Change: An opportunity or a challenge

Hello everyone,

I hope you have had a great holiday season. I spent Christmas up at my grandfather's place in Värmland. There was a lot of food, family time, sleep, and quite a lot of skiing. It was a great few days and now I am looking forward to the new year. With the new year change is coming both for me and many others, change is what today's post is centered around.

Change is an essential part of life and oftentimes a source of much joy, yet it can be scary. I was inspired to write about change after a suggestion from my friend Isak and it feels relevant to write about change as the year is coming to an end. This is a time of year when many people decide to try and make changes in their lives through New Year’s resolutions. You can notice it as the gyms start filling up for a month or two at the beginning of the year. Change can be challenging, but it also offers opportunities. It is all about perspective and how you view change.

On a personal level, this is very much a time of change for me. I am graduating with a master’s degree in industrial engineering and management after 5 years at Chalmers University of Technology. My life as a student is coming to an end and I am entering the workforce. Me and my thesis partner are presenting our thesis on the 8th of January and then I start working in Stockholm on the 13th of January. I will be joining a smaller tech firm in a data role. I am excited about the job and will share more once I have officially joined. Not only am I leaving school and starting a new job, but I am also moving to a new city and living with someone different. I will be living with my brother for the first time in almost 10 years. It is a period of change, it is both exciting and a little nerve-wracking.

Change can seem scary and I believe it is because of the uncertainty that comes with it. A new city or a new job means new routines and habits. You have to find a new grocery store or a gym and maybe new friends. It can seem daunting and I would lie if I said I am not the least bit nervous, but change can also be a great source of excitement and joy. It is an opportunity to have new experiences and to make changes in your habits. In the book Atomic Habits, the author James Clear mentions that changing your environment is the perfect time to break bad habits or create new good ones. Since you already have to establish some new routines it can be easier to make additional changes.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” -Søren Kierkegaard

As the quote above suggests life does not make sense until you have lived it. To me, this quote is liberating as it tells us that we do not need to know the path forward as it will only become obvious in hindsight. This became clear to me recently as I was going through job applications and was often asked about my work experiences and how they were related to the jobs I was applying for. At the time of my taking the internships it felt like it was mostly the “most interesting opportunity” at the moment, but looking back there is a clear theme of me working with digital transformation and in the interface between business and technology. To me, that was not entirely obvious when I was in it but looking back it becomes clearer and this is how a lot of life is. For this reason, I believe it is important that we all try different things, have experiences, and gain perspectives as it will never be obvious what we want before we do it.

What I am doing instead of New Year’s Resolutions

As I wrote earlier New Year's resolutions tend to not be effective tools to create change in our lives therefore I am doing something different this year. Inspired by Sahil Bloom who writes a newsletter that I subscribe to I am doing two things to wrap up the year and set myself up for success in the new year. Firstly I am doing an annual review and secondly, a 30-day challenge to start the year. Together I believe these two actions will set me up for a successful year.

Annual Review

The annual review is inspired by Sahil Bloom and I will answer 7 questions about how I view the past year. I think it is important to pause and reflect on the time that has passed. There are often many things we can learn from doing it both about good and bad things in our lives. Taking an honest view of your life can be a great help in identifying areas you want to change. Reflection is a key tool to learn from our experiences and mistakes. The end of the year is a natural point to do this type of reflection. I will share more about what I come up with in my annual review in a separate post but these are the questions I am looking to answer:

1. What did I change my mind on this year?
2. What created energy this year?
3. What drained energy this year?
4. What were the boat anchors in my life?
5. What did I not do because of fear?
6. What were my greatest hits and worst misses?
7. What did I learn this year?

30-Day Challenge

It may seem counterintuitive to do a 30-day challenge right after stating that New Year’s resolutions rarely work, but I will explain my reasoning. The first obvious difference is that 30 days is a lot shorter than 365 days and this will make it more manageable to complete the challenge. A second reason that I believe that it is different is the intention behind it, for me, this challenge is a way to create positive momentum at the start of the year to carry with me into the rest of the year. Having a resolution for the whole year feels more like trying to make a change during a certain period which could fail. The Grow30 challenge that Sahil suggested includes the following daily activities and are related to his belief in five different types of wealth:

1. Time Wealth: 30 minutes of focus work on your priority tasks.
2. Social Wealth: Text, call, or connect with one new or existing friend or family member.
3. Mental Wealth: 5 minutes of free-form journaling.
4. Physical Wealth: 30 minutes of movement.
5. Financial Wealth: 10 minutes of learning or skill-building.

What I like about this list is that it captures many facets of life. Wealth is not something that is restricted to money or physical health, instead, it also includes mental health, time wealth, and social connections. These are all things that I quite consistently have been doing but not all of them at the same time. Therefore I think it could be powerful to get in the habit of doing them all. I think it will also be important to be somewhat lenient as to what counts to not make it too difficult. The idea is not to make it a really challenging January, but instead to create positive momentum for the new year.

Wrap-Up

Change is an inevitable part of life and it is better to embrace that than to try and work against it. The quote below from the book The Start-up of You highlights the inevitability of change in today's world:

One of the key messages we hope you've taken away from this book is that you are changing, the people around you are changing, and the broader world is changing - so it's inevitable the playbook will evolve and adapt
- The Start-up of You

I wish you all a happy new year and hope you are doing well. To wrap up I wanted to share a short list of recommendations:

• Book: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is a book about an escaped convict living an adventurous life in 1980s Bombay.
• Movie: Gifted is a movie about a single man raising a child prodigy. It was an emotional watch with some beautiful moments.
• Podcast: Marc Benioff on Lenny's Podcast - Marc Benioff is the founder and CEO of Salesforce and he was interviewed by Lenny. It was an insightful conversation where Marc shared many great stories from the past but also about how AI agents play a major role in the future.

All the best,
Oskar