Week 2023#13: ramp up gradually

if you are doing something hard, ramp up the difficulty gradually and you are much more likely to succeed

Last Tuesday I finally applied for Estonian citizenship 🎉

The next steps are:

1. waiting for a letter of intent to take me as a citizen from Estonia,

2. go to the German embassy with that letter and apply for a release from German citizenship

3. Wait 2-3 months 🤞

4. With the letter of intent from Germany continue the application process in Estonia

5. Wait again ⏳

6. Finally, become a citizen!

What I’ve learned

I’m still on board with the 10X training program, despite travel, business, and a demanding job.

Why?

The program ramps up gradually.

Week 13 was mostly a quiet week in terms of what is happening – after returning from Sweden most of my time went to…the usual day-to-day things!

In terms of learning, this made things a tiny bit harder.

So what have I learned?

I’m nearing the 4 to 5-week mark in my current fitness program, which is when things usually get so tough, that I quit the program – going to the gym stops being “fun” and starts to feel like work.

This time is different: my current program gradually increases in volume and after 4 weeks there was a reset: fewer sets, more weight, adding sets over time.

Gradually increasing the difficulty on multiple dimensions seems to be the key to lasting progress.

It makes you avoid the feeling of being overwhelmed, which keeps you motivated and thus keeps you moving forward.

In what area of your life are you trying to make progress right now? 👇

Expectations vs Reality

Week 13 scored…badly:

• Find one person to housesit in Sweden for at least a week: no! All roads lead to Rome, but all my leads on house-sitting lead nowhere 🤷‍♂️

• Get my samordningsnummer: no! Applying for it was fast, but actually getting the number can take time on the order of weeks.

• Successfully apply for Estonian citizenship: yes! My saving grace for this week!

Goals for week 14:

• Automate collecting utility bills from my inbox using ChatGPT: my attempts at finding an actually useful use of ChatGPT failed until my friend Andreas showed me how to leverage it for programming. Given that I’m not super passionate about technological details right now, ChatGPT lifts the burden of programming grunt work off my shoulders, so I feel motivated to actually build something again.

What happened

Highlights of last week:

• Double-party Friday: first an event in the Noor Eesti 200 office, getting to know people from the party, then off to a huge party at the Bolt Office. I had to leave at 2am, because on Saturday at 10:00am…

• …there was another Decode Estonian workshop! This time only with 4 people, but it was a lot of fun, again! Watching people learn in realtime is deeply satisfying 🙏

• Co-hosted a Mindvalley Café on Wednesday and am one step closer to becoming a local host 🎉