🌱 August 2023 (Retro and Planning)

Seeing the world

Hey there 👋

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is one of my favorite movies. It’s a film about a daydreaming man who embarks on an extraordinary adventure to find a missing photograph.

Quite early during the film​, we see the following quote:

To see the world, things dangerous to come to,
to see behind walls, draw closer,
to find each other and to feel.
That is the purpose of life.

This movie (and the quote in particular) capture the essence of traveling in a beautiful way.

You watch this movie, and you instantly want to go out into the world and explore it – it’s many places, it’s people, it’s beauty, and it’s secrets.

As we’re now in the second half of the year, let's spend some time thinking about traveling a bit. When could you take the time to explore another place, and which place could that be? As usual, we will first reflect on the last month and the one ahead, and then continue with the Bonus question 🌈

Here you go 🥾

(Like always, you can download the Notion template to take structured notes.)

✏️ Retro

What goals did you set for yourself last month, and how well did you achieve them?

Make a list of your goals (even if they were only implicit) and score them from 1 (low) to 10 (high). You are not allowed to pick a 7. Take notes as you go.

Is there something that is blocking you?

What held you back last month? What can you do to avoid this next month?

What did you learn?

Did you learn something about yourself, your environment, or about the work you do?

🔭 Planning

What are your top 3 priorities next month?

Why are they important to you?

What goals do you set for yourself in light of these priorities?

To beat procrastination, make sure to split every higher-level goal into small subgoals.

What are potential obstacles or challenges you may face?

How can you prepare for them?

🌈 Bonus

What are your travel plans for the rest of the year?

Where do you want to go, and what do you want to do? Are there people you want to visit, or places you want to explore? What steps do you need to take to make your plans real? (If you've got constraints like work, you could think about how you could spend your next vacation.)

🙏 Thanks!

Thank you for being part of Mental Garden. I sincerely hope you got something useful out of this email.

My plans for this year aren’t fixed yet, but I hope to travel through France in September. To visit the people I’ve met around the world, and to get out of my daily routine for some time.

See you again in two weeks!

With gratitude,
Marc

PS: Traveling is much more awesome if you can speak with the locals in their language. For that reason, I’ve learned French and Spanish last year. I’ve written down how I did that in just three months on my personal blog and how you can do it, too 🌱