A young person’s framework for growth
Note: Written in Sept 2016, left in drafts for a year, might as well publish it! Any thoughts — email me at petejayhuang@gmail.com
When you’re young, choose paths that maximise happiness and learning velocity. In other words, do what makes you happy, and do (new) things that challenge and develop you. Realise that now is the time to take risks, and spend a lot of time understanding the fundamental ‘why’ that drives your enthusiasm for life.
Recognise aspiration themes
After listing all my desired achievements and skills I recognised four recurring themes. You do the same, list everything you want to learn/ do/ achieve and then group, split, remove and link them to find overarching themes. Here are mine, which you could use too:
- Business Success
- Relationship Success
- Mastery of the Mind
- Mastery of the Body
Business success relates to progressing my startup career quickly to inevitably start my own soon. This means working a bit longer, much more effectively and taking on roles which develop my weaknesses.
Relationship success includes family, friends and romance. Calling mum and dad, asking how friends are doing, and giving your all in your romantic life.
Mastery of the mind is consistently developing your intelligence whilst maintaining stability of mental health. My examples include reading and meditating!
Mastery of the body is developing skilled control of your body as well as improving fitness. For me this materialises in weightlifting, playing football and dancing salsa.
I do find useful is using a reflection form to log my thought & progress of each sector. Taking a step back and reminding yourself of the sectors is crucial to balancing success. The first page of my form is below, make your own depending on your own themes of success:
It’s important to ask why to every response. Understand the reasoning behind the things you do, unveil the subconcious worries and react to your conscious.
