Every once in a while we get thrown a curve ball. It shakes our world. Makes us rethink and reconsider how we do or think about certain things. Some people unfortunately never recover from these unexpected events. They become definitive forks in the road where they can’t decide which way to move forward. This could be the loss of a loved one, failing at a business or being fired from the only job they knew how to do.

The only person who can help us get back up is ourselves. Blaming others or the world for treating us badly only digs us deeper into our hole.

I see these events as opportunity to learn more about ourselves. The one thing lacking in the world today is greater self awareness. We hardly get the time to think about who we are and what we hold important. Our days are filled with keeping up appearances based on what society thinks we should be doing and saying. After a while the lines blur and we find ourselves lost. Chasing goals and dreams that were forced upon us rather than the ones we truly want to pursue.

The start of the new year is a perfect time to reflect on our goals and aspirations. Ask ourselves whether we are truly motivated to keep going on the path we have chosen for ourselves. This year will bring with it a new set of opportunities and challenges. The only way for us to stand tall and weather the storms is to know who we are and what we value.

What I am reading and watching this week

Getting ahead vs. doing well Everyone is clamouring to get ahead of the next person. The methods used at times are questionable. In this post Seth Godin masterfully tackles this subject and gives us some much needed perspective.

The Tail End This is an old post which resurfaced on my feed this week. I would take the time to take 15 minutes out of your day and read this post. It talks about the bigger picture and gives us a much needed reality check. If you haven’t put the main rocks in your jar correctly, this will be an uncomfortable read.

Life is Short Paul Graham wrote a post on having children and the perspective it gave him on life. His closing quote sums up this piece “Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.”

Wishing everyone a great week ahead!

New beginnings are exciting. Possibilities are limited only to our imagination. We can do and achieve whatever we set our minds to. As a result the first couple of weeks of the year are spent crafting goals and resolutions. The fervour lasts a couple of weeks and most of time we revert back to our old habits. I am guilty of making this mistake for most of my adult life. The problem with setting specific goals such as losing a certain amount of weight or making some amount of money is their transactional nature. We temporarily push ourselves to hit a goal that we arbitrarily set ourselves to make us feel better in the short term.

The moment I switched from goals to working on developing keystone habits things changed. Keystone habits such as eating healthy, reading everyday, learning new skills or simply integrating gratitude into our daily routine can be life changing. There are two core benefits we get from developing these sort of habits:

1. They have a positive compounding effect. The longer we continue these habits we will start to see exponential gains in other aspects of our life. Ever since I got into the habit of cooking daily, it has impact several areas of my life. I find myself having more energy everyday, I fall sick very rarely and I feel good about my body. This was a stark contrast before I started this habit and it was definitely holding me back.

2. They help put the bigger picture into perspective. Why do we do the things we do everyday? Each of us wants to see ourselves progress and move forward. This is a journey of discovery and finding out what we really want in life. Far to often short term goals hinder our ability to see the bigger picture. We find ourselves climbing up a ladder that is too often placed against the wrong wall. Keystone habits help us to keep the bigger picture in mind and help us find the right ladder to start climbing.

I hope everyone has a smashing 2016 and gets closer to finding out who they really are and what they want!

What I am reading and watching this week

What Is Going To Happen In 2016 Out of all the prediction posts I have read over the last week this has to be my favorite. The added benefit of this post is the comments section. Fred Wilson’s blog attracts some of the smartest thought leaders in the place and they are always a pleasure to read.

The Great Myth About Getting in Shape (and Every Other Goal) This is a very well written piece about why goals do not work. The line I liked the most from the post was “The goals that become real in the future only work because they make life better today, and every day.”

How to Hire I have a lot of open requisitions to fill in the first quarter of the year. This was a well written post which outlines the authors process. The tip about hiring for trajectory over experience is critical for early stage startups. If you get good at identifying this trait it could transform your company.

Scale-up Leadership Lessons I’ve Learned Over 9 Years as HubSpot’s CEO This post is full of great nuggets for any entrepreneur who is wanting to take their company to the next level. Once you have achieved product market fit a company requires to ruthlessly stream line operations to make themselves a true success.

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2015 The first round blog has been a source of great learning for me over the last year. This post sums up the best advice provided and is one of my top bookmarks to refer to constantly.