Reachable dreams. Step-by-step
Tags: productivity, motivation, remote, startup
Published: 2020-12-16 08:18:14


 
# Reachable dreams. Step-by-step



What was your plan for **2020**? Become **richer**, **healthier**, **smarter**, or maybe find **love**?

### **Let’s dive into** my experiment of 2020,
**where it’s brought me** and how **it can help you** reach your dreams in the upcoming ***2021***
> **NB!** Each of us in a different situation and has different abilities/opportunities, it is just my experiment of 2020 and I hope that you can find it useful✌

## Today’s story is structured in the following way:

* **The trigger** that pushed me to pursue a **dream (not a fantasy)**

* What’s the difference between a **dream and a fantasy**

* How I **broke down dreams into a subset of goals**

* **Example** of my typical day

* **Results**

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2560/1*TOe5DSJHWbq-a76rTVkO7A.jpeg)

## 🔫1. Trigger

There is always a trigger before each big change.

In my case, it was about my successful **friends** and my **curiosity**: 
**‘How you …? What are you doing to be…?’**

*and*

**Health problem:**

* Neck pain after intense swimming training

* Stomach problem after eating a junky meal

* Skin problem

* Frequent flu/cold during 2019

## ✨2. Fantasy vs Dream?

What is the difference between a Fantasy and a Dream?

A dream can be broken down into **goals** and exact things **to do daily**, a **fantasy** —  can not.

## 🪓3. Dream into a subset of goals

At the start of 2020 I broke down my big dream of **being successful and happy** into a subset of goals, and put them in the following groups:

**Health, Family & Friends, Career & Finance, Personal development.**

### 💊3.1. Health goals

* Be healthy overall

* Be more energetic

* Look fit

* Half-marathon

### 👬3.2. Family & Friends

* Find a girlfriend

* Find new friends

* Keep in touch with my family and friends

### 💰3.3. Career & Finance

* Have income from my company (investment, consultancy, company profit)

* Become a better CTO (understand more about tech/people)

* Understand technology such as Kubernetes, CI/CD, Machine Learning, and Security

### 🥇3.4. **Personal development**

* Build a personal brand: -**website** , -**podcast**, -**blog**, -**style**

* Read 12–15 books: 20% novels, 40% -IT books, 40% — business literature

* Increase my professional network

* Improve my Swedish

## 🔍4. Break down Goals into Daily routines

Here I have to recommend two books that can really help you:

— 📗[The Slight edge](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/590652.The_Slight_Edge): 
This book explains how to break down big things into small daily tasks

— 📕[The Power of Habit](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12609433-the-power-of-habit):
This book helps understand how to build habits for daily tasks

Let me give an example:
> You want to be **a better in businessman**/**businesswoman**-> Try read **12 business books** next year -> **1 book** per month -> each book is ~ **300 pages** -> ~**10 pages** per day.

The example shows that your real goal is just to build a habit to read 10 pages per day in case you want to be a better **businessman**/**businesswoman**

## 🤏5. Daily routine example
> **NB!** Times can vary depending on many factors (summer/winter time, illness, night party and so on), but that was my daily schedule during 2020 that I tried to stick to it as much as possible.

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*jSI-bWl5PJ5mmVfZCgPD9A.jpeg)

**Wake up**.

* I know my agenda for the day (that has been planned one day before), it helps to not snooze too much (Especially with remote work during Corona times)

* **Google assistant (smart speaker)** plays music right after alarm ringing

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*YUD6TZtg_GWy-RDldpG_zA.jpeg)

**Morning routine.**

* 20 minutes Duolingo to learn Swedish (🥇Personal development)

* 10 minutes of yoga (📺[Sun Salutation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMV4Nq6jpu0)), and 10–20 push-ups (💊Health)

* 30 minutes for shower and light breakfast, a mix of **fast** and **slow carbs** (something sweet and porridge) (💊Health)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*OVs9GzISq3xSWDUkV5sOfg.jpeg)

**Day planning.**

* Checking the agenda, add new tasks from emails and Trello sprint backlog(💰Career & Finance /🥇Personal development)

* Prioritizing tasks that will affect the annual goal in general (💰Career & Finance /🥇Personal development)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*i3KXNA7pT6e-pAzxRAeKWw.jpeg)

**Working time**

* Commute to the office (*pre-corona time*) by bike or bus with **audiobook** or **youtube**(💊Health/🥇Personal development)

* Coding or doing other related tasks with a lunch break(💰Career & Finance/ 👬Friends /🥇Personal Development)

* Each hour I have a watch beep signal that reminds me to do stretching for a couple of minutes and keep the right posture(💊Health)

* 1–2 times a week I am running during this time (choosing the day with better weather) (💊Health). I also use Garmin Watch with an in-build 📺[running program](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOVRTSmSw30)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*0ZqW80Z5ZAgjJ8N70NsW5A.jpeg)

**Lunchtime.**

* Trying to cook or order something that follows the [Harvard Plate](https://www.health.harvard.edu/media/content/files/health-report-pdfs/healthy-eating-plate.pdf) suggestion(💊Health)

![[Harvard Plate](https://www.health.harvard.edu/media/content/files/health-report-pdfs/healthy-eating-plate.pdf)](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/3676/0*AZn8azeXyDNxGYlx.jpg)*[Harvard Plate](https://www.health.harvard.edu/media/content/files/health-report-pdfs/healthy-eating-plate.pdf)*

* Eat vitamins : **D, B, Omega 3, and Multivitamins.** **Especially D** in the Scandinavian region (💊Health)

* Serve or order a small portion (💊Health)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*eS9XRoAkIvJhwXGY2M-7dA.gif)

**Chill and personal time.**

* Watching youtube, or doing any other **non-goal related** things 🤘 
**This is a crucial thing to not become a 🤖robot.**

* If have a special dinner or a party, sometimes I chose an alcohol-free beer instead of regular ( 💊Health). A friend showed me this trick an interesting way to hack your old habits

* Prepare for bedtime ( 💊Health)

* No TV-series after **11 PM**

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2528/1*J8D3BwoANt-LtuVp0p-GOQ.jpeg)

### Bedtime(📘[Why we sleep](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep). An advice from that book below) ( 💊Health)

* Be in bed before 11 PM

* Keep room cold and fresh

* Keep the room dark and silent during the night

* Sleep at least 8 hours

* Do not eat 2 hours before sleep

* Do not drink alcohol before going to bed

* Do not drink coffee after 3 p.m

* Sleep on a comfortable mattress and pillow

* Remove blue light from your screen 2 hours before bed (📖 [Bedtime mode](https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/digital-wellbeing/improve-your-sleep/#:~:text=With%20Bedtime%20mode%2C%20formerly%20known,that%20might%20disturb%20your%20sleep.) on Android)

* Go to bed and wake up at the same time (23:00–7:00), even on the weekend

## 🧾5. Results

* Read [25 books](https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/67323940?shelf=read)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*CT4tDGRklYF51mzUJ6F0dw.png)

* [Biked(503KM)/Run(301KM)](https://www.strava.com/athletes/10176557) and did a half-marathon in 🐌**2:25h**

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/3392/1*5q-Xqy4WvzjHrfxqZ3-ILg.png)

* Duolingo (Finished the whole course)

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*TVNulAgxth_0NTuBxkcTvw.png)

* Built a website: [https://skobeltcyn.com/ ](https://skobeltcyn.com/)(don’t forget to click on a 🔴 button)

* Did 7 podcast episodes (it didn’t take off, but it was a good experience) + one episode with me:

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*aT6QKgqjLsZPSJK6yvh_jw.jpeg)

* Wrote 3 articles on dev.to (include this one) **~ 4700 views**

![[Stats from dev.to](https://dev.to/skobak)](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/4588/1*VePVz3e10UoZH-wIpqEdYw.png)*[Stats from dev.to](https://dev.to/skobak)*

* Workwise, we rolled out the: [https://sensivo.eu/](https://sensivo.eu/) product, have several paying customers and are closing the pre-seed round🎉🍾🥂

* I guess vitamins helped me to avoid the flu, and now I am recovering after COVID-19

* I found new friends and acquaintances via **volleyball meetups** and **participation in an open-source project**. And I have been in touch with old friends and family via Zoom

* I got rid of stomach pain by increasing physical activities. Still have skin problem but found a good treatment after proper check-ups

* And I found a girlfriend (How — it is a different big story)🎈

That was just an experiment of 2020, hope it was a fun read.


**UPDATE from 2021!**
Recently, I build an app [Yourhabit.me](https://yourhabit.me) that helps me to track my progress during my 2021 experiment!

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/uvw5w2idfqg4cor2vhxl.png)
 

**I appreciate your claps and please leave your comments below.**

**If you have a friend who is chasing a dream but without obvious progress please consider to share this post with him/her 👌**

*Stay safe and happy new year!
Best, Alex
Co-founder of [sensivo.eu](https://sensivo.eu/)*

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/rpo663ymvxaz54dj90az.gif)