#100 Reflections on this milestone

Greetings from Sevilla, and welcome to edition 100 of Plane Thoughts. I’m writing this in a pretty square with an iced latte and the sun on my face, watching horse-drawn carriages pass me by, listening to flamenco.

It feels like a milestone number for a project that was started with no real goal in mind. What began with a simple brief, to provide one easily implementable idea each week to help people live more productive and successful lives, has evolved over the last two years. Thank you to all who have been on the journey with me and given me your attention each week.

Except for the planned breaks I take in summer and Christmas, I have written every week without fail. When I commit to something, I persevere, no matter the circumstances. The result is that, at times, Plane Thoughts has been written in circumstances and places very different from my favourite reflection and writing location: the window seat of one of the first few rows of a plane.

Whilst the vast majority have been written with the aim of both you and me learning each week to better ourselves, some editions have served other purposes. At times, it's been a way for me to clarify or process my own thoughts on topics; at other times, I’ve been writing specifically to one or more people, and some editions have contained hidden meanings for those perceptive enough to decode them.

Some feedback I recently received, which I amusingly could tell was written entirely by chatGPT, included: “Your reflections sometimes feel like a search for meaning and purpose of life and, at other times, like a journal.”

Writing a newsletter can be a lonely endeavour, and it’s far less glamorous than alternative mediums of expression. An email newsletter post is almost certainly not going viral like a TikTok clip could, and you don’t get the dopamine hit of likes. Most of the time, you craft your message carefully, try to perfect your words, hit publish, and nothing happens. Yes, you can see the stats to see what proportion of recipients have opened it, but did they like it? Did it resonate? How has it practically changed their life?

The barriers to action on an email newsletter are higher than, say, commenting on a social media post, so the feedback usually comes later, either in person or through a message on a different medium.

But every once in a while, a post elicits many email responses, which can normally be just as long as the post I’ve written. These emails are raw and heartfelt and really highlight to me the impact these posts have. These emails have increased in frequency (and length) in recent months, and I’m very thankful for them. (The most popular posts have been #96 on going to therapy and #83 on going where your heart feels full).

It’s why I continue to use this as my preferred medium of expression, which I don't monetise. I believe that in this world that is increasingly about show and short-term pleasure, it's through the slow intake of the written word that you can really induce deep and long-lasting thoughts and actions.

For me, the most impactful thing that I’ve read in the past week, which has stayed in my mind since I read it, is the following:

“Your mistakes aren't the best teacher - just the most expensive. You can start at the bottom of the mountain and make every mistake from scratch on the way to the top, or you can take a sherpa with you and master the best of what other people have figured out. The successful learn vicariously; the foolish insist on firsthand pain.” I find this so pithy I have nothing to add.

Hitting this milestone number has made me reflect on the past and think about the future of this publication. Do my reasons for writing the first 100 editions still hold, and if so, do I want to continue with things as they are or make changes? I’ve concluded that Plane Thoughts will continue, but I will no longer commit to a weekly cadence or the format of leaving you with one implementable idea each week.

In practice, this will not change much. But there will be weeks when I’ll go quiet, when I don’t want to force an edition just to commit to the schedule. There will also be weeks when I have something valuable to share that doesn’t neatly link to a specific implementable idea. And there will be other weeks when I decide to reallocate the time to some other projects currently cooking in the background, which I believe you’ll find very valuable.

Why make changes? When things are going well, we want them to continue. We tend to extrapolate the present and expect them to continue. We also tend to experience the status quo bias; we find comfort in the familiar and are reluctant to make changes. The sunk cost fallacy also plays a role; if we’ve already committed so much to something, we don’t want to ‘lose’ that. However, that is the thinking that leads companies to be overtaken by new competitors who innovate and create new markets. Time is also the only resource that we have, which is finite, and every minute we spend on one activity has an opportunity cost.

Change is not always easy or comfortable, but it is necessary for growth. It typically involves saying no to things and possibly (the perception of) letting someone down in the process, but that is not always a bad thing.

What changes are you resisting in your life?

— AJ

On my bedside table:

📖 Non-fiction: Cómo mandar a la mierda de forma educada by Alba Cardalda (How to politely tell people off) - A book I picked up yesterday about setting boundaries, because I was drawn to the cover art:

💬 Quote: “Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home” - Will Ahmed, CEO of Whoop

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