. well-scripted pick-up lines can give a man the appearance of confidence even though he doesn’t really have it). While I’m sure there’s some of this for me, I think I mostly struggle with the opposite: on many levels, I do truly respect myself, but when confronted by a woman I find extremely attractive I often fail to show it. In other words, I experience self-respect on at least an intellectual level, but I somehow fail to consistently embody that self-respect in my interactions with attractive women.

There have been times in my life when I might have argued that I didn’t really respect myself–at the beginning of my first relationship in college, for example, and at many points during it. However, at this point I have earned my own respect by adopting a value system that I am proud of–values like honor, integrity, courage, discipline, honesty–and by constantly pushing myself to live a life that exemplifies those values (writing, sharing, and accomplishing these resolutions is part of that). There will always be more work here, and I’ll never be perfect, but I am already enough.

At this point in my life, I have ridiculously high standards because I honestly believe I deserve to meet the woman of my dreams, and I refuse to settle for less–I’m happy enough on my own that I’m willing to stay single until I find her. (Note: I don’t actually believe in the concept of “the one”–the “woman of my dreams” is more of an allegory for the general type of woman and type of relationship I hope to end up with. Some parts of this are more specific, others much less so. The definition is also constantly evolving as I learn more about myself and my values.) However, I’m afraid of approaching women I find attractive due to irrational fear of rejection, which leaves my chances of meeting the woman of my dreams pretty slim. Furthermore, I get nervous if I do finally find the courage to talk to a woman I find attractive. If I make it as far as dating someone I find attractive, I have so little idea of what effective dating looks like (I’ve been on, maybe, two first dates) that I put too much effort into it and then worry I’m crossing my own boundaries or creating an imbalance in the relationship dynamic that I’m not sure any self-respecting woman could truly reciprocate. I start to second guess myself since I don’t really feel like I know what I’m doing, which can lead to feeling and acting insecure. It usually doesn’t end well.

In truth, I’ve known I’ve had this problem for awhile, and have been meaning to do something about it. In fact, I had been preparing to take action earlier last year, when I first began to identify what it is I’m lacking. Then I fell for someone I was really excited about. I knew there were things I wanted to work on, but I wasn’t sure if I needed to work on them before pursuing something serious. I was, however, pretty sure I would regret passing up an opportunity with someone I was that excited about. So I told her how I felt, and tried as best I could in the moment to be honest with her about what I need to work on and where my remaining insecurities lie. I was nervous to talk to her and it all came out different from how I imagined it. It still makes me cringe to think about. Nevertheless, she was gracious, understanding and accepting, and that, to me, was even more incredible. I thought that maybe if we could continue to be honest and vulnerable with each other something really could work–maybe I really didn’t need what I was missing to make it work.

We danced around the idea of a relationship for a little while, but it ultimately didn’t turn into anything serious. The reasons were, I think, complicated on both sides, and though I was disappointed, I understood that both of us would have needed to change and grow independently before something could even possibly have worked. For my part, if I’m honest with myself I now know that the confidence I’m lacking and the insecurities spawned from lacking it are truly holding me back. Because of that I no longer just want to work on building my confidence, I now know that I need to if I am to end up with the woman of my dreams. (This is not to say that the person I considered a relationship with is the woman of my dreams or that she is not–we didn’t really get far enough for me to determine.) The woman of my dreams deserves–expects, even–a man who has the confidence to sweep her off her feet, the courage to love her fearlessly, and the integrity to always be himself. I hope to become that man. I don’t think I should consider another serious relationship until I do.

Notes

I want to be clear in my intentions for this, since there’s a very fine line between confidence and narcissism or arrogance. I need to build my confidence with attractive women and my method for doing so will be to practice and put myself in more and increasingly uncomfortable situations where I risk rejection. However, I don’t intend to do this in a way that compromises on any of my values. I will continue to treat others and myself with the respect, integrity, and honesty they deserve. I will continue to be selective, and will do my best to balance the need to gain practice in various situations with not wanting to move forward with someone for the wrong reasons (paradoxically, practice is definitely a wrong reason). I don’t intend for my quest for growth here to be a closely held secret (otherwise, I wouldn’t be making it public), and do intend to be honest with the people I meet about where I am in all of this if it comes up. This is not about playing the field, this is not about casual sex, and this is not about becoming a “player” or a womanizer. This isn’t even about meeting the woman of my dreams. This is about personal growth and becoming the person the woman of my dreams dreams of, not because it’s who she will want me to be, but because it’s who I want to be.

“Be with someone that makes you happy.”

Key Results

• Ask out at least one woman I find attractive each week in person.
• Go on at least one Tinder date.

Milestones

• End of Q1:
  • Feel comfortable approaching and talking to an attractive woman in a bar or club.
  • Go on a Tinder date.
  • Increase goal number of attractive women to ask out each week to two.
• End of Q2:
  • Feel comfortable going on a first date with someone I find attractive but don’t know very well.
  • Increase goal number of attractive women to ask out each week to three.
• End of Q3:
  • Feel comfortable approaching and talking to an attractive woman in any setting.
  • Increase goal number of attractive women to ask out each week to four.

Objective: Become a polyglot.

Why

Language is the gateway to truly experiencing a new culture. Without speaking a language, I can travel and see a foreign culture from the outside, but I’ll never be able to truly experience the culture. I’m also excited about the idea of reading books and other cultural outputs in their original language, even the best of translations can never capture everything about the original ideas encoded in the author’s choice of words in the original language.

I want to learn French so that I can, eventually, go live in Paris and attend Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in French. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll even convince Palantir to send me to Paris for 3-6 months this year.

I want to learn Chinese so that I can fully understand and experience my Taiwanese/Chinese heritage. It sucks feeling like an outsider in the country of your ancestors.

I want to learn Japanese because I’m still in love with Japanese culture, and it feels like a shame not to finish this language out after spending a year learning it in high school. Would also be fun to attend the Tokyo Sushi Academy in Japanese.

I want to learn Spanish because it’s an incredibly prevalent and useful language where in California where I live. Since Spanish is a romance language, I’m also of the notion that Spanish will be easy to learn quickly, especially once I’m done with French.

Notes

Many of last year’s goals were dropped due to accelerating my Ironman timeline, but I have found that it is hard to focus on more than one language at a time. I don’t think it’s impossible, and I think I could do it if I really put my mind to it (and sacrificed some other goals), but I’ve decided to put Chinese on the backburner to really challenge myself to reach fluency in an easier language in a shorter time frame. I think that once I’ve achieved fluency in French, the lessons I learn from the process of learning language will help to greatly accelerate my learning for other languages. I’m also trying to define fluency in more practical terms this year e.g. the ability to read a book or watch TV in a foreign language. I would also like to complete a qualification test, but most of my milestones will be in terms of more practical skills.

I’m also changing my methods this year. Instead of using tools like Duolingo, I’ll be taking a more self-directed approach to my learning as outlined in the book Fluent Forever: How to Learn Any Language Fast and Never Forget It by Gabriel Wyner. This approach will involve using a spaced repetition system to quickly memorize vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. I’ll also be using frequency dictionaries to memorize the first 600-1000 words in my target languages so that I’ll very quickly be able to understand writing and television.

Key Results

• Become fluent in French.
  • Spend at least 1 hour each day learning French.
  • Earn the DELF B2 French language qualification or higher.
    • Stretch: Earn the DELF C1 French language qualification or higher.
  • Read Harry Potter in French.
• Future: Become fluent in Chinese.
• Future: Become fluent in Japanese.
• Future: Become fluent in Spanish.

Milestones

• End of Q1:
  • Memorize the 1000 most frequent French words.
  • Attempt the DELF B1 French language qualification test.
• End of Q2:
  • Attempt the DELF B2 French language qualification test.
  • Read Harry Potter in French.

Objective: Read more.

Why

The more I read, the more I fall in love with reading. I’ve read books about all kinds of topics last year, and feel like ideas from books are responsible for an impressively large proportion of my growth. This year, I hope to continue to read often, but I’m also lowering my yearly reading goal in order to make time to speed read. My hope is that by learning to speed read, I’ll have the chance to read many, many more books in the long-term. There are just too many interesting things out there to learn about!

Key Results

• Learn to speed read.
• Read at least 40 books this year.

Objective: See the beauty and strength of which my body is capable.

Why

Before I completed an Ironman last year, I joked frequently that I’d be content to eat popcorn on my couch for the rest of my life once it was all over. Those who know me well know that I’d go insane if I actually did that :P. Though the Ironman is done, I’ll keep exercising because it helps me destress, makes me feel and look good, and helps to build overall confidence. I’d like to see what I’m capable of before I get too old to do so.

Notes

The Ironman is done, but I’ve still got plenty of work to do. In particular, I’m hoping to compete in the Boston Marathon in 2018. The Boston Marathon is going to be tough, as it will test of speed more than a test of endurance, but I’m hoping to leverage my Ironman endurance to springboard me into Boston Marathon training. On the bright side, at this point a marathon sounds pretty short ;).

Additionally, I’m still hoping to develop a 6-pack. Last year, once I had decided to do an Ironman, I stopped messing with my nutrition (restricting calories when already burning an extra 2500 calories most days just sounded like a bad idea). This year, I’m making it a priority, and am hoping that marathon training will help.

While I’d like to keep lifting weights to maintain my upper body muscle mass, I’m not yet sure if I’ll have the time to make building more upper body muscle a priority. Thus, I’m leaving weightlifting as a stretch goal in favor of ensuring I have the time to run consistently.

Key Results

• Develop a 6-pack.
  • Get down to 9% body fat.
  • Do an abdominal workout three times a week.
• Qualify for the Boston Marathon.
• Stretch: Lift weights three times a week.

Milestones

• End of Q1:
  • Get down to 13% body fat
• End of Q2:
  • Get down to 11% body fat
• End of Q3:
  • Get down to 9% body fat.

Objective: Improve my ability to regulate and compartmentalize thoughts and emotions, especially negative and anxious thoughts and emotions.

Why

Over the years I’ve learned that I sometimes struggle to regulate and compartmentalize my thoughts and emotions. Often this means getting caught in negative thought and emotion loops, which spiral downward. When I’m in this state, it’s really hard to maintain a positive perspective. Being stuck in these loops negatively affects how I perceive the world, perceive others’ actions, and how I react to things.

Fortunately, I’ve gotten a lot better at managing this with practice. Through meditation, I’m learning to become more aware of when I’m in a negative loop or beginning to enter one and learning to accept and then let go of thoughts and feelings rather than hold tightly onto them. Once I’m aware of what’s going on, I can sometimes compensate and restabilize.

I think there’s still work to do on this front, however. I’d like to get to a point where I regulate automatically! Additionally, getting better at being aware of and letting go of emotions should also help me break through the feelings of fear, anxiety, and discomfort I expect to feel while cultivating courage this year.

Key Results

• Meditate for 20 minutes every day.
• Write in a journal at least once each week.

Objective: Become more politically active.

Why

When Donald Trump was elected president last year, I was still spending most of my free time training for an Ironman. After the election, part of me was frustrated that I hadn’t done more to make sure the values I hold dear are defended and upheld in our government. I think a lot of liberals, myself included, were shaken out of complacency last year.

The rise of anti-intellectualism and populism around the world concerns me. Demagogues are popping up everywhere to take advantage of isolationist fears and tendencies brought about by globalization and terrorism. I worry more and more that the peace the world has enjoyed during my short life is unstable, that rational thought is being cast out in favor of blind emotion, and that most politicians today don’t truly embody principles that I can respect or admire.

Longer-term, I hope to do something about this. I think the first step is to educate myself, so I plan to read a number of books both about political theory in general and about specific issues relevant in today’s world. Once I have more of a stance on how things should be, I’ll be ready to take more direct action to make it a reality.

Key Results

• Become more politically informed.
  • Read at least 2 books about healthcare issues.
  • Read at least 2 books about global warming and environmental issues.
  • Read at least 2 books about education issues.
  • Read at least 2 books about immigration and globalization.
  • Read at least 2 books about economics.
  • Read at least 2 books about political theory and political philosophy.

On overworked legs, I pass a sign that says, “El dolor es temporal pero la gloria es para siempre”–pain is temporary, but glory is forever.

I hold this thought in my mind as I reflect on the past 14 hours over which I’ve endured a 2.4-mile swim with multiple jellyfish stings, a 112-mile bike ride with indigestion, and most of a 26.2-mile run with several stops to puke my guts out.

My legs ache, and I’m pretty certain I’ve sustained stress fractures or worse, but I’m still on my feet, and I’m still moving. I can’t stop. I won’t stop. Hundreds of cheering voices impel me to summon what little strength I have left and run the last quarter mile to the finish.

And then before I know it I’m there. “DANIEL CHIU, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!!” the announcer shouts with more enthusiasm than my tired mind can fathom. I hobble, trip, stumble–whatever my leaden muscles can manage–across the finish line where, still in shock, I’m given a medal, and whisked away to recovery. I’m an Ironman. The pain is over. The glory is forever.

Reflection

This is the end of a very long journey. A little less than 6 months ago I finished my first triathlon, this time last year I finished my first marathon, and this time two years ago I had just finished my first 5k since leaving for college. When I started this I literally had to swallow my pride and walk laps around Lake Lag to get back into shape because my legs, heart, and lungs couldn’t take much more than that.

I set out to do this because at first it seemed impossible and I wanted to prove to myself that the limits were only in my mind. Though my personal power has grown, and my limits have been stretched, I have to admit that crossing the Ironman finish line was underwhelming. At first, I thought this was because of the shock and exhaustion–all I wanted to do right after the race was sit my ass down, never look at a piece of food ever again, and nap somewhere warm for the next several millennia.

What I’ve realized in the two weeks since finishing the race is that the 13 hours, 58 minutes, and 16 seconds it took me to complete an Ironman isn’t actually what made me an Ironman. It’s not as if the final step of that marathon transformed me into a fundamentally different person. Instead, I believe I became an Ironman little by little, step by step, over the course of the past two years.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this experience–other than that you should always chew your goddamn food–is that personal growth isn’t about medals or accolades, but about journeys. It’s about the little challenges we face everyday, the choices we make, and who we decide to be even when nobody’s looking. I am who I am today–an Ironman–not because I crossed a finish line and earned a medal, but because I decided to put my sneakers on everyday, rain or shine, and train; because I resolved to do so even on those days when I lost sight of the goal and didn’t want to–yes, I have those days, too; and because I chose to push myself to keep going even when parts of me wanted to give up.

Truthfully, this is a journey I strongly believe anyone can take; there’s nothing fundamentally different or special about me. Perhaps the goal doesn’t have to be an Ironman, but we all have the occasional lofty dream we think is impossible. I encourage you to chase it–the limits are so often in our minds. Maybe it doesn’t feel within your power now, but with the courage to dream something crazy and the discipline to pursue it passionately, relentlessly, and consistently, it will be before you know it.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank everyone who supported me, encouraged me, and cheered me on from afar.

Additionally, there are a few really incredible people in my life who I want to specifically call out. Behind every Ironman is a kick-ass Ironman support crew. Here’s mine:

To my Dad: Thank you for always doing what you can to support me. Thank you for making it to my track meets and cross country races when I was younger. Thank you for being my coach on those days when I needed you there to time my intervals around the track. Thank you for always doing everything medically in your power to keep me happy, healthy, and in the game. Thank you for letting me steal your amazing bike to finish this race. I don’t honestly think I could have done this without you.

To my Mom: Thank you for supporting and encouraging me despite being terrified for my safety and wellness. Thank you for always making sure I’m doing OK and that I’m taking care of myself. Thank you for raising me to believe in myself and that anything is possible. For better or for worse, I don’t think I would have turned out crazy enough to try this without your parenting.

To Rhed: Thank you for being there with me on race day. I can’t imagine having gone to Mexico  without you. Thank you for so often being patient with me and for dealing with my ego (he escapes sometimes). Thank you for being an incredible friend, a brother, a comrade. Congratulations to you on your momentous achievement. Nobody can ever take this away from you.

To Yushi: Thank you for believing in me enough to come along for the ride. Thank you for training with me–for the long runs, the long bike rides, and the big meals. I eagerly await your Ironman race day. Don’t you dare give up. There’s no time like the present.

To Josephine: Thank you for being an amazing friend and supporter. I had your emotional support when I finished my first marathon, my first triathlon, my first century bike ride, and my first Ironman. Your being there for me and believing in me has meant more than I can say.

What’s Next?

This is the end of my Ironman journey, but it’s just the beginning of what I hope will be a life full of adventures, challenges, and growth. Expect to see me compete in the 2018 Boston Marathon. More and bigger challenges yet to come :).