Hello my friend, are you buying the coffee today? Tall cap for me - I need it 😁 ..

Today’s letter is a very personal one, as you would have gathered form the title. Maybe “strife” is not quite the right word - I couldn’t resist the clickbait rhyme, sorry!

2023 is over, and I’m back in the same s(h)ituation I was in 5 years ago: I’ve been neglecting family and spouse…

5 years ago, it was the MBA studies. This time around it was a demanding job and then change of role. As I wrap up this newsletter on New Year’s Eve 2023, it’s fitting to tell you what I’m going to do about it in 2024…

My wheel of life in 2023

So what happened?

A picture says a thousand words - here’s what 2023 looked like in terms of RAG status: Career and growth - good, I put a lot of effort and energy into those areas. Health, Finance, Spirituality were ok.

Spouse, Family and Social life were in the Red. Time and energy for these was squeezed.

Don’t get me wrong, our relationship is good. There were moments of harmony, bliss, joy of course. We had our best ever holiday as a family in 2023. A destination wedding trip to see cousin Gerosha marry Enzo at his beautiful hometown Vazzano, Italy. Some local coastal trips to Durban as well to see family. Time spent cooking (watching my wife cook) and bonding together.

But, the bottom line is, there were not enough of these moments as I believe there could have been with more effort, time and energy put in by me.

Reflecting on the past - how did I use the wheel 5 years ago?

My plan was to use the insights from the wheel of life to allocate time and effort in a more conscious way. This would help me connect better with family and my wife.

Around 2018, I had kicked off my MBA with Henley Business School and a similar pattern emerged and continued over the next few years - focus was more on growth and career, and consequently, less on family and spouse. Here is a screenshot from my 2019 Personal Development assignment:

This plan faced a new “impediment” with my son Ethan arriving in January 2019. I was also assigned a high-profile project of a company self-service website to be delivered to some extremely tight deadlines on top of my normal workload.

Still, I set goals and measured the impact at the end of 2019. Here’s how it went:

Family

2019 Goal - phone each member of my immediate family at least once per week

This was before Covid, and I would spend an hour each way on my daily commute. I planned to use this time to catch up and discuss the mundane in order to get a routine going. Video call every weekend to talk to my niece and nephew. This would help me stay in touch and strengthen ties.

2019 Results – a tangible improvement in terms of closeness and interaction

I did note some improvement in relationships by taking the planned action, although not at the frequency desired. We also intentionally made a number of “family” trips to Durban with the specific goal of connecting with my immediate family instead of choosing other holiday destinations.

Baby Ethan really had a big part to play in this by making me realize the importance of family and the need for him to get to know his grandparents, uncles and niece and nephew.

Wife

2019 Goal - cook in the evening at least once per week

In the evenings, our interaction was usually reduced due to being tired from commuting and studying - I had no energy to engage.

To give us the chance to connect despite this challenge, I committed to cooking once a week. Plan was to leave work early on that day and not go to gym – this way, I would avoid traffic and be well rested and energized enough to cook and engage.

2019 Results - quality conversations and improved connection

This did not play out as expected at all. My cooking is terrible (Fixed Mindset 😆). More drastic action was needed.

I pivoted the goal and sold my wife the idea of car-pooling with her to work. Again, this was pre-Covid, so daily office commutes were the in-thing. Well, more like the mandatory thing. Car pooling would allow us to have an hour in the car each way, and enable us to really connect again on top of saving a significant amount of money on fuel each month.

This had an amazing, positive effect on our relationship, as there was no distraction in the commute and we had regular, quality conversations during that time we car-pooled together.

Health

2019 Goal - maintain Vitality Diamond status

I felt my health was on track with a routine that enabled regular visits to gym. If you are familiar with Vitality, then I had Diamond Vitality status 💪 This is the highest level, and basically comes with measuring all your key health indicators and being active during the year. Vitality uses this as part of their Shared Value Model to calculate your Vitality Age compared to your actual age, providing you feedback for improvement.

2019 Results - reduced level of physical activity

My gym routine fell apart. I lost Diamond status.

I wasn’t too disappointed about this, as 2019 was an extremely tough year by any measure, and I still managed to achieve other goals and milestones.

My general health was good, but not optimal, and I reduced my exercise goals to achieving 10,000 steps per day as “maintenance”.

Reflection on using the wheel of life in 2018/2019

2019 was an extremely tough year for me, but I saw dramatic improvement in the relationships with my family and wife through some intentional interventions that were made. I felt our quality of life improved. Having more closeness with my wife and family provided a grounding effect on me and made the handling of intense work and study stress easier.

This improvement would not have happened if I had not done this wheel of life exercise. It forced me to reflect on what was important at the time.

Three Goals to recalibrate for an intentional 2024…

After some quality conversations (and just a few shouting matches) with the wife this year, we agreed to align on 3 key goals/wedges for 2024.

Spouse Goal - Block out 5-8pm daily for uninterrupted family time to cook and eat dinner together.

Work is intense, and I’m often working during this time. This goal will allow me to spend time more intentionally and improve the quality of our communication and relationship, in the same way our daily work commute helped us in 2019. This will have direct benefits to our son as well, and bring more harmony in the home. I will catch up on work 8-10pm.

Finance Goal - Spring clean and redo budget to align to project goals

We have many exciting projects on our wishlist. Travel to new places, fix up the house, spruce up the garden, etc etc. But, funds are limited. So we need to prioritize our top goals, and then align finances accordingly, dusting out cobwebs like those Kidloland and Amazon Prime Video subscriptions…

Health Goal - Get back to Vitality Diamond Status

Diamond status means we have done all our health checks for the year, as well as done enough physical activity to earn the highest level. It’s not really about the status, but the active, healthy lifestyle.

"When we are young, we sacrifice our health to gain wealth, and when we are old, we spend our wealth to regain our health." - Unknown

People often prioritize work and financial success at the expense of their health when they are young, only to realize the importance of health later in life when they are willing/forced to spend their resources to maintain or improve it.

My resolution for 2024 is to build a solid morning routine of running and gym, then stack on other habits/routines on top of these, such as school run etc.

What will be the measures of success?

I have been working with Muhammad Khan to see how we can bring in some of his Personametry concepts into the Wheel of Life model. This way, we can have qualitative + quantitative measures, making our goals more achievable.

You can check out his excellent post and blog here.

These measures are not ready yet, but I will share a post on LinkedIn once we have added these to the goals set above.

In summary…

To quote Muhammad - “Why should we only focus on professional performance reviews and not spare a moment to deeply reflect our performance as a human on this earth?”

I have learnt that you perform your best when there is harmony in your life.

This harmony is elusive - the wheel of life is always in flux as we pass through time. The key is a conscious and continuous pursuit of balance across all elements, which is more important actually attaining perfect balance.

What did your wheel look like in 2023? Are you happy about how it played out?

What do you want it to look like at the end of 2024?

I would love to hear from you in the comments - have a fantastic New Year, and let’s get another coffee soon ☕️