Now a few weeks into 2022 and on the tail end of a long holiday and quarantine, I’ve had ample time to think about how to approach the year ahead and all the joy, challenges and opportunities it’s bound to bring. Reflecting on how I handled last year, as well as what I need to have an edge in 2022, three key desirable approaches came to light. 

Let me call them my “intellectual resolutions” for 2022. Here’s a brief summary of each one: 

1. Be more thoughtful and strategic in my thinking and be someone that deliberately takes the time to do so. There are so many important opportunities and challenges at hand and I owe it to myself and all to bring thoughtful and strategic solutions to the table. I’ve known this is important since my teens. When asking my grandpa for advice on which country/university to choose, I was expecting some wise words immediately. Instead he asked me for a few days so he could think about it. What eventually came was some very powerful wisdom that had a major impact on my education and life (see Note on my education). He respected the opportunity by taking the time to give it lots of thought; and boy was it powerful. You won’t always need days to be thoughtful about something, however. Observing many execs in action throughout my career has shown me how it becomes built into how you approach things, being applied in the moment as well as part of a longer journey. This year I want to make this much more of how I approach thinking about important stuff.

2. Become a more articulate and balanced communicator. I already see myself as a competent communicator, but I am always in awe and inspired when I see others operating at totally different levels. They can sum up very complex and nuanced points in a way that is easily digestible by a broad audience, yet still so sophisticated. And they do it with such great ease. I believe this to be both art and a science and intend on continuing my journey of becoming a better communicator. Achieving this will also reinforce resolution #1 by becoming more effective at communicating my (hopefully) thoughtful and strategic thinking to others. 

3. Better compartmentalize stressful things, especially ones out of my control. While I don’t tend to be one that gets that stressed out, a recent trip back to Canada with my family during the pandemic and all the uncertainty of ever changing border and quarantine restrictions reminded me that I can slip into being a worrywort. I was losing countless hours of sleep and found myself dwelling on things totally out of my control. In the end, everything worked out. It may not have, but even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t have been due to something I had or hadn’t done. All to say, there are lots of dynamics in life that are out of our control, and while we shouldn’t be blind to them, we also shouldn’t let them consume more of our energy than warranted. This is energy that could be applied to much more productive and enjoyable activities, including sleep! 

These three resolutions are manageable enough that I think I can actually adopt them in a meaningful way.

For #1 and #2, getting there is probably going to come from 50% habit cultivation and 50% sharpening my hard analytical and communicatory skills. For habit, this is mostly about discipline and routine, ans something else I am working on (just finished reading Atomic Habits - more to share on that in a future Note). Sharpening my hard skills will come from a mixture of self study (lots more reading - yeah!), embracing training opportunities and ruthlessly soliciting feedback. 

#3 seems the most challenging to be honest. Not sure if there are many hard skills to be applied. In my mind it’s more of a mindset shift, and I think the road to get there will be a combination of smart habits (eg. stop looking at connected devices after 9pm and for a few hours at the start of the morning to avoid the constant stream of reminders that amount to self-inflicted worry) and ongoing building of confidence. And by confidence building, I mean having pep talks with yourself to point out how things have usually actually worked out in the end. While we shouldn’t be putting our head in the sand, we should recognize the steep diminishing return on worry spent on things out of our control. After acknowledging the worry by giving it some good initial objective consideration and determining what can and cannot do done about it, you should STOP WORRYING ABOUT IT.

Easier said than done for sure, but a combination of 1) the right habits to minimize the triggers and 2) cultivating the confidence to stop worrying after giving an issue its initial due objective thought should hopefully help compartmentalize the inevitable stresses of life. 

I will keep you posted on my progress on all three. Hope 2022 is a good year for all.